Don’t Crown Barbaro Yet
Sounds like the giddiness that followed Barbaro’s Derby victory and had sensible people everywhere all but conceding the colt the Triple Crown is fading:
“Frankly, I’ve seen better horses than Barbaro travel this road and fail in the attempt to collect the Triple Crown’s famous jewels … As good as he is, Barbaro may not be quite as good as he appeared in Kentucky. The Kentucky Derby can be like one of those curved mirrors in the fun house at the state fair. Barbaro won by more than six lengths, but he probably wasn’t six lengths better than any other 3-year-old that day.” – Gary West
“He simply enjoyed the most perfect of trips: He never hit a bump, never caught a red light, never had to hit the breaks to avoid so much as a twig in his path. Cruising a few lengths behind two speedsters with small tanks, he inherited the lead when they ran out of gas, and then he charged home. Barbaro ran significantly faster in Louisville than he has in his brief career, and therein lies the rub: he might have run too fast. Counter-intuitive? Can a horse be compromised by running too fast? The answer has been proven time and time again: yes.” – Bob Neumeier
“Barbaro is a very good horse and his Kentucky Derby win was indeed tremendous. But nothing is a foregone conclusion, not the Preakness and certainly not the Triple Crown. This is a horse who still has several major obstacles to overcome before he justifies the overwhelming hype that seems to grow larger by the day. In fact, he is a ‘bet against’ in the Preakness …” – Bill Finley
“If you truly believe that Barbaro is all but a slam-dunk in the Preakness, then go ahead and key him in the top slot in the exotics and try to add betting value with the horses you link him with in those bets. But before you commit to that strategy, you have a few issues to ponder.” – Steve Klein
