The winner of the Peter Pan, with the best speed number, was understandably made the morning line favorite......the fact his body of work was not really deserving, nor that his recent win was on off track notwithstanding

We The People Made the Favorite after 2 back in a g1 race Arkansas  beyer of 73 jumps 30 points in a g3  Peter Pan workout

103 against who on a good sealed track at 9f with the worse g1 number in the Whole field.

This was a back speed group of 2 back except for the Derby and Oaks runners including Rich Strike before

his head case prerace. He was lucky to be lone speed and never raced at 2  and no threat to him the first 10 f

by default, I agree he gets points for lone speed and dangerous,  Not ML in my view with other g1 type that are 12f type

and tested. finished 4th 7 furlongs back .

Still liking WA. Might change by Sat. Not really like CC but who knows.

CC horse for course at Tampa. I do like No Lasix for CC.

Do you think That is an unlevel playing field in this race coming up?

Sorry not sure what you're asking. Unlevel because CC isn't using lasix?  I would say possibly disadvantaged. I think all graded races should be nonlasix. It will take time to get to no meds across the board on all races.

Yes that's what I mean!

I agree, Disappointed WA racing with Lasix, works probably baked in . One to beat in Ohio Derby imo.

pianot said...

It will take time to get to no meds across the board on all races.

We can't even do it with stakes races, which puts us how many DECADES behind the rest of the world?   LOL 

U.S. Racing is kinda sad.    

As for this race, there has never been a track record produced at Thistledown in a century, other than at a 1/2 mile and below.....because of the type of horses who run there.  It actually plays kinda slow, and stamina isn't a big consideration.... 1 mile track, they run 1-1/8 from top of the stretch. 

I think CC may be hurt by the outside post, however, I had already decided he is the one I will root for-----he looks so much like his gorgeous "iron horse" sire, except one less white leg.  You'd be hard-pressed to find a better looking, better built stallion than Giant's Causeway IMHO.  Those left side white socks, like his sire Storm Cat, that forehead blaze, the color, the conformation........The Giant was *everything*.     

CC has it all, high energy, athleticism.   He was born and raised at Ashford, just like his sire Giant and broodmare sire Thunder Gulch.   Wish I had been a fly on the wall there, since both are recently deceased now.....and what makes CC even more special. there are only 3 from Giant's final crop and he is one of them.

CC has been mismanaged, IMHO.....they were so so on going to derby, then all the equip changes.......being non lasix is not even part of the equation at all. 
 

Off topic, I was thinking today that the "marketers" have made data the product, and when I go to the track in person (about 3x a week) so few people seem to even look at a horse....they have their nose buried in *data* instead.  Others are buried in their number systems ......one thing I will say about Randy Moss is he grew up hanging off the back fences over in the Trivista neigborhood behind Oaklawn, kids would ride their bikes back there and hang off the fences and watch the horses every day......that guy can phsycially handicap horses. I trust his eye.    It was either him or davidowitz who told about how Andy Beyer had zero physicality handicapping skills.......zero.   That didn't surprise me, actually.   

At any rate, it will be refreshing to someday see less of that stupid meme "first time lasix" that is on tip of tongue of handicappers, like it's an "angle" of some sort......a meme I am tired of hearing for sure, and hope the whole sentence is someday banished from the language of handicapping in the U.S.   We already know lasix injected horses take longer to recuperate from races.  Why would ANY racing fan, who actually cares about horses, even want this for our sport is just beyond me.   Great Champions run the world over w/out it.   It's not necessary and heavy bleeders need to be ruled off the racecourses if conservative treatment doesn't work.  

Wintertrian said:

Great Champions run the world over w/out it.   It's not necessary and heavy bleeders need to be ruled off the racecourses if conservative treatment doesn't work.  

We definitely do things back-asswords here.    Australia rules off bleeders, as they should... then those horses are shipped to America to race here on Lasix.  Germany disqualifies from its stud book any horse that ran on race day meds (so those horses end up going into stud/broodmare duty here).  And so on. 

When you said "U.S. racing is kinda sad", you're all but setting me up for my rant on rewarding lazy breeding.  We no longer breed for "the winning post of the Epsom Derby" as Federico Tesio famously described the reason for the breed.  Nope, we breed for the Breeders' Cup Juvenile, or even worse, breed for juvenile sprints at Saratoga, and then we wonder why the horses are slow come Triple Crown season.   We breed for 2-year-old racing (or worse, 2-year-olds-in-training sales - gotta see those bullet 1/8 mile works...) and then hope they are still good at 3 onward.   The fact that "Future Stars Friday" became a thing speaks volumes about what's wrong with our sport.  Does British Champions Day (which is pretty much their answer to the BC) have 2-year-old races?  More importantly, does the BC have a  race for stayers (2+ miles)?

I will say banning Lasix from graded stakes was a great first step but doesn't go far enough.

Wintertrian said:

We can't even do it with stakes races, which puts us how many DECADES behind the rest of the world?   LOL 

We have to start somewhere and then move quick. It is essential to save racing here IMHO. Have a regulatory person across all jurisdictions would move it along even faster. The fractured approach will just slowly kill it. Whether its a track owner committee for the 10 or so big tracks or what. All I know NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA all have somewhere where owners gather and discuss.