some questions about the breeders cup

[Songofthesword]

1. if battle plan, does not get injured in the stretch of the SF, does blame catch him? blame could be a super star, or the luckiest sob on the planet running into an injured battle plan, and running into a quality road who hates saratoga. or he could just be that good.


2. when is the last time blind luck ran into some honest fractions, that she will undoubtedly get in the distaff?


3. what is the projected turf rating for friday and saturday? I don't like goldy as much on a soft or yielding turf course.

[Allspice]

1. if battle plan, does not get injured in the stretch of the SF, does blame catch him? blame could be a super star, or the luckiest sob on the planet running into an injured battle plan, and running into a quality road who hates saratoga. or he could just be that good.


2. when is the last time blind luck ran into some honest fractions, that she will undoubtedly get in the distaff?


3. what is the projected turf rating for friday and saturday? I don't like goldy as much on a soft or yielding turf course.

I don't think Quality Road hates Saratoga. In addition to winning the Woodward there this year, he equaled a track record there last year.

[Railbird]

He doesn't hate Saratoga. Gulfstream is his favorite track by far. But he handles Saratoga very, very well. When I think of a horse hating a racetrack, I think of Skip Away at Churchill.

[Allspice]

He doesn't hate Saratoga. Gulfstream is his favorite track by far. But he handles Saratoga very, very well. When I think of a horse hating a racetrack, I think of Skip Away at Churchill.

Yeah, me too. Skippy really hated Churchill.

[Songofthesword]

He doesn't hate Saratoga. Gulfstream is his favorite track by far. But he handles Saratoga very, very well. When I think of a horse hating a racetrack, I think of Skip Away at Churchill.

he handled it well going 1 turn but that's a tiring track and 2 turns on the spa for a horse with that type of speed, i'm willing to forgive under the right circumstances.

of course, he's a world class horse, he can "handle" anything. i worded it wrong, my apologiez. but the worse 3 races of his career were going 2 turns at spa. ignore that, at your own risk.


here is my scenario. imho it's a 3 horse race between z, quality road and blame. i'm not going to wager on Z, so it's going to be a 2 horse choice for me.

so i'm asking myself, is blame really that good, or did he catch an injured horse in battle plan and catch a speed horse getting tired on a tiring track.


But alot of it hinges on what we think about battle plan, seemingly a forgotten horse. he had that race in the bag in the stretch and blame jsut gobbled him up. in fact, that looked lot like a 9F JCGC with the fractions and all, battle plan had given the field the slipo and couldn't hold on.


and then, everyone says well he's (quality road) loves gulfstream, he could very well lover churchil too. we don't know. on BCC day, the track is going to play more like gulfstream than saratoga

[Allspice]

^ I think Blame is just that good. Quality Road won the Woodward next out, so I don't think the track was to blame (ha! lol) in the Whitney.

[Railbird]

but the worse 3 races of his career were going 2 turns at spa. ignore that, at your own risk.

How do you figure those were his worst three races? In the Travers, he was making his second start off a long layoff, his first start routing off the layoff, and he caught a muddy track - which he proved in the Gold Cup he didn't care for either. He gave a creditable effort under the circumstances. In the Whitney, I don't think he lost that race so much as Blame won it. They both ran winning races, and the margin was a nostril. If you ran the race again, maybe it goes the other way. He won the Woodward the way he should have, as the favorite against a soft field. Very easily. He ran a slow time, but the track was very, very deep (we were all struggling over it to get to the rail of the turf course for another race) and was yielding slow times all day. None of those was a bad race.

I don't know that I can point at one of Quality Road's performances and say, "there. he didn't run his race." Looking at his record, he's remarkably consistent - even though the competition in some of the races is a little suspect. He's always run his race. I think he'll run his race in the Classic. That being said - I have never felt he's a mile and a quarter horse. I think he is CLASSY enough where he won't just spit the bit at the eighth pole - his heart and class could very well get him a piece of it. I just don't see him winning.

[Songofthesword]

^ I think Blame is just that good. Quality Road won the Woodward next out, so I don't think the track was to blame (ha! lol) in the Whitney.

while i understand this logic. he beat absolutely no one in the woodward worth mentioning. I don't consider it a key race. The stephen foster was a very good race as was the whitney ovbiously and the jcgc.

the donn, woodward, suburban are pretty much tosses imho when trying to figure this thing out. they didn't tell us anything we didn't already know. qualtiy road is much better than mtb, iwr is not that good of a 4YO, etc

[Kennedy]

1. if battle plan, does not get injured in the stretch of the SF, does blame catch him? blame could be a super star, or the luckiest sob on the planet running into an injured battle plan, and running into a quality road who hates saratoga. or he could just be that good.

I'm not so sure that Quality Road hates Saratoga or that he loves Gulfstream. My thought is that Belmont is his best track but he's really run well everywhere he's gone. As for Blame I think he lives the life of a quality closer. Sometimes things work out and he gets up, other times things don't work out and he can't close the ground. He always puts in a good effort but sometimes the pace is just against him. It has always been this difficult for closers to win consistently Zenyatta is a freak.

2. when is the last time blind luck ran into some honest fractions, that she will undoubtedly get in the distaff?

I thought she had good paces to chase in the Fantasy and Cotillion. I'm also not sure where you see this good pace guarantee for the Distaff. Malibu Prayer, Life at Ten and Unrivaled Belle will decide the pace between them and none of them are bent on the lead or even particularly fast. My thought is that Malibu Prayer will cut out a sensible gallop. I'd be shocked if the pace was fast.

3. what is the projected turf rating for friday and saturday? I don't like goldy as much on a soft or yielding turf course.

Remember that soft here is different from soft over there. She'll handle the course with ease even with a little softening. Longchamp was horrendous for her last start but she still looked fine and had enough to beat Paco Boy.

[Kennedy]

while i understand this logic. he beat absolutely no one in the woodward worth mentioning. I don't consider it a key race. The stephen foster was a very good race as was the whitney ovbiously and the jcgc.

Not all Classic winners need to be coming out of a key race. Zenyatta prepped in a soft spot as did Awesome Again, Ghostzapper, Skip Away, Cat Thief, Volponi, Pleasantly Perfect and Saint Liam. None of these guys faced really tough Classic level horses in their final prep even if they did run in G-1 events.