2010 BC Classic

Late to the task again.. Did take a look at PPs for BC Classic, though way short of thorough handicapping job. Conclude, these horses are trained much the same except for two(Z and LLL).

Is there any conditioning advantage to any of these? Close look shows the differences are very subtle instead of a wide advantage for any one horse. Take a look:

Ranked by number of breeze/races since 8/1 (the crucial 3 months conditioning pre-race):

No. of Breeze/Races:

12 Blame

12 Haynesfield

11 Zenyatta

11 Quality Road

11 Paddy O'Prado

11 First Dude

10 Lookin at Lucky (missed time due to illness)

11 Fly Down

9 Pleasant Prince

7 Etched

6 Musket Man

We see right away, we may want to omit the hard knocking Musket Man from consideration. His trainer exceeds being the typical idiot, though I'd identified some conceptual problems with him a year ago. Etched is merely a pretender based on works.

Do speed furlongs traveled since 8/1 tell anything. Ranking:

69 Zenyatta (Hmm)

68 Haynesfield

65 Blame

64 Paddy O Praddo

62 Fly Down

61 Quality Road

58 First Dude

57 Lookin At Lucky

54 Pleasant Prince

41 Etched

39 Musket Mann

Best horses get the most work. What a surprise! We begin to see maybe there's some over enthusiasm concerning Lookin At Lucky.

What of the crucial 45 day training period pre-race since 9/15. Does this show anything?

Breeze-races since 9/15/No. of Speed Furlongs trained

7/39 Lookin At Lucky (ahh-Baffert again ratcheting up for a big race!)

6/39 Zenyatta

6/36 Haynesfield

6/34 First Dude

6/31 Fly Down

6/29 Quality Road

6/29 Blame

5/31 Paddy O Praddo

5/39 Pleasant Prince

4/24 Musket Man (opposite of Baffert)

3/17 Etched

One other thing--the quality and speed of the works matters. I looked at speed briefly. The obvious recent standout is Lookin at Lucky with Z a close second. The CA trainers understand it's a speed game. The east coast mid America trainers are into Wood Stephens lighter training.

Other factors I looked at: Lookin at Lucky hasn't faced much. He's being overrated.

Surface: Yup. Watching Blind Luck yesterday. If a horse in the lead goes on, they'll be hard to catch. Based on training, that's likely to be Haynesfield. BUT, H is carrying a lot of weight for what he does.

The big Q in 2009 was can Z run with the boys? Still the Q, imo. Z is a well trained, giant horse with big strides that will be somewhat compromised by the surface. Blame at the glance looks as if he'd give some competition but will carry the weight of his trainer. I think Blame and Quality Road will be up the track. Why? Overall lesser training that ignores competitive factors. Believe we'll see Haynesfield and Z close to the wire with LAL in close pursuit. Best guess: Z will get it done.