Brother Derek is a fraud...

[dalakhani]

Originally Posted by Cunningham Racing[B

]True, but a good horse shows up and at least fires everytime or tries and runs respectably[/b]...that is the point I was making....to run 4th in a 5 or 6 horse field in a listed stakes event without ever seriously threatening in the race when you are a multiple garded stakes winner and have been hyped all year is not acceptable - not by anyone's measure...

Carl Lewis should be able to beat or at least run respectably against college track athletes any day of the week, right?

I dont agree with you here Joel. Oracle, in the midst of his rant, actually makes a pretty good point. Which is...horses go through form cycles. There are plenty of horses that go through stretches in their respective careers in which they look far from what they did in top form.

Is there any question that Brother Derek handles that group from saturday if in top form? Numbers and results support this. Its not like he was stepping up to older horses or better three year olds.

Was Skip Away not a great horse? Was he not at least a very good one? Look at some of the races that he lost. How about Artax? Housebuster? More recently, look at some of the horses that Pico Central lost to when he was off form. Or how about Congaree? Was Shake you down a "fraud" when he was winning every sprint in sight or is seeing him running for a tag at charlestown the fruad?

You may ultimately be right about brother Derek. He may have been a precocious three year old that beat up on a weaker than usual group out west. But...I think i will give him a couple of more races before i decide that for myself. He may very well just be going through a cycle of bad form.