For the moment we will divert all discussion to the San Felipe and The Tampa Bay Derby.  These are two major prep races seem to me as important as any others as they distinctly set foundation levels for a number of horses that need to step up for true Derby contention and  for the more developed types these two races are true building blocks to the KD…   Obviously, the 2 most important to step up are Verrazano and Flashback if you look at most of the KD contenders list.  But truthfully, none of  the racers have doen enough at this point to deserve a spot in the KS and only Verrazano has an actual race that stamps hims as Kentucky Derby capable.    so even a fine looking young horse such as Flashback (who is on my top 6 contenders list) still have to move forward and prove there merit as well as there development.  You see even if they have the class, if they haven’t developed fast enough, the KD grind will only hurt them, so these races are really important.

Now for the good stuff, there are probably a number of “un-hearlded” runners who could step up here and become legit KD contenders.  It seems to me that’s pretty much what happened last year.  Two of the ones that will have my attention at Santa Anita are  Salutos Amigos and Omega Star (in no particular order)  – while over at Tampa Bay a horse like Java War is really intriguing, especially with the TURF conditioning at 2 years old which isn’t a bad sign for a a KD contender…

We will see if the order changes in my top 6…