Found your Derby horse yet?

[DonGuido]

Can't get too excited this year. Maybe because we've been spoiled lately. Omaha Beach should be the odds on fav and with Mike Smith hard to overlook.
I'll handicap the card like I usually do for the Derby to fill out the 1-2-3 and we'll see. Have to be better than I've done so far this year. Basically about as good as leftover dog breakfast.

[JolyB]

Don't yet know whom my head will be telling me to bet, but I'm sure that my heart will be pushing me to root for a Bill Mott horse to win. It would be such a pleasure to see a person of his overall quality in the winner's circle.

Of the two, I don't think that Country House will be the one to take him there. While CH is a nice horse with a good closing run and ought to be able to compete at the distance, he could get left far behind early and will be passing a number of very tired horses in the stretch, but might have too much to do to catch the winner. An in the super finish is the absolute best that I could predict for him.

Tacitus on the other hand, has a number of positive qualities that give him a realistic chance. In the Wood he was bounced around early, overcame a lot of difficulty and still was game in his duel to the wire with Tax. The price on Tacitus should be realistic. The Baffert horses and Omaha Beach will all take a lot of money, and Tacitus may end up as 4th or 5th choice, even though I think that he belongs in the top three.

[Roamin42]

I have been a Country House fan early on. I will not differ from his ability. Now that Flavien Prat is the pilot I think he will be a lot closer than usual. If the pace is contested at fast fractions I can see CH benefitting from it and with Prat on him that makes him dangerous. Hopefully cashing $$$$$.. This is where my money is going. Good luck to all.

[Alabama Stakes]

I like the 2 Pletcher hosses...with the Bafferts underneath.

[cal828]

I think, if I had to bet it tomorrow, I'd go with the top two from the Arkansas Derby(Omaha Beach and Improbable), the top two from the Louisiana Derby(By My Standards and Spinoff) and the Wood winner Tacitus in no particular order, but we still have several days to think about it so I'll change my mind at least a hundred times before the race. As for the order, I'll likely play some tri and superfecta boxes so maybe the order won't matter.

[JolyB]

As we get closer to the draw, I just hope that all of the commentators can begin to get the pronunciations of horses' names correct. In particular, there seem to be two completely different ways that they try to pronounce Tacitus - my old Latin teacher would have been adamant about the correct way that the historian's name was pronounced; even worse are the number of ways that Plus Que Parfait gets mangled. Since his name is French and has a clear French meaning (which in my opinion doesn't really fit the horse, but that's another matter), then shouldn't they use correct French pronunciation? The following link might help.

.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNHsUVcGofg

[Alabama Stakes]

I must have watched the workout where WInWinWin ends up working outside of the 2 Mott hosses 20 times. It seemed very impressive for WinWinWin. He was well behind the Mott pair and basically blew by both of them while well outside the pair. On the gallup out he remained well wide. He saw the Mott pair who seemed to still be engaged . It was almost like he said, hey, I thought I already beat you two. I didn’t know we were still racing. He accelerates and goes by them again. I’m sure if he sees those two before the race, he’ll give them a stare down. I didn’t really like or hate this hoss, but now I think he has to be considered.