Contenders/ Pretenders

Among the pundits no love for Animal Kingdom??? I agree with Baffert that there are a lot of very good horses, Mo's defection not withstanding.

In "the" big race can you ever ignore the talented horses? One of those types sticks a nose in front and despite questionable training wills itself to stay in front. Strong caveat as to what follows that I lacked time to handicap. Handicapping always turns up some twist that can change things. My reactions to what few flashes of vids I saw this week, and also--for the first time--a complete rendition of this weeks workouts on Paulick Report:

Talents:

Brilliant Speed
Pants On Fire
Animal Kingdom
Soldat
Shackelford--heavy galloper but looks the major league horse.

all get over the ground exceptionally well. Coincidentally all have questionable trainers in my eyes. And take note: horses generally look good and strong 3 or 4 days after they breeze. Post breeze strength tends to dissipate as time wears on without further speed work. A horse that looked good thus on Thurs. may be a different animal by Sat.

How do we separate?

First: scratch any horse whose last breeze was 4f except AAA. When was the last time such a horse won the Derby--probably Zito in the max soft training era of the 1990s. This eliminates:

Pants On Fire
Dialed In
Derby Kitten--who worked zero last two weeks.
Santiva
Nehro
Master of Hounds (?) same outfit that brought us GW.

Next, any horse with a questionable last week of training is out:

Decisive Moment
Comma At The Top
Mucho Macho Man--2 mile gallop Fri.?

10 left standing.

Eliminate remaining woman trainer. To this chauvinist pig (as far as race horse training), gals you'll have to prove it to me. This woman's handling started to catch up with her in last race.

Watch Me Go--out.

Eliminate what I perceive as lesser talents, though this gets dicey here because all these horses can run:

Stay Thirsty
Twin Spired--failed to get a real look at this one.

6 to go. Anything else obvious for the throw out? Now we get to the training charts last post!!!

Shackelford
Animal Kingdom

Both lack bottom in their training. Very decent horses who should predictably lose their starch around the 3/16th. G. Motion/D. Romans--conventionally adequate trainers perpetually bettered, barring blind luck, by more perceptive sorts.

The Contenders:
ArchArchArch
Twice The Appeal
Midnight Interlude
Brilliant Speed

Twice The Appeal is probably the lesser talent and only slightly so. Same style horse as Midnight Interlude with softer training. Have to thus go with Baffert's horse. I fear Brilliant Speed who looked a weak galloper in the Blue Grass, but might be by my eyes the most talented horse. Can he best AAA who was rubbery legged following A. Derby and has the albatross of post #1?

My take--if 50 yr. old John Court gets a perfect ride, look out. Court being a nice guy but less than the brightest bulb out there, and, to me, just fails to give off athletic instincts, thinking a Court perfect ride is unlikely. AAA moved ahead with his nice training.

What fails to show with Brilliant Speed in chart last post is that he breezes in :13s, hence the weak galloping. Am unable thus to choose him over Baffert's horse.

Midnight Interlude is the pick here, hedged though as fearing one of the talents above will stick a nose in front and out foot him to the wire.