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Originally Posted by Linny
I tend to question the choices every year for the 23 spots. Some are obvious (Pioneer, Friesan Fire etc) but horses like T14P? Dutrow said that part of the "improvement" was bringing him back to his best distance, 6 furlongs. That's a Derby contender according to the panel who put this together?
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It would be an absolute outrage if This One's For Phil was left off ... and just because his alchemist trainer was grasping for every reason he can think of to explain the horses improvement to media types.
The horse had already won a stake race at a mile - and was a better router than a sprinter when Kathleen O' Connel had him.
The horse is by a son of Unbridled who broke his maiden going 10 furlongs on turf .. and as a sire .. he gets better production with routers than sprinters... both win percentage wise and avg TG figure wise.
The tail female family is loaded with slowpoke stamina ... he had a half sibling run in the Belmont Stakes and plod past some quitters to finish like 5th or 6th.
The horse can rate - and hasn't gone a route yet for Dutrow. He will take money. There are some on that list who won't take much money ... and they are the ones who
might not belong.