Derby Prep Tests Beyers

- It’s a travel day, as the Head Chef and I head down to Longboat Key, FL for a long weekend with our younger (nice) daughters, so I’ll have to keep it fairly brief (or as much as I know how) as I struggle to wrap things up at the damn day job, yuck.

The Sam F Davis will be run at a mile and a sixteenth at Tampa tomorrow, and this one is begging for Grade 3 status for sure. Todd Pletcher’s Bluegrass Cat is expected to be the favorite; he won three in a row to close out 2005, including wins in NY in the Nashua and Remsen, the latter around two turns. This seems like yet another interesting test of the Beyer figs. The Remsen went in a slow 1:52 1/5 over a track that didn’t seem particularly sluggish, other than that race and the Demoiselle, a two-year old filly stakes contested at the same nine furlong distance that went in 1:52 4/5, and the only other two-turn race of the day. Yet Bluegrass Cat earned a Beyer of 95, just a point below what he got for the Nashua. He also took a lethargic 13 4/5 to complete the final furlong.

So I imagine the Beyer boys were ‘projecting’ here again, and I don’t think even they would object to me characterizing such projections as a guess; an educated one, to be sure, but they do go back occasionally to revise those numbers if they prove to be way off. If you look at the BRIS figures, which are “raw” speed figures, Bluegrass Cat was downgraded to a 95 in the Remsen from a 101 in the Nashua (BRIS numbers are not to be compared with Beyers, it’s a different scale); and that 95 was actually slower than his maiden win on BRIS. Now, my main question about the horse’s Beyer in the Remsen is this: how do you project a speed figure for a horse going around two turns for the first time? How can you say how fast you expected the race to go when the horse is doing something he’s never done before?

On the other hand, you have Hesanoldsalt, whose Beyers have not broken 79, even though his winning time of 1:50 2/5 in his last race was nearly two seconds faster than that of Bluegrass Cat. On BRIS, Hesanoldsalt earned a 94 for his last allowance win, which makes him quite competitive with Pletcher’s horse. So there you go. As you know if you read my Derby Top Ten, I’ll be going with Zito’s colt, and I hope the low Beyers translate into a fair price. Of course, I usually end up acknowledging the accuracy of the Beyers; but I’m hoping that after this race, the boys will have to go back and take a second look.

Don’t ignore R Loyal Man (More Than Ready), extremely impressive at shorter distances over this track, his last a seven furlong win in 1:22 2/5 in the Pasco; he tries two turns for the first time. His second dam is a half to successful sire Halo’s Image. Laptop Computer (Notebook) also stretches out; his last was a second to the impressive subsequent winner Barbican.

- More on Round Pond’s amazing comeback win from Robert Yates in the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, whose local coverage from Oaklawn is as good as anything you’ll see around the country. He reports that in recording the fastest six furlongs of the meeting, she was never asked for her best by regular rider Stewart Elliott.

- Go west, young Polytrack!

- And Sue over at Post Parade takes on Pamela Anderson, telling her that as a member of PETA, rather than boycotting the Derby she should be tackling more important issues, such as:

Organizations that allow testing of silicone implants into animals to ensure the safety for human use, or testing on animals with hair-bleaching chemicals to ensure human use, or the American Kennel Club that allows whippets to run around JFK airport without the appropriate boarding passes, or at the very least, proper leashes.

Woo-hoo, cat fight, lol!!! You tell her!!

- That’s it for today, see you next from sunny Florida!