2014 G1 Breeders Cup Classic

[Man o Taz]

Speed bias coming through - the track is primed for Bayern or Chrome wire to wire with the 60-1 shot coming home.

Just what I feared.

[curtis]

Speed bias coming through - the track is primed for Bayern or Chrome wire to wire with the 60-1 shot coming home.

Just what I feared.

Santa Anita is always going to be speed favoring when you compare it to an Eastern track.  Whether a horse will wire the field has more to do with pace.  If you think Shared Belief is the most talented horse, I wouldn't throw him out because of the track.  I would be very surprised if Espinoza put Chrome on the lead.  I think it would take both Bayern and Moreno to have something pretty drastic happen to them early for such a scenario to transpire.

[Man o Taz]

OK.

I think Shared Belief is the most talented, but I am not totally sold that he can compete on dirt against the best dirt horses in the country.

The 14 point difference in BSFs between his Pacific Classic and his Awesome Again - even with Victor Espinosa's gamesmanship raises alarms for me.

I have been trying to find out what the time of his last work before the Pacific Classic was.

He worked 52 and change in his last work and everyone is extolling it like it was the best work of the year - to me its almost 5 seconds slower than his work before the Awesome Again. Now, it may have been a maintenance work - but the work before the Awesome Again was a sharp work...and my thinking is that the Awesome Again was the first race of the year for Shared Belief - and perhaps of his career that he was tested in. Looking at the times of his works they seem slower than past works - which makes me think the race took something out of him and I wonder about his ability to win today. He won the Awesome Again, but at what cost.

[curtis]

OK.

I think Shared Belief is the most talented, but I am not totally sold that he can compete on dirt against the best dirt horses in the country.

The 14 point difference in BSFs between his Pacific Classic and his Awesome Again - even with Victor Espinosa's gamesmanship raises alarms for me.

I have been trying to find out what the time of his last work before the Pacific Classic was.

He worked 52 and change in his last work and everyone is extolling it like it was the best work of the year - to me its almost 5 seconds slower than his work before the Awesome Again. Now, it may have been a maintenance work - but the work before the Awesome Again was a sharp work...and my thinking is that the Awesome Again was the first race of the year for Shared Belief - and perhaps of his career that he was tested in. Looking at the times of his works they seem slower than past works - which makes me think the race took something out of him and I wonder about his ability to win today. He won the Awesome Again, but at what cost.

Shared Belief's action is better on synthetic than dirt and his style of running is also more conducive to it so he'll probably never blow top horses away on dirt but he doesn't need to.  When you train a horse correctly, you give them what they need.  Shared Belief needed sharp works leading into his last two races.  The Awesome Again was a tougher race than it figured to be so Hollendorfer has backed off on his works.  I would look at the Awesome Again as a good test to teach Shared Belief how he needs to react when things don't go perfectly.  If we all saw things the same way though all of this would be very boring.  Mark Twain was right.

[Man o Taz]

Thanks for that explanation.

I like them all.

Tonalist was not on my derby list but I really like how he has matured and his trainer is all class.

VE Day is a surprise and I know his connections so if he wins - great for them.

I would like Chrome to win to redeem himself, but if Shared Belief manages to do it I'll have no regrets because I always thought he was the class of this generation since I saw him in the Cash Call.

[curtis]

I hope you had it Taz.  I keyed Bayern and Shared Belief in a trifecta and bet Bayern to win because of his odds.  I also thought they are the two most talented.

[Delamont]

I had Toast, lol.  Just a hunch.

[afleetphil]

Well of course the Bayern - Moreno speed matchup never happened due to Moreno getting bumped out of the gate. I thought Chrome was going to catch Bayern. This Bayern is quite  a horse. Wire to wire again. Great race though.

[Man o Taz]

Chrome was one race away. His tank was just about empty. If he had come back one race earlier he would have smoked Bayern and Toast at the wire. However, hindsight is always 20/20.

He definitely redeemed himself - though - in everyone's eyes and I hope this means he'll be around for another year of racing.
http://www.drf.com/news/california-chrome-redeems-himself-near-miss

I like this comment the best:

Mark15 hours ago
I am a bartender and a bar manager in a local bar in ohio. We had our halloween party last night, and college football on every t.v. The place was packed. I had the B.C. on one of the tv's, and was asked to change the channel at least ten times. I was clearly the only one in the entire place watching. Not one person in the place knew anything about the B.C. Just then, someone said, hey it's California Chrome. There was an immediate crowd of about ten or more people that gathered in front of the t.v. to watch CC. They were not watching to watch the Breeders Cup, they were watching Chrome. CC has done so much for the horse racing industry, he definitely deserves horse of the year. The Chrome connections are pure class, minus Coburn's outburst after the Belmont.
I think the Breeders Cup ruling was the correct outcome. Cant really control horses out of the gate and I have never seen a Inquiry due to the start if a race. Morally I think it was wrong, but in regards to the rules of horse racing it was right. I also think Baffert showed no class after the race in his interviews.

I just want to see him run again. This is why if he heads to the Clark Handicap we are thinking of making a weekend of it driving 12 hours both ways.

And this one second best:

Laura Roth21 hours ago
I don't know what requirements are needed for horse of the year. However I DO know that CALIFORNIA CHROME has done more for the sport of horse racing than any horse in a long time. I was there yesterday at the Breeders Cup . One out of 3 people were there to see him run. We paid upwards of $200.00 per ticket and the entire place was packed. When he came out on the track and was introduced the crowd went CRAZY!! People who never even watched horse racing were cheering for this amazing horse. All the horses who ran yesterday were beyond incredible - but he has captured the hearts and minds of America. To us he is Horse of the Year . Maybe Horse of the Decade.

