Alpha-Ducking?

[RolloTomasi]

Originally Posted by Danzig

i'd rather see the list of hot horses who didn't win. i'm sure it's much, much longer.

That's because there is only one Derby winner with about 19 also-rans every year.

people get hooked on the gallop out, the closer that will surely get there next time, etc. my point is that many times people latch onto the bridesmaid, when really the winner of the race won a good one, and was the best that day.

The best horse in a prep race isn't always the best horse on Derby day. Doesn't the list prove that?

and street sense (for one )is on that list-like people turned to him due to a runner up effort.

More importantly, did anyone get off of him? For a horse who had done little wrong, he was a relatively high-priced Derby favorite.

and who was on lil e tee based on his pre-derby run??

Lil E. Tee had won the Jim Beam and was barely edged by the highly-touted (and eventual Preakness-winning) Pine Bluff at Oaklawn. Were it not for the overhyped Arazi skewing the wagering, Lil E. Tee would have been a much shorter price.

or sea hero?

Sea Hero was a horse that had a very long form cycle. He took forever to break his maiden, then promptly won an allowance and the Champagne (with ease) in succession before spiraling back out of form in Florida. He slowly came back around with a return to turf and moving back to Kentucky. He made a sharp middle move in the Blue Grass that signaled he was coming back around. He then trained like a freight train the week of the Derby (bullet 6f), blinkers were removed, he caught a slightly off track (like he did at Belmont), would have won Steve Haskins' dapples n' muscles award in the post parade, and faced one of the worst Derby fields ever assembled. If all of that sounds like BS, the evidence still suggests he had his supporters, as he went off at 13-1 when he should have been over 30-1 on paper.