5/20 (PIM): Preakness 148: First Mission SCR

[moses]

Originally Posted by RolloTomasi

National Treasure is the west coast's answer to Verifying. A horse who early in his career had the look of an under-the-radar type that might blossom, but ultimately has no acceleration & has had umpteen chances to break out and has failed each and every time.

Having said that, considering the weakness of the race & the dearth of early pace, I think it's reasonable to land on this horse & presume he will head straight to the lead (especially having drawn the rail) to perhaps try to steal it.

However, just because the plan is to go to the lead doesn't mean he will accomplish it. The horse has never shown true front-running ability despite breaking well enough in all his starts. Even in his maiden sprint win he was actually outsprinted the first hundred yards before inheriting the lead.

In what seems to be an epidemic amongst HOF trainers, Baffert is slapping the blinkers on National Treasure for this. Makes sense in the face of the pace scenario, post position, & presumed tactical plan. However, Baffert tried blinkers on the horse previously in the BC Juvenile & the horse found himself further back than in his other previous races. To be fair, he did break from an outside post at Keeneland & eventually worked his way into a pressing position after about 5 furlongs.

Finally, this horse was a veterinary scratch from the San Felipe, thus he's missed a major Derby prep & obviously didn't get much of a break from whatever was ailing him so its hard to have faith that he's actually progressing at this point. Perhaps what he's shown so far is good enough if the favorite falters & Blazing Sevens fails to improve further from his ho-hum 3yo efforts.

Seems to have the requisite stamina but he's one-paced, usually loses position when the real running starts, and hasn't displayed much of a stretch punch in any of his races.

I don’t disagree with much of what you’ve written. Mage is the horse to beat, in my mind, but I have reservations about a smallish horse coming back in 2 weeks after such a big run in the Derby. So, I looked elsewhere. First Mission has gotten pretty ideal trips and not really sure he’s beaten much. I don’t like him at a likely short price. Most of the rest of the field doesn’t have the talent to stack up against Mage. I’m just not sure horses like Blazing Sevens or Perform or Red Route One will get the pace setup to win, Blazing Sevens being the most intriguing of that group.

National Treasure feels to me like Medina Spirit a bit. A horse who ran well while playing second fiddle to Baffert’s top horse (Cave Rock) as a two year old. He has disappointed so far this year. I think some of the problems you lay out in that last paragraph (losing position when real running starts, lack of punch in the stretch) are due to a delayed lead switch when he hits the stretch. He has lost position in his last two starts then gained some of it back once he switched leads. (In fairness, maybe this isn’t the type of horse you want to lean on too heavily.)

As a side note, I see DRF and Timeform seem to have the Federico Tesio as favoring closers. I’m not sure I agree. Yes, Perform won from off the pace (and is probably too slow to compete here or would need a pretty big move forward but we’ll see), but the 2 through 5 finishers were 2nd, 4th, 5th, and 1st for most of the race. The runner up (which the Tesio pace figs would lead you to believe ran a big race) came back to get pretty easily beaten by some OK (but by no means great) horses in the Long Branch Stakes.

[LITF]

I think I'm going to take Blazing Sevens.

I wanted to take National Treasure but there seems like there is some buzz around that horse now and I wouldn't be surprised if he gets bet below his 4-1 m/l. Which means Blazing Sevens should float up, maybe to the 8-1 range. Hoping people will look at his Bluegrass and potentially downgrade the performance based on Verifying and Tapit Trice's run in the Derby.

With all the talk of a slow pace I'm hoping Mage moves early and forces First Mission and National Treasure to work harder than they want to earlier than they want. Blazing Sevens can follow that move and maybe pick up the pieces and maybe all the pieces IF the Derby took some stratch out of Mage and he can't finish like he did in the Derby?? Figure 8-1ish is worth finding out.

Two bullet works for this maybe signal that he is ready to take a leap forward, which would give him a shot.

