More Florida Derby; Farm Disaster And More

B.T. in green on the blinkers can only stand for Barclay Tagg, and yes, this is Elysium Fields ( flash noseband sans flapping tongue) who has been getting maybe a little too much play the racing press. Review of the Fountain Of Youth shows a green, soft runner as you'd expect of a recent maiden graduate who put in a pretty nice run that I'd hardly call anything special, in retrospect.

What disturbed me most re EF's FOY, there are more naturally talented horses on the Derby Trail.

BUT what more might a trainer want? An average horse struggling in maiden races suddenly finishes close up in a major stakes. Can such a horse, regardless of talent, be moved up by appropriate training?

I'd like to think so, and Tagg in his own inimical manner, appears to have tried. Yet, when you look at the Florida Derby PPs, what Tagg has done with EF of late (the last 45 days--see last post)--let's call it slightly hepped up "conventional" training. EF has a for the year 2-3 more breezes than the average in the field; has maybe 10 more fast furlongs for the year; and since 2/15 exceeds his peers in the field with regard to his work, but only slightly.

Fact is the whole field has been training like gangbusters (in the conventional sense) since 2/15.

Thus, except for Tomcito who last breezed 3/17, BB Frank, and Zito's Da Tara (what's up with that), all being horses who have last breezed too far out from the race to be really tight, the rest of the field in terms of performance should be ready to run.

But, maybe we can ferret out, by a close look how far we'll expect them to run. Majestic Warrior's breezes have been short and soft. With all due regard to when Mott was competing solely with the likes of DW Lukas, this sort of training will fail to cut it in the present day. I respect the horse's talent, but expect he'll run about 7f maybe.

Big Brown has lately done maybe the best and most appropriate work, but can a horse beat this field on 27 furlongs for the year. I'll be amazed if it happens.

And, as always, I consider 7 days out as the last breeze to be a bare minimum. Breezing a horse 7 days before a race simply is less than ideal. The horse can run, but never at it's best. Too much detraining effect between last breeze and race.

And so, I'm suspicious of those "last out 7 days ago" horses, Hey Byrn, Nistle's Crunch. + neither horse has impressed with it's training for the year. They'll also go about 7f before the fade imo.

That leaves Fierce Wind, Smooth Air, Face The Cat, and Elysium Fields. I'm figuring you'll see the winner from this group. Smooth Air has done the most consistent work and on the surface the best conventional training job, and so we're left with the question whether the grandson of that great stallion Storm Boot has sufficient talent to run with these. I'm suspecting in the negative, but figure this horse will give it a game try.

Mark this down. Fierce Wind will come up short. It'll be other than another War Pass. I think he'll run on his steady diet of Nick Zito 4f breezes in :12s. The horse will sadly have to, as do all the Zito horses, outrun their training. And (RR considering as he types), this horse may have enough talent to do so in this particular race. Why? Insufficient talent to challenge him in late stretch (I noted above the talent will have faded).

The horse I fear is the Pletcher horse. But, wait, he last raced in January. Naah. Won't happen.

This leaves the aforementioned Elysium Fields. I have this horrible feeling that Fierce Wind will run by him and maybe Smooth Air and Pletcher's horse. I'm declining to pick a winner due to my disdain for Zito. We'll see.

As to injury prevention, the whole field is at risk, but I'd particularly worry about Big Brown andTomcito among the contenders.

We have a field here trained fairly similarly. That's the kind of situation where talent may out, and then we never hear from that talent again.

I'm coming to the conclusion: best horse with decent training on the trail: Colonel John

Training: Oh my. On my birthday I'm sitting there peacefully in my office planning the evening workouts when the dreaded call from the neighbor comes in. Horse jumped the fence, bleeding, vet needed. It was Art, the 3 yr. old, who has of late been chased repeatedly by Groovin'Wind, who has proven a very questionable herd boss. I have 3 horses all studs, and 3 seems a very unhappy number. I've never had trouble in 20 years having colts together till now. A sex change operation may be in store. Art is off a few days till the gash in his chest heals. Rod after being off a couple of days worked a few furlongs riderless easy.