You make the call.. Classic or Mile for Wise Dan?

[Calzone Lord]

Ever since Wise Dan was 4th in the Shadwell Mile on turf, he's been a much improved horse and has done nothing except run top class races.

His Stephen Foster was a much better race than he's ever run on dirt, and it was MUCH better than his easy win in the "Grade 1" Clark, which was his two-back dirt race.

Anyone who thinks Ron The Greek ran as well as Wise Dan in the Foster, probably still believes Golden Soul is way better than Palace Malice, Oxbow, and Verrazano.

Fort Larned had virtually the exact same trip as Wise Dan did in the Foster, and Fort Larned finished a long way last ... and he "recaptured his form" off of two-weeks rest after the Foster debacle.

No one likes to categorize race horses as specialists any more than I do, I'm a big believer in it, still, I'm not sold Wise Dan is a specialist in terms of surface.

Watch his Foster again, it was a +19 and note that both he and Fort Larned caused each other plenty of trouble before the first turn. When horses get impeded while chasing a loose leader who is going too fast, they don't run representative races.

It's a very specific and circumstantial sort of troubled trip that doesn't happen very often throughout the country, and one that isn't easy to identify without good figures ... but such horses are great next-out bets because those type of performances discourage everyone from bettors, to the horses human connections, to the human connection of rival horses.

The BC Classic is the wrong spot for Wise Dan. He's not going to last ten furlongs in a race with so many high-quality similar running style types like Game On Dude, Fort Larned, Cross Traffic, Palace Malice, Verrezano, etc.

Still, he's a much better dirt horse than a whole lot of very smart people think, IMO.