The "It's way too early to do this so let's do it anyway!" prediction game thread

[slotdirt]

Originally Posted by Indian Charlie

wow.

i didn't know anyone at that time that thought of SJ as being some sort of superstar.

You must not have lived within 500 miles of Philadelphia for five weeks in 2004 then.

That Belmont crowd was pretty insane.

[Calzone Lord]

They wanted to tar and feather Jerry Bailey because he opted to try and put a little bit of early pressure on Smarty Jones with Eddington of all horses.

I suppose Bailey must have re-watched the film of Touch Gold's Belmont win where McCarron had challenged Silver Charm early - backed off right away - and came again to wear him down in the stretch. Bailey should have known that what works with a tactically gifted horse like Touch Gold would not work with a grinding plodder like Eddington ... but still, the Smarty Jones fans acted as if Bailey pulled out a crow bar and went Tonya Harding on Smarty Jones.

The real thing that hurt SJ and helped Birdstone in that race - was the insanely pre-mature inside move Rock Hard Ten made. SJ got a very serious mid-race challenge from a fairly good horse. Friggen Bailey getting Eddington to breath on SJ for a few seconds was so overblown.