Is I Want Revenge's Gotham , this year's Pyro-Risen Star ??

Bobby Fischer · #1 03-20-2009, 06:44 AM

I want to re-visit IWR's Gotham, I think the discussion got sidetracked prematurely with IC and bobby, & leftbank redboarding sillyness...

GOTHAM IWR

Quote:

Originally Posted by blackthroatedwind

The inner has been even, save from Feb 16th til Feb 27th, and I Want Revenge had as easy a trip as possible.....stalking the crawling pace of a distance challenged horse.

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Originally Posted by the_fat_man

Guess I saw it differently than most. I thought that I Want Revenge ran a bangup race given the setup: how often do horses contend OUTSIDE and draw off on the inner dirt? But I won't get too excited, as he probably didn't really beat much.

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Indomitable DrugS

Easy trip or not I Want Revenge... has a very ugly turf pedigree and was certainly one of the best projections of the So Cal horses likely to improve coming East from a pedigree standpoint.

for some reason , the commentary following IWR's gotham performance reminded me a little of the classic discussion regarding Pyro's "breakout" Risen Star performance (visually impressive vs weak competition) :

RISEN STAR 2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by blackthroatedwind

Well, in fairness, even if, like me, you weren't blown away by Pyro, it was his first start in a few months and he ran two very nice races last year. He's not a questionable distance horse like Circular Quay and he has a fairly legitimate overall record. When I said today's race was slow, it was still faster than a lot of the horse's people are confusing themselves into believing are contenders, and obviously he did have the very slow pace to overcome. I just tend to be reticent to fall for horses with visually impressive closes as more often than not they are a result of circumstance. The positive for Pyro was that he did it against a very slow pace. The negative was that he did it against modified allowance horses.

Quote:

Originally Posted by the_fat_man

This is deceiving: it was run like a turf race in the sense that a horse from far back won. But it wasn't your typical turf race, of this sort, where there are multiple moves and a cavalry charge late. This was the only horse running late. What this horse did was unique.

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Originally Posted by ateamstupid

How exactly could [Pyro] have run faster than Indian Blessing behind that pace?

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Originally Posted by blackthroatedwind

By the way, the answer to how he could have run faster than Indian Blessing is " if she had run worse. "

Bobby Fischer · #2 03-20-2009, 06:56 AM

Was IWR's Gotham really that slow??

Pyro's Risen Star =
24.52, 49.50, 1:14.62, 1:38.75, 1:44.68

IWR's Gotham
23.76, 48.45, 1:12.69, 1:36.46, 1:42.65

(for what it's worth) IWR received an 87 Bris E pace and a 101 E2 pace figure which could very well be meaningless, but my real question is how slow was the Gotham compared to what decent races were running on that day or time frame? (DrugS to thread?)

I have I Want Revenge for some impressive numbers for the Gotham. His final 5/16ths (29.93) were the best that I've seen a 3yo finish on dirt this year. Friesan Fire (30.05) was next - also following moderate to slow fractions. My big question is whether he appreciates the stretch to 10 furlongs. IMO his 1 1/16th was as good as anyones. ??

Steve Haskin has Revenge as his #1 Derby horse right now ...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steve Haskin

He doesn't need much more to be Derby-primed other than a good solid effort in the Wood Memorial. He's already run a peak effort, and now just has to do whatever is necessary in order to run another one on May 2. He retains his top spot, as the only performer who ran big enough to displace him won in the slop, and a number of his main foes failed to fire.