gronk buys into gronk

[Kitan]

Originally Posted by Kasept

You're asking that with a straight face? While I get what Churchill is trying to cultivate with the Japan & Euro carve outs, ANY horse that has run respectably in the prep season belongs in the Derby ahead of Gronkowski.. Here's 6 to start with..

21. Combatant 32 (Winchell, Willis Horton) Steve Asmussen/Ricardo Santana ($350,000)
22. Instilled Regard 29 (Oxo Equine/Lawrence Best) Jerry Hollendorfer ($246,000)
-- Snapper Sinclair 22 (Bloom Racing) Steve Asmussen/$321,810 ~ American Turf or Pat Day Mile
23. $-Blended Citizen 22 (Greg Hall, SAYJAY Racing/Steve Young) Doug O’Neill/Kyle Frey ($159,644)
24. Reride 20 (Winchell) Steve Asmussen/$298,000
25. Dream Baby Dream 20 (Dream Baby Dream Racing) Steve Asmussen/$181,000
26. Restoring Hope 20 (Gary & Mary West) Bob Baffert/$100,000

I'm quite aware of who is next in line. Do you honestly believe these horses belong in the Derby?

Restoring Hope: Barn's 3rd or worse string, restricted maiden winner whose only run since then was in a G2 where realistically someone had to finish 3rd.
Dream Baby Dream: Struggled thrice to hit the board in N1X company. (You yourself could not have a straight face in suggesting he belongs)
Reride: Shipped across the world searching for a big payday since the connections knew he was not good enough to win any big local races (Derby included).
Blended Citizen: Best dirt try (from four attempts) was a well beaten 5th.
Combatant: Has had his fair share of chances to get points having already run in 5 points races. Has not improved as toughness of races have.

Even though he has been thoroughly disappointing in his last two, if he is now back on the trail then Instilled Regard, as a G1 winner, would be the only one for me that looks to be unlucky in missing out. However, the argument should be that he belongs rather than a horse like Hofburg, who was a maiden winner at the beginning of March and got the pace set-up to run into second in a terrible renewal of the Florida Derby.

FYI this has nothing to do with who I think will run well or poorly, talking purely objectively. I'm not saying he has any better chance than the others, but I would much rather see a mystery horse who is 4 for 4 on the AWT in races where the form has somewhat held up, whose dam is a half to a Stephen Foster winner, whose trainer is a BC Juvenile Dirt winner, etc. than horses who have had more than enough chances and in a regularly sized field (i.e. 14 runners) would be nowhere near the starting gate.