Triple Crown Tidbits

Very little has been going on as we've been under water again. I'll catch things up tomorrow. An entertaining TC series this year has me looking back:

1. Some say SS stopped in the Preakness when he got the lead. For me Curlin winning was purely fatigue by SS, too far back, too long a move risked the loss. When your horse is training so well you get to thinking you can get away with anything on the track. SS galloped hard the day before the race according to Steve Haskin. By my experience you just never do that if you want the horse really sharp for the race. Nafzger trapped himself into that gallop by flawed scheduling that may have cost the TC.

2. Was the most amazing event of the series Curlin getting outfooted down the stretch by a filly in slow final fractions? You only need say Safely Kept or Meafara to know that fillies can run with colts and have just as much natural speed. The story here was Curlin running out of gas instead of the filly. Hello Steve Asmussen. Postscript: S. Haskin this morning writes the final 2f was in a "sizzling" 23.83. Whatever. A 3 million dollar colt is unable to exceed :12 sec./f down the stretch of a race run in slow fractions?

3. Greg Fox, the trainer of Slew's Tizzy, is a former collegiate distance runner, a veterinarian, and reasonably bright fellow based on his Belmont interview. We'd expect innovative imaginative training from a person with this background, though the indicators were otherwise. I'd enjoy having a conversation about training with Greg Fox.

4. Larry Jones: Jone's horse rendered a buffo Derby performance off a :57+ breeze running on the lead. Might it have occurred to Jones (and Bill Currin with Stormello) when you have a horse like that you might want to repeat some version of the fast breezing between races and perhaps train the horse to go on instead of trying to slow him down? Is it judgment, brains, gray matter or a fellow similar to 75% of the population, a nice fairly smart guy lacking the basic common sense to connect the dots? Thank heaven for trainers like Larry Jones.

5. John Shirrefs: Unlike Giacomo Tiago continued to gallop after the last pre-race breeze. Almost Nafzger-like training of Tiago. How this develops will be interesting!

6. Todd Plecher: Pre-Belmont everyone of course was thinking "Curlin" which obscured quite a bit Pletcher's almost clandestine arrival into the picture when he entered the filly very late. The Belmont reminded that we should never ignore this very intelligent fellow. How Plecher gets these gate to wire performances will be a continuing subject on the blog.