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#1
08-07-2006, 01:33 PM
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I don't think it's such a bad thing to say that perhaps Flower Alley just needed the race. I suspect that is the case, not injury. Besides, it wasn't like he was facing a bunch of chumps at 'Toga on Saturday. There's no shame in losing in your second start back in darn near a year to horses like Invasor and West Virginia.
__________________
The world's foremost expert on virtually everything on the Redskins 2010 season: "Im going to go out on a limb here. I say they make the playoffs." 
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#2
08-07-2006, 01:34 PM
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#3
08-07-2006, 01:39 PM
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__________________
The world's foremost expert on virtually everything on the Redskins 2010 season: "Im going to go out on a limb here. I say they make the playoffs."
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#4
08-07-2006, 01:35 PM
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The Flower Alley we saw last year would not have lost to West Virginia and would have at least given Invasor a tussle.
Hard to believe in that many months he couldnt have come up with a 2nd prep so he would have been at his best for one of the most important races of the year.
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#5
08-08-2006, 01:57 AM
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I still would not totally count the horse out though. Pletcher has good vets and they can often get a couple more good races out of horses even if the horse has a fairly significant problem. They obviously need to be careful with this horse because he is a very valuable horse. It's a fine line how hard to push in a situation like this. On the one hand, you can push a little harder than normal if you know the horse is retiring after two more races, which is the case here. In other words, they don't have to worry about doing a little bit of permanent damage to him if he's retiring any way. They can't push too hard though. They don't want the horse to break down. Trainers will often times find themselves in this predicament with 3 year olds. They will have a 3 year old that has a bad ankle and the Ky Derby is a month away. They have two choices. They can turn the horse out to the farm and be confident that the horse will come back 100%, but if they do this they will miss the Derby. The other choice is to inject the horse's ankle and run him in the Derby, but there is the possibility that permanent damage will be done to the ankle. That means the horse may not be able to come back as a 4 year old. There are so many things that go on that the fans know nothing about. A trainer will never say publicly, "The horse ran bad last time because his ankle was bothering him. This time we injected the ankle with cortisone, and that's why he ran so much better today." You will never hear a trainer say that. They'll have some bogus excuse as to why the horse ran bad in the previous race. They'll say that he was short, or that he didn't like the track or something like that. Last edited by Rupert Pupkin : 08-08-2006 at 01:59 AM.
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#6
08-08-2006, 06:35 AM
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Last edited by pdrift1 : 08-08-2006 at 06:37 AM.
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#7
08-08-2006, 07:10 AM
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very well said rupert...I agree on all points.
If FA was just a little short he should have been in the race all the way to the wire, maybe fading to finish 4th or something. He just wasn't the same horse as he was last year. I think Betsy said it best in another thread--that while horses around him have continued to evolve he might have finished developing last fall.
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 Seek respect, not attention.
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#8
08-08-2006, 07:28 AM
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I also am thinking exactly like Rupert, really nothing to add to his comments. The horse was not at 100% fitness but he had a prep race and is obviously much better than that. The reason I immediately felt something was wrong was because he was empty on the turn. A horse of his caliber is not going to be that empty on the turn while stalking a moderate pace. Its not like he was pushing an extremely fast pace and just chucked it.
I'm not so sure that something eas bothering him beforehand though. All clocker accounts I had were that he was working and going extremely well. Noone had him going sore or lame. In addition, like Eurobounce has said, in Kentucky my clocker said he was heavy and not at all fit but up here prior to the race he had really turned into a physical beast. My clocker said he looked extremely good and was a block of muscle who looked great from every aspect. I'm also puzzled about the juice accusations towards Pletcher in such mass quantities. You know I'm not stupid about suspecting certain people of messing around. In Todd's case I just have to wonder what the accusers are seeing that I am not. On Saturday he went 0-fer again and had the last place finisher in the test(as the favorite no less), a bad loss in Flower Alley to go with a 3rd by West Virginia, a third by a firster, and a 2nd bya miaden(that he should have won) on the grass. He was at least 0-5 and got blaned wednesday-friday as well. He won one on Sunday with a short priced allowance runner and won both the Matchmaker and the Haskell but lost with a short priced horse in an allowance race at monmouth as well(horse was named Spring at Last and he was just awful). If todd is doing so much monkeying pleease explain to me why his percentage up here and down below is the same or lower than it has been all year? Juicers tend to realy get on rolls and win with everything in sight. Todd is sending out a lot of horses who fit from a figure perspective but just aren't firing, yet he is winning some races. It simply can't be both ways. Does he have the most expensive vet work and shoeing and feed and exercise riders that money can buy? Yes. Hes able to do this due to the money his owners have and the massive money making operation he has. But i simply don't see any miracles out of his barn. He spots horses as well as anyone alive and quite frankly hes losing more than his share right now with well spotted horses. If hes working miracles someone needs to clue me in on what they are because quite frankly I pay attention as well as anyone and I'm kind of scratching my head wondering where these miracles are that I am not seeing.
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#9
08-08-2006, 09:40 AM
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Flower Alley might be the most overrated horse of this century so far. His accomplishment? Beating Bellamy Road in the Travers when, a) BR was running at a distance less than his best, b) there were issues on how fit BR was. Bellamy Road sets a fast pace and runs out of gas so FA inherits the win. In the BC Classic, again almost a paceless race, he happens to be near the front and finishes a non-threatening 4th. I thought the final margin was very deceptive. Saint Liam could've probably dusted him by 10 lengths if he wanted to. So he comes out and beats a small field of nobodies in the Salvatore Mile.......let's face it. This horse was NEVER going to be a legit Horse of the Year candidate.
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#10
08-08-2006, 09:56 AM
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