More Lexington Stakes

After three weeks the Indiana Twin Spires account sits at $201.90 from an initial deposit of $200.00. Handicapping is hard work!

Some of this cash is on Jeranimo.

For what little it's worth, RR thought process follows.

First, the normal throw outs, anything trained by Zito, and (with my usual political incorrectness) the female trainer Katherine Ball. I'll be looking foward to the day I have to eat crow vis a vis the ladies, but thinking that will happen, as it surely will, on another day.

Next: anybody in here, regardless of training, outclassed or too slow? Two horses have yet to run above allowance: Omniscient and Conservative, who with good breeding and respected trainers run today against horses finishing up the track in Grade IIs and IIIs.

I like to look at fractions. Are they fast enough? Omniscient's basically runs 12s, Conservative slower yet. Despite the training advantages these two show, their lack of speed creates risks here, but, leave them in for now.

Take a look next at the training:

Last post indicates a significant gap in "speed work for the year" between the top 4:

16 Omniscient 84 Asmussen
14 Jeranimo 80 Michael Pender
14 Conversative 72 Mcgaughey
13 El Crespo 69 George Arnold.

and the next 4 that have similar work tabs:

12 Masala 65 Plecher
11 Parade Clown 62 Ball
11 Advice 68 Plecher
11 His Greatness 62

At the bottom we have Pitched Perfectly and Square Eddie, both injured horses coming back with comparative little bottom to the field. Since both horses are also at the bottom of the "recent" work tab since 2/26 (see last post), and neither--per my mistake last week with General Quarters--show brilliant last works (also SE's 1:12 gives slight pause), toss SE and PP.

So--4 out--7 to go. Do any of the 7 have particularly logical or illogical recent work/race tabs? I rate work/race spacing, on a scale of 1-10 with 10 as the best. I'm influenced by recent racing with appropriate breezing. Lack of appropriate breezing after a recent race severely downgrades the horse,

Omniscient 7
El Crespo 7
Jeranimo 6

Advice 5+
His Greatness 5
Conservative 5

Masala 4

Masala at the bottom of this is out. Imo Masala has done too little since his last race on 3/7 to be competitive with the top trainers in here and shows little else to recommend him. Plecher would have had to do a better training job to really get this horse to the Derby. What was he thinking? Would be interesting to know.

Do any of the remaining 6 have a recent race combined with a recent work? The one that qualifies here is Advice by Plecher. Advice training has been at least average and needs to be taken seriously here as he may have the best race fitness going in!

So, let's narrow it.

Hesitantly throw out McGaughey's Conservative by Unbridled's Song out of a Seeking the Gold mare who WON his last 2, as being too slow in his races and worked too slow by the trainer. He'll be out footed by somebody. His Greatness is another consistently slow animal finishing well behind in the IL Derby who has get to see any fast work in the last 14 days. Illogical that His Greatness would fail to hit the wall on this sort of training.

4 left--the top 3 trainees are consistent above--Omniscient, Jeranimo, El Crespo against Advice. These are the competitors. Unkown what sort of horses they are. I'd like to look at the film, but am without time. Handicap them against each other:

Advice vs. Omnisicent: I think Asmussen's horse outfoots Advice who I believe they are experimenting with and developing slowly.

Omnisicent vs Jeranimo: This is a tough call. BUT one trainer trains slow (Asmussen), the other fast. This gives the nodd to Jeranimo.

Jeranimo vs. El Crespo: Interestingly, each of my final 3 raced last on 3/14 more than 30 days ago, and each show a decent recent work tab with equivalently good spacing. I'm unable to separate these two by their training or their trainers. I'm going to look at the tape, on these two:

1. El Crespo, a big strong horse, beat a questionably trained field and in the Palm Beach, and had the gross advantage of leaving the gate on the left lead. He thus had a very strong right lead in the stretch that allowed him to power away from a spent field. Question training at Gulf Stream.
2. Jeranimo the obviously better, strong horse.

$2 to show on Jeranimo.

Training:
Fri 4/17 We're trying to get back after backing up due to March and April weather. With another deluge coming in--although looking today, far less than predicted--we opt for needed riderless speed work as we're unable to get speed under tack at this point. 4 x 3f at 85-90% speed.