Easy trip or not I Want Revenge was great today ... and is obviously a new horse on dirt. His last race was just pathetic. He 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. He did surprise me a whole lot even considering the soft trip and likely dirt improvement.
Mr. Fantasy broke a little akward but was exposed.
Imperial Council is going to get a lot of undeserved attention because his sire and dam sire are both Belmont Stake winners - and he's trained by Shug.
Yeah, he was against a real slow pace on a track that was a bit kind to speed... Giacomo was running faster figs with more adverse trips earlier on in his 3yo season .. and he was trained by John Sherriffs - who is just leathal at getting a horse cranked up. He once won at something like a 70% clip with first time starters over a 2 year span in Southern Cal when he trained for 505 - most of his horses winning debuts with Beyers in the 90's to triple digits. He got Tiago to have the best finish of any American runner in the BC Classic last year - which is a complete miracle by itself.
Shug always seems more worried about six months down the road than having them all cranked. Saarland was just 6/1 in the Derby after running two non-threatening races in the Gotham and Wood in his only two 3yo starts.
I'd be way more interested in Imperial Council if you could substitue his pedigree and trainer ... because together, they might attract a flood of sucker money in the Derby.
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