Saturday's Results

[Danzig]

certainly an intriguing situation tho...two trainers who seemingly win anything and everything have both handed well-publicized suspensions, and now both are slumping.
of course that's the easy answer, and there could be many more factors involved. but i think it's a point to be made more so with asmussen, then pletcher. i believe that was pletchers first offense, while it's far from the first time that assmussen got caught with his hand in the illegal cookie jar. harder to believe that the leopard can change his spots overnight, yet six months is some serious time. wouldn't it be nice if everyone went back to just hay, oats and water--the playing field is levelled, and no one has to serve suspensions...it would go back to horsemanship only.

i guess i better pinch myself, i must be dreaming!

[Travis Stone]

I think Andy was most spot-on with how dismal Any Given Saturday looked winning the Brooklyn. You could have told me it was a quintet of $25k claimers coming down the stretch and I would have believed you. They looked pitiful. Maybe it's just a fluke, or maybe the current state of Pletchers barn took out the wow factor of AGS' win. Very interesting.

[The Indomitable DrugS]

I think all of Pletcher's stakes runners I saw yesterday looked a little flat through the late stages - like they missed that added something.

[ArlJim78]

Originally Posted by Travis Stone

I think Andy was most spot-on with how dismal Any Given Saturday looked winning the Brooklyn. You could have told me it was a quintet of $25k claimers coming down the stretch and I would have believed you. They looked pitiful. Maybe it's just a fluke, or maybe the current state of Pletchers barn took out the wow factor of AGS' win. Very interesting.

i think everyone saw the same thing, it was not impressive and as everyone else is saying his horses seem to have lost that extra something.

makes me wonder about Lawyer Ron who has had that extra something recently. will he still have it in the JCGC or will he also come back down to earth?

[hoovesupsideyourhead]

i think they made lr a project horse at t.a.p.... got em nice n fit and let him do the rest ...a great job..but when you have the amount of stock he has ..you can make a few high points in a not so great year..rags wasnt ready to come back..eh run em anyway.. the breeding alone will be worth millions.. only a guy like that that would enter a horse of that value in questionable shape..imo

[hoovesupsideyourhead]

Originally Posted by hoovesupsideyourhead

i think they made lr a project horse at t.a.p.... got em nice n fit and let him do the rest ...a great job..but when you have the amount of stock he has ..you can make a few high points in a not so great year..rags wasnt ready to come back..eh run em anyway.. the breeding alone will be worth millions.. only a guy like that that would enter a horse of that value in questionable shape..imo

..see blue gress cat

[prudery]

Frankly I think Pletcher has been running short horses for a while now and perhaps the results --especially amongst his big guns-- are showing up now glaringly ... The closing kicks aforementioned not being there says short . All the spacings of workouts and races and babying and resting, and his shopping for a soft win when he should be producing a racehard horse just is not working . His so called fresh horses have nada where it counts and just look short . AGS's race was beyond flat--it was somnabulistic .

[SentToStud]

Originally Posted by Travis Stone

I think Andy was most spot-on with how dismal Any Given Saturday looked winning the Brooklyn. You could have told me it was a quintet of $25k claimers coming down the stretch and I would have believed you. They looked pitiful. Maybe it's just a fluke, or maybe the current state of Pletchers barn took out the wow factor of AGS' win. Very interesting.

He didn't look great but then again how good could he have looked against that crew, especially when the only colt with any chance to beat him ran the worst of all?

[cmorioles]

Originally Posted by SentToStud

He didn't look great but then again how good could he have looked against that crew, especially when the only colt with any chance to beat him ran the worst of all?

The horse that ran last was the worst horse in the field. The horse that ran 3rd last time ran by him late with a tougher trip, so how was he at least not better?

Anyway, he could look great by tracking the speed, cruising by, and winning off easily. How he didn't is a mystery.

[SentToStud]

Originally Posted by cmorioles

The horse that ran last was the worst horse in the field. The horse that ran 3rd last time ran by him late with a tougher trip, so how was he at least not better?

Anyway, he could look great by tracking the speed, cruising by, and winning off easily. How he didn't is a mystery.

If all you ever look at is last race, yeah, maybe. Not exactly reflected in the $250k or so in the win pool. It's certainly easy to call the last place finisher the worst horse in the field a day after the race. Going into the race it can be just a bit tougher.

[SentToStud]

Originally Posted by DaHoss9698

Come on man. Sightseeing had virtually no shot in there and is a pretty bad horse.

Well, cmorioles proclaims a day later he was obviously the worst horse going in. You agree? No big deal and congrats if you did.

If you saw this before the race and bet the right way, you got paid pretty good as the tri paid $65. Keying AGS over all ex-Sightseeing turned a 1/5 horse into 9/2 or so.

[philcski]

Originally Posted by SentToStud

Well, cmorioles proclaims a day later he was obviously the worst horse going in. You agree? No big deal and congrats if you did.

If you saw this before the race and bet the right way, you got paid pretty good as the tri paid $65. Keying AGS over all ex-Sightseeing turned a 1/5 horse into 9/2 or so.

Here were the exacta prices with 1 MTP:

2-1 $4
2-3 $12
2-4 $23
2-5 $10

Let's look at it a different way... would you have taken even money on Sightseeing to beat the other 3? My personal feeling was NO WAY. You didn't have to have much handicapping insight or genius, just read and interpret what the board had. A $12 exacta doesn't sound all that great... but when it's the "most likely result" it's the same as betting a 5-1 shot to win.

Redboard disclaimer:
I played my normal win bet on the 2-3 combination and 2/3 of one on 2-4. The effective return on the race was about 7/2 for simply not liking Sightseeing. Didn't play the tri but a $65 return was more than generous.

[ELA]

Originally Posted by SentToStud

He didn't look great but then again how good could he have looked against that crew, especially when the only colt with any chance to beat him ran the worst of all?

AGS didn't look anywhere near good IMO -- regardless of the field he was in against. As said by another poster, he could have looked good no matter who he was in against. Individually he didn't look good.

Let me preface this with the fact that I wasn't an AGS fan. However, I was looking for this colt to show me something in the Dwyer. By way of background, forgetting that this was his first start back since the Derby, I wanted to see something. Was this colt going to move/go forward, or was he going to just kind of be where he was. Top tier colt or face in the crowd? Anyway, I liked what I saw. Now, you talk about the Haskell, what was that all about? This colt stepped forward big time. Talk all you want about the race being set up for him, and so on. I am talking about this colt getting stronger, his stride, and he moved forward off the Dwyer.

Be that as it may, yesterday, he didn't look at ease. He didn't look settled, comfortable, and his stride didn't look anywhere near as good as it looked in the Haskell or the Dwyer (forget about the time). He won. He was supposed to win -- period. I just don't think he looked good at all doing what he did.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to own a barn full of this horse, and I've never owned one who showed up to the dances that he's shown up for. But this is not about jealousy or ego either.

Eric