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
Posted by JC in Triple Crown on 05/17/2006 @ 4:00 pm / Follow @railbird on Twitter
– The list of Preakness probables has grown to nine, now that trainer Steve Klesaris has decided to enter allowance winner Diabolical, and two other longshots — Greeley’s Legacy and Platinum Couple — are also expected to enter. “I think he has the ability to compete,” said trainer George Weaver of Greeley’s Legacy, who finished fourth in the Gotham. “If I can get back to his Gotham race, I think we can be right in the thick of things. That’s what it boils down to. I think he fits, the timing is right and the horse is right.”
– One horse that won’t start is Ah Day. Trainer King Leatherbury decided the $100,000 it would take to supplement the Federico Tesio winner into the race was too much. “I wasn’t going to put it up,” said Leatherbury. “I was working on a deal with someone else whereby they would put up the $100,000 and we would split any purse money the horse earned. We couldn’t make it work out.”
– Bernardini turned in his final workout for the Preakness this morning at Belmont, going five furlongs in 1:01.3 over the muddy main track.
– Post positions will be drawn for the Preakness today, and ESPN will televise the event starting at 5 p.m. Andrew Beyer asks trainers to consider inside posts at today’s draw, while Mike Watchmaker dispels a couple of myths about the Pimlico track: “The turns at Pimlico are almost identical to the ones at Churchill Downs … As for the Preakness favoring speed horses, that’s baloney, too.”
Posted by JC in Triple Crown on 05/17/2006 @ 2:30 pm / Follow @railbird on Twitter
“We’re moving toward becoming a handle-driven track rather than an attendance-driven one,” said outgoing Gulfstream president Scott Savin, contrasting the current mindset with the pre-construction period when free weekend concerts drew crowds of nearly 30,000. “We think you’re better off taking good care of 12,000 people rather than struggling to deal with 25,000.”
Posted by JC in Track Notes on 05/16/2006 @ 2:30 pm / Follow @railbird on Twitter
