When weight is important!

[cakes44]

You brought up 3 terrible examples from preps of last year.
In the Tampa Bay Derby, Deputy Glitters was a better horse AT TAMPA than Bluegrass Cat. He ran like 9 wide the entire race before that one(Sam Davis?) and still almost beat BC. IMO, weight made absolutely no difference in the outcome of the TBD.
In the Gotham, Keyed Entry was an unproven favorite, and has proven since that he had distance limitations and wants NO PART of route races.
As far as the FOY and First Samurai, see above about the Gotham.
Like I said, weight had no effect on the outcomes of these races IMHO.