Final Verdict ... Fog Is A Fraud

[Phalaris1913]

LITF has a serious weakness as a sprinter. He's not terribly fast out of the gate and while he does not technically require that his nose be in front every step of the way, he has not proven that he can run his race if he is very far from the front. He looks tough when he gets 22-second opening quarters, but struggles when faced with 21-and-change against better horses. He's good enough to look like the second coming when he could ship around and run against 3YOs of no particular account, but he's had a little trouble running with the big dogs.

Obviously, the horse himself defrauded no one, but he wasn't, and thus far, isn't, as good as his fans would like to think. He most likely would not have as many fans - nor as glossy of a race record - had he been campaigned in a manner in which he was tested against decent company earlier in his career rather than carefully managed to maximize his race record. It's one of the inherent flaws of paying attention only to the record and not to what it was accomplished against. There were many better sprinters that ran in the US in 2005, but since none of them had the luxury of running against such modest competition for most of the year, their records don't look nearly as good on paper.

I fought this battle last fall and don't expect that anyone who still thinks LITF is all that is going to change their mind reading this now, but I am compelled to speak up.