Demolition Derby

By the finish line the first time. And, as glancing at the PPs would have shown, Chrome is sitting in the catbird's seat. Best horse, best racing foundation, best training, best position, and for once the Derby goes as scripted to the delight of almost everyone.

Some misc. thoughts:

Danza got knocked around like an equine bowling ball and still was coming on.  Seemed logical to me they'd hold him back (at first blush).  On more creative and deeper thought, should they have known that Chrome would run the speed off its legs and that all the speed horses would be backing up into anything running directly behind?  Possible of course Danza unable to get out of gate. Would like to have seen D side by side with Chrome.

--yet to see a Derby with so many traffic problems? Watching this race in slo-mo half the field is avoiding somebody and several on multiple occasion.

--Why the traffic problems in this race--possibly because this was a unique Derby where most of the jocks thought their horse might win.  Everybody making moves, many simultaneously, with Vicar's In Trouble and couple of others mucking up the stretch run of the rest.

--Calvin B-o-r-a-i-l--the most hilarious of these is poor Ride On Curlin who credibly ran almost two races. Borail kept squeezing his horse to the rail, several times failed at this before he finally got through brushing the rail only to be stopped in his tracks by the next speedster backing up, and finally gets ROC to the outside to finish strong.  Keep on with that horse. Looks like superior training job.

--Commanding Curve--Dream trip.  Nice ride under circumstances.  I'd looked at this horse as such a nicely conformed big strong horse with race results only explained by who the trainer is.  Sticking by that the trainer criticism.  Likely we've seen the best of CC.

--track conditions--looking closely at the way horses were motoring, this looks like a difficult slow deep track, to me. Good for injury avoidance.  Bad for any horse trying to make headway.

CA Chrome TC prospects:  The horse is the best of this bunch by far and for numerous reasons.  We'll now hold breath to see what the trainer does with Chrome from here through Belmont.  Let's observe that there are problems with Art Sherman, articulate as he is for a 77 year old dude with 20 horses in his barn. You need a sharp eye to see the "little" things that bespeak of bigger problems.  Some have been detailed here.  Another e.g. the Sun. Morn vid showing them hosing the horse's legs as if he were a $5,000 claimer.  Good grief!  You'd think in a KY Derby barn they'd know how to ice a horse's legs in ice tub or boots, and, if they're going to hose--the purpose being to freeze the surface of the cannon bone---do you, for crying out loud, squirt the hose as they did or just lay the hose on the surface and let the water flow down?  Idiot stuff.

And, of course, an indicator that the cannons were warm after the race.  Hardly surprising but big red flag for a white stockinged horse.

Social Inclusion with his even more dysfunctional connections might await.  Will they wrap up on Chrome as Dutrow did with Big Brown, costing the horse the Belmont, or will they continue to train.  One would think Sherman, given his age, would have some training connections and wisdom with Sunny Jim Fiztsimmons and Preston Burch.  Will see.