Quote:
Originally Posted by bisket
Why do you think his wins aren’t as impressive as most handicappers have graded them?
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His first start was on an off track that imo favored speed enough to think it could carry a good fast horse to a very good final time.
In the Florida Derby he was comfortably loose on the lead against one of the weaker major prep fields we’ve seen.
His Juvenile is the race most likely to be legit. However, I projected a lot of fast paces that day. The fractions for several of the races were very quick as I expected, but the races did not fall apart. They developed more or less honest. I suspect that even though it doesn’t look like it based on the charts, that track was carrying speed a bit. He stalked a moderate pace on the best part of the track (off the rail) and won in fast time. That was probably as good a trip as you were going to get on that track.
When a horse wins in fast time multiple times you know he’s good even if he got a few favorable trips. The question is how good. Given that he failed badly twice with tough trips I think it’s more of a question given he’s not going to have it easy in the Derby.
