Jocks Race?

Examining Belmont PPs, maybe one of better Belmonts, handicapping nightmare, anybody might win scenario.

Your blogger always prefers handicapping based on what shows in terms of works.  Once upon a time one could see big differences between the "they were fit in March and unnecessary to do anything else" trainers, and the one's that trained well right up to the event.  Almost every year I've documented the TC races the winners in general have something exceptional about their training.

Unfortunately for handicapping, these days speed works are most the same or there are insufficient differences in the PPs that one would guess another variable besides speed work would kick in.  Additionally we have trainers fairly obviously more aware of exercise physiology than in days past and there fore are seeing reported more strenuous non breeze efforts by such as Frac Daddy and Freedom Child.

Any way at all to separate this year's Belmont horses in terms of what's shown on the training?  My brief look so far.

Elminate anything trained by someone named McPeek or McLaughlin.  These dudes show year afte year that they far more prefer avoiding training than training, although with Frac Daddy McPeek possibly had a sudden Doug O'Neil like training epiphany as apparently the horse has been working very hard on track and in fast fractions.Nevertheless win by either of these two is the proverbial blind squirrel finding the nut.

In alphabetical order:

Frac Daddy--scratch.

Freedom Child--The horse won the Peter Pan by 13 lengths against an inferior bunch carrying 116 lbs.  Reports indicate Trainer Albertini has been working the horse, and he's a good looking animal.  I'd love Freedom Child, 3.22 dosage, to win this race and put dosage theory to bed once and for all.  Yet, I'd doubt this horse or this trainer is up to snuff against this field.  Scratch.

Giant Finish--horse likely needed to do more to be competitive. Fear Dutrow.  The vid of the horse shows insufficient tightness.

Golden Soul--Can a deep closer win Belmont off of 3 slow 4f works since the Derby?  Never know what they do on their off days.  Something is right with this horse based on the Derby.  Contender.

Incognito--scratch

Midnight Taboo--Plecher's third string out of a sprinter named Langfuhr.  Scratch.

Orb--One bad race in the Preakness.  Who knows the cause of that fade on the back stretch, and then he came on.  The horse has won everything else.  I had some doubts about Orb's handling since the Preakness. Seems they may have backed off.  Contender

Overanalyze--contender.

Oxbow--Lukas by  his interviews has gone mental again--meaning Lukas is working more on the mental aspect of the horse than the physical. This bodes poorly imo because it indicates Lukas is back to his soft style.  I never figure it.  The man is unable to put 2 and 2 together.  Contender.

Palice Malice--contender.  The horse wins if he's got it all together.  Doubtful imo.

Revolutionary--obviously a very good and superbly bred horse.  Contender

Unlimited Budget--if you're unable to win the Oaks can u win the Belmont?  Scratch

Vyjack--interesting works,  Q with V is why is a good horse in the hands of an idiot, even if he's the rider.  I'd guess there must be supervision from above, and so it's possible that the off day stuff makes this horse a contender.  Two fast works since the Derby one of them 4 days out.  4 days out is "a" ok IF the horse is trained for it.  This horse is, by all that shows including his galloping appearance, way short on this sort of suddenly rigorous training.  Speaks more to certain injury than win.  Scratch

Will Take Charge--same problem as before Derby--can you exclusively train in :13s and carry :12s for 1.5 miles.  Doubtful. Scratch.

Blogger picks next.

Training:  1 inch rain in KC yesterday before training.  Off.