Agree 100%. To my point the money and handicappers (not to mention the media) will still be pointing to Big Brown and Curlin as the runaway favorites. The outcome may turn out very different, but I doubt it.

i guess our opinion on what makes a handicapper must differ. the crowd of bettors will make those two the faves, while 'cappers will be looking to beat them. and with good reason, this will be their most vulnerable spot all year.

If what you say is true, looks like there will be lots of money to be won. I hope you cash in your share. Me personally, I will be looking for one final Big Brown pay day. I wish the race was tomorrow. I can't wait. I love how the Derby winner is going into the BCC with incredible momentum (two solid victories on dirt and turf over upstarts and veteran horses). Clearly the adversity is behind him and the Big Brown camp can concentrate on just winning this race and solidify the Eclipse of 2008. Should other awards come his way, he will be deserving. I expect Curlin to will bring the very best Big Brown has to offer. We could be looking at heartstopper at the wire.

Yeah, when neither one of the two hit the wire first or second. LMAO :D

Why would you ridicule the two horses when all they do is WIN.....With your logic, thye would have a better shot at being one two if all they did was have much less impressive records than the rest?

They win on dirt, Brown has beaten bad horses on turf, but this is neither. One of those is the most likely winner by a wide margin, but both will be very short prices, and it's not a stretch to take a synthetic specialist in this spot.

So now he beat bad horses on turf? Leading up to that race I saw quite a few posts saying that he is finally facing competition and thought he'd get beaten. It seems to me, the more Big Brown wins, the worse he is hmmmmmmmm.

At least we have a hint in that both horses have shown the ability to handle the turf. I wonder if their respective sire stats suggest synthetic ability (is anyone keeping track of this yet?).

bloodhorse keeps track of it.

edit~i grabbed a fairly recent edition of bloodhorse, from sept 6. smart strike at that time was #31 on the synthetic sires list, boundary isn't listed.
as for boundary on the general sires list...if it wasn't for big brown, he wouldn't even be listed.

Could it be that there is another Invasor out there?

Great. Thanks.

yeah, they've added a list of synthetic sires by earnings. now i just wish they'd add a listing for dirt sires, as right now it's top sires, top turf, top synth, and then for first crop, 2 yo's, etc.

not sure if you know of it, they have a stallion register that you can get to from their site, or just type in stallionregister dot com, and you can look up any active sire. they also have various sire lists for current and past years on the bloodhorse website.

Hey, did you hear there were three TC winners in the 70s?

I respect both horses ... I just know that both horses will be short prices and there will most likely be some value elsewhere due to the surface change. JMO.