[RolloTomasi]

Originally Posted by moses

National Treasure feels to me like Medina Spirit a bit. A horse who ran well while playing second fiddle to Baffert’s top horse (Cave Rock) as a two year old. He has disappointed so far this year. I think some of the problems you lay out in that last paragraph (losing position when real running starts, lack of punch in the stretch) are due to a delayed lead switch when he hits the stretch. He has lost position in his last two starts then gained some of it back once he switched leads. (In fairness, maybe this isn’t the type of horse you want to lean on too heavily.)

I can't really comment much on the lead switch issue; the only race I saw him distinctly late switching was in the BC (though Cave Rock was even worse & was lugging in...not shockingly went on the sidelines afterwards); the Sham replay unfortunately is edited due to an injured horse so I don't know what he did there.

At any rate, if the lead switch is a real issue, it is often tied to soundness issues & one way or another should be seen as a negative. Have to have faith that he will correct it & even then it won't mean that his form will improve necessarily. Another strike I have against the horse is his pedigree. Quality Road is quickly becoming an overrated stallion. People pay big money for his offspring, even overseas conglomerates, but he hasn't delivered with anything that developed into a true classic horse outside of Abel Tasman. Mostly good 2yos that fall apart.

Another horse with lead switch issues is Red Route One. He tends to switch properly but then often lugs in mid stretch and swaps back to his left. Probably kept him from finishing closer in both the Southwest & the Rebel. They added blinkers for his last 2 & he seems to run straight through the stretch now though his closing kick appears to have been blunted. I thought he would improve over the spring but he seems to have stagnated. Still, he has some favorable form with many of the other Derby trail detritus & his 2 biggest efforts came on off tracks (I believe I read there was going to be some weather on Preakness day). I don't think he's outright pace dependent, he just loses contact no matter what & then goes all in on the far turn. Probably the least likely of the pretenders to be an underlay. Might move up with an off track.

[moses]

Originally Posted by RolloTomasi

I can't really comment much on the lead switch issue; the only race I saw him distinctly late switching was in the BC (though Cave Rock was even worse & was lugging in...not shockingly went on the sidelines afterwards); the Sham replay unfortunately is edited due to an injured horse so I don't know what he did there.

At any rate, if the lead switch is a real issue, it is often tied to soundness issues & one way or another should be seen as a negative. Have to have faith that he will correct it & even then it won't mean that his form will improve necessarily. Another strike I have against the horse is his pedigree. Quality Road is quickly becoming an overrated stallion. People pay big money for his offspring, even overseas conglomerates, but he hasn't delivered with anything that developed into a true classic horse outside of Abel Tasman. Mostly good 2yos that fall apart.

Another horse with lead switch issues is Red Route One. He tends to switch properly but then often lugs in mid stretch and swaps back to his left. Probably kept him from finishing closer in both the Southwest & the Rebel. They added blinkers for his last 2 & he seems to run straight through the stretch now though his closing kick appears to have been blunted. I thought he would improve over the spring but he seems to have stagnated. Still, he has some favorable form with many of the other Derby trail detritus & his 2 biggest efforts came on off tracks (I believe I read there was going to be some weather on Preakness day). I don't think he's outright pace dependent, he just loses contact no matter what & then goes all in on the far turn. Probably the least likely of the pretenders to be an underlay. Might move up with an off track.

Fair enough. Baffert is the king of having horses with soundness issues run big races and then disappear for months. I don’t think I can let that scare me off. It’s possible National Treasure will get his first favorable pace scenario since his debut maiden win.

I agree about Quality Road. Very overrated as a sire. Isn’t his stud fee something ridiculous? I just looked it up. $200,000. Jesus.

Since you mentioned an off track, the weather is definitely something to keep an eye on. It seems like there is now a possibility of relatively dry weather.

[Kasept]

Per @godolphin's Dan Pride, there will be a 7a Press Release detailing the status of @PreaknessStakes entrant First Mission..

[Kasept]

[moses]

This has been a rough triple crown series so far for scratches.

[Kasept]

Revised Preakness ML:

MAGE- 4-5
NATIONAL TREASURE- 3-1
BLAZING SEVENS- 5-1
RED ROUTE ONE- 8-1
PERFORM- 12-1
COFFEEWITHCHRIS- 20-1
CHASE THE CHAOS- 30-1