London Bridge is Falling Down

Dear Self,

Do not ever, ever pick a Bernardini colt actually 2 Bernardini colts to go 1-2 in a Grade 1 race. Especially when there is a horse whose dam and granddam are named after the main character in My Fair Lady won.

Love,
Self

If you listend to The TB Gallop last week I said that To Honor and Serve and Stay Thirsty where going to go 1-2 and that the allowance race Dialed In had was going to hurt, not help him. Boy was I wrong, he closed nicely over Shackleford and To Honor and Serve to win the Florida Derby. Lots of people are throwing this race out because Dialed In did not has a fast closing quarter of a mile, and really none of the horses who where supposed to challenge him did. However, he did closing over a speed favoring track. Why is this important? Churchill tends to be a bit on the front end side, however Derby day it does play more fair.

In the past 5 Derbys, 2 have come from far back (Mine That Bird and Street Sense), and three stalking (Big Brown, Barbaro and Super Saver). The some other good news for Dialed In is that 2 of those Derby winners their final prep was a win in the Florida Derby. The question is, did he peak too early? We'll find out on May 7th.

As for the other runners, I was really impressed by Shackleford who is a half to Lady Joanne, To Honor and Serve ran a good race, but he needed a great one to not be considered a longshot. The rest of the field, meh.

I don't think we saw the Derby winner from this race, in matter of fact while I do think the Derby winner will be running this upcoming weekend, I'm not all that convinced it's you know who. Of course that could change if a perticler colt has a good race next week.

As for the fillies, as impressive R Heat Lightning's win was, I do think the Oaks winner won't be her. Sure she has a 2nd place finish at Churchill in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies, but just because you did well there, doesn't mean you'll do then doesn't mean you'll do well as a 3yo. The good news is that she does have a mile and eighth win, and none of the other contenders will have gone that far. Then there is the bad news, and this isn't good. No Gulfstream Oaks/Bonnie Miss winner has gone on to take the Lillies since 1993 when Dispute won.

That's the beauty of horse racing though anything can happen.