One way I could see him losing is Materiality gets out early and AP uses too much energy staying with him too early.

It's certainly idiotic to say "no chance he will win belmont."

There is always a chance when you have the best horse.

But he will be the only horse that will run in all three races and will have at least 10 pretty good horses trying everything to take him down.

If Espinoza tries to save horse, like he did last year with Chrome, AP is in trouble. Let him run and let the chips fall where they may.

This is what we witness year in and year out.....The horse (American Pharaoh wins the first 2 races But at Belmont where the track is the biggest track lol and then the horse is in the running but then gets tired out because it would be his 3rd race in what 6 weeks?

That's a lot to ask for out of he young horse. As much as I want to see the triple crowned I think this year is a year where there's a great chance of it happening since there isn't another horse in the running that is even in the same league as American Pharaoh.

But I just don't see it happening. Even though as a Long Island boy grown up here close to Elmont and Belmont Stakes is close by I would love to see a Triple Crown. But I just don't think it will ever happen especially if it don't happen this year.

Lets go American Pharaoh!!!

meh.... as nasty as this crop of three YO hogs is, there is definately a chance that he can do it.

but AP is fundamentally a speed horse. I don't think he can rate 6 lengths off the lead. And if he hooks up with any kind of speed in the Belmont, a freaking NW2 could come off the pace and crush him with ease.

And there is no way that the other trainers want to see Baffert claim a triple crown, so there will be some sandbaggers entering the gate the day of the Belmont.

So even though he is a legit 3/5 fave, I am going to bet against him. Anything that is 7:1 or longer and comes out of the clouds, or has some legit turf breeding in him will be good enough for me. The only thing this hog has going for him is the mediocrity of his competition so far.

You may be right. But you just never know. Secretariat came out running last in the Derby as was his style. People thought it was crazy letting him move on Sham as early as he did in the Belmont. Moments later that thought evaporated as Secretariat pulled away, "moving like a tremendous machine".

It had been 25 years since Citation won the triple crown in 1948 when Secretariat won it in 1973 and there was talk at that time about how it might never be done again. We knew Secretariat was special when he broke the Derby record. If he has it, American Pharoah's greatness has yet to be revealed. But the opportunity is there for him at the Belmont.






PairTheBoard

Without the gate injury I believe Chrome would have gotten the job done last year.

Many triple crown contenders seem to get bad rides in the Belmont, including guys like Gary Stevens on Real Quiet. This is Espinoza's 3rd try and barring injury I think he gets the job done. If the track comes up wet AP probably goes off 1-5 and wins easily.

Chrome wins with a good ride. Should have never given up the lead.

This post is full of a lot of dumb.

APay well not get the distance. But this crop isn't bad. And lol at a typical NW2
Beating him. Zero shot he is 6 off the lead barring a terrible ride. He should be on the engine or pressing for sure.

(It's American Pharaohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaaa!)

lol Secretariat running against 3 horses

Pretty sure there were 4 others.

Sham was a pretty good horse. Had it not been for Secretariat that year it would have been Sham going for the triple crown at the Belmont. As it was, Secretariat beat not only the other horses running that day but every horse in the world who has ever run the mile and a half on dirt before or since.

Wiki -
The 1973 Belmont Stakes and Triple Crown winner Secretariat holds the mile and a half stakes record (which is also a track and world record on dirt) of 2:24
-----------------------



PairTheBoard

Sham almost certainly wins the Triple Crown any other year, his great misfortune to be born the wrong year as his time in the Derby would have won any other year. He was a cousin to Secretariat and shared the big heart gene passed by their damsire (mothers' father) Princequillo. The vet that did his necropsy estimated his heart at 18lbs, more than twice the size of the normal thoroughbred's but still a full 3lbs smaller than Big Red's.

What I don't understand is why they haven't bred that gene into every thoroughbred racing by now. Seems like with dna testing they should be able to identify every horse that has it.


PairTheBoard

AP supposedly caries the large heart gene: http://www.horseracingnation.com/blo...e_X_Factor_123

I'm sure if you asked the Zayat's and Baffert if they wanted the exact same track Secretariat ran on, they would take it in the heartbeat. Belmont has never been that hard before or since.