TONY deserves a lot of credit for hanging with Bayern on dirt as long as he did.

I still think his turn of foot is better on synthetic, but he showed an awful lot here.

Moreno's bump did affect him. Its two races where he's been involved in incidents. I know this one wasn't his fault.

Many people (including Mike Smith) are saying that Bayern should have been taken down. I disagree. I believe the worst that happened to Shared Belief was his having to check mid-stretch after being bumped by TONY on the outside. This totally slowed his momentum and forced him to have to recover substantially. If this were a synthetic track I bet he makes up the different, but on dirt it was harder for him.

I totally believe that California Chrome redeemed himself and I hope we see him in the Clark Handicap heading back to Churchill - the site of his best victory. 

[curtis]

I think that the connections are happy with Chrome's race and do think he ran well, however, he had the best trip out there and still couldn't win.  He is the only one of the group of top four three-year-olds that might contest the Clark. Even with that, winning it would probably secure him at least champion three-year-old male.  Going forward though unless they get cute and pull a rabbit out of their hat(something I absolutely think Hollendorfer will do to aid Shared Belief) I think. Bayern is the better horse.

[Man o Taz]

So I guess you do not subscribe to the notion that California Chrome is the type of horse that takes a couple of races to get up to speed?

[curtis]

So I guess you do not subscribe to the notion that California Chrome is the type of horse that takes a couple of races to get up to speed?

I believe that California Chrome ran the best race of his life on Saturday and to expect him to move up off of that race considerably is unrealistic.  Sherman hasn't had many top horses to train but he knows how to get a horse ready.  In my opinion he didn't send out a short horse.  Chrome looked fantastic and ran to his looks running a sub 2:00 10f on a track, that though fast, wasn't the super highway it was for the last two years--in fact it is an entirely different surface.  I know the third off of a layoff angle is a good handicapping tool but Chrome wasn't really gone so long that Sherman had to start over with his training.  Now can he improve?  Sure, a little, but also remember he is the most seasoned of the top three-year-olds.  I don't believe Bayern is done improving and I think his ceiling is higher.  I also think we'll soon find out just how good Shared Belief is as he runs more on dirt.  I have to think his feet are a bit of a problem or he wouldn't be training on a surface that from here on in he'll likely rarely ever compete over.  I think that Tonalist is at a disadvantage on a very fast track.  Somewhat like Easy Goer, I think he is better around more sweeping turns as well.  Even though the Santa Anita surface is more fair than before, it still is hard to make up the kind of ground he was being asked to make up.

If Chrome came out of the race well, I'd take him to the Clark because regardless of the field, a win will wrap up Champion three-year-old male in my opinion.  As it is, there is a historical precedence as only two multiple classic winners--Riva Ridge in 1972 and Tabasco Cat in 1994--were denied the award in the Eclipse era and in both cases the circumstances were fairly exceptional--even more so than this year.  Neither of those horses won the Derby/Preakness double which of course puts a horse on stage as they are eligible to win the Triple Crown.  The last Derby/Preakness winner to be denied year end honors was Majestic Prince in 1969 and if you look at Arts and Letters' campaign you can see why.  Also, Majestic Prince never ran again after the Belmont.  Horse of the Year is a different story.  Chrome of course could still win it--especially with a win in a race such as the Clark.  Had he won Saturday, he would have been a shoe in for the award.

[Man o Taz]

I agree. I think Chrome ran the best race of  his life hands down. I just believe that he can beat Bayern at 10 furlongs. Perhaps not at 9 - but definitely 10. The last quarter was run in over 25 seconds on a speed favoring track. I think that Chrome can best that. Bayern was fading, its just that Chrome could not get to him.

TV commentator Greg Wolf said before the race that he believed that Chrome would come up short because he is the type of horse that just keeps getting better and better before each race. That he really needs a lot of work to get fit - and he thought he likely needed another race before the BC Classic to be fully fit. Jerry Bailey echoed those sentiments after the Breeders Cup. And Victor Espinosa alluded to same after the Pennsylvania Derby when he said he was empty early, and after the Breeders Cup Classic where he said that he was coming up empty and too bad he did not have at least one more race in him before the Classic.

You may be right, but I tend to agree with Wolf, Bailey and Espinosa...that taking a horse that had been racing almost non-stop since  April 2013 - 7 races as a 2 year old...10 races before the Kentucky Derby...gets a well-deserved rest after 12 races...he might have needed just one more race.

We do agree he should enter the Clark, but I will truly admire his connections if they do not send him there and let him rest on his laurels and let the voting public (at least those in the industry who can vote) decide based upon his record from January through November whether he is champion three year old. It would be interesting to see who they would choose...Bayern who bested Chrome twice with the controversial win in Classic or Chrome...who tailed off in the second half of the year, but was impressive in the Classic in defeat. Could it be another Zenyatta finish with the second runner up taking the spoils. I like one person's suggestion that Bayern should win champion three year old and Chrome HOTY.

And, as always, I do appreciate your stats and historical information regarding three year olds who had won two legs of the Triple Crown - whether or not they received the Eclipse award for champion three year old. I did not know that.

I hope you had it Taz.  I keyed Bayern and Shared Belief in a trifecta and bet Bayern to win because of his odds.  I also thought they are the two most talented.

And no I did not. By the time I heard of the surface favoring speed I was nowhere near a track to place a bet and I wasn't in the mood to open a TVG account.