That seems to me like an eye opening high percentage of Derby winners with the large heart gene.

If I understand it right, you could set up a breeding farm that fixes that gene in the population. If you did nothing but breed single-gene males with double-gene females you'd always get fouls that are either single-gene males or double-gene females. You wouldn't have to restrict the gene pool either because you could bring in non-gene males from all blood lines and breed them with double-gene females. The male fouls would always be single-gene and you just remove all the single-gene female fouls from the breeding program. Or you could breed them with single-gene males and remove half the fouls that are non-gene.

Eventually, you'd get a bloodline rich breeding farm with nothing with single-gene males and double-gene females. At that point you've got the gene fixed in the gene pool. I'd think someone would have set up a breeding program like this by now.

Of course, the horses also need good running characteristics. But it seems clear that the large heart gives them a big advantage at distance if they can also run.


PairTheBoard

I read a book a long time ago called The X Factor(I think) that was one of the first to talk about the large heart gene. Maybe check it out if you're interested

I hadn't heard that before. Evidently the hard track didn't help Sham or the other horses much that day.


PairTheBoard

Thanks,


PairTheBoard

Tracks were much faster then than now. Comparing times across eras is dubious at best.

AP has a very good shot but if Frosted runs he will be a definite threat. I think AP just needs to run his race and he should be fine.

BTW, the race Secretariat ran in the Belmont is still the most stunning performance I have ever seen.

Incredible.

You can really only argue the track being fast if Secretariat was a cheap claiming horse that ran the race of a lifetime.

I think the quality of horses in general has dropped,more than the way the tracks are maintained.

There's evidently some difference of opinion on that.

ESPN Article:
http://espn.go.com/horse/columns/misc/1923297.html
--------------------------
Jerry Brown -
"The overall point is that horses are just getting better," he says. "One of the reasons people don't recognize that is that racetracks are getting slower. When the horses of the seventies were running, the cushion at Belmont was three inches. The cushion there is now four inches. To give you an idea of what that means, there was only one day in 2003 at Belmont when the cushion was 3 ½ inches and that was the day when (the moderately talented) Najran ran the 1:32 1/5 mile (when winning the Westchester Handicap) mile. The other difference is that in order to get tracks to dry out faster they've gone to a higher sand content. When sand is dry, it creates a slower track."
...........

At least one well informed source begs to differ. Butch Lehr, the track superintendent at Churchill Downs, who has been employed there for 38 years, says that the Churchill strip is no different than it was when he started.

"As far as making tracks deeper now as compared to 20 years ago, I don't necessarily believe that," Lehr said. "If anything, it's the opposite. I've been here a long time and, at Churchill, we haven't done anything to change the track."

It's also notable that the popular Beyer figures published in the Daily Racing Form don't seem to reflect any significant changes in the speed of the modern race horse as compared to their contemporaries from 15 or 20 years ago.

Still another opinion comes from Richard Sowers, who researched the subject while writing his recently released book "The Abstract Primer of Thoroughbred Racing." Sowers has found that sprinters are getting faster, while routers are not. He notes that the five fastest winning times since 1946 in stakes races run at six furlongs have all been recorded since 1999. By contrast, there have been 11 1 1/4-mile stakes races won in 1:58 3/5 or faster since 1946. Only one has been within the last 14 years, the 1991 Suburban won by In Excess.

"Horses are getting faster at shorter distances but not longer distances," he said. "The reason is that everybody is breeding for speed, rather than stamina. They've cut the distance of so many important races. The Belmont is the last mile-and-a-half Grade I race in the country on dirt. I don't know how it happened, but a mile and an eighth has become the classic distance."

So, are horses any faster now than they used to be? It depends, apparently, on who you ask
---------------------------------------


It's all news to me.


PairTheBoard

Prove Out won 1973 Woodward 2:25 4/5 for 1 1/2 miles, sloppy track. Beat Big Red by 4 1/2 lengths in the process.

I would like to see any horse before or since equal that.

IIRC 3 track records were equaled or broken that day.