5/26/2011

I have been asked numerous times who I would like better in The Belmont, Shackleford or Animal Kingdom.   And WHY!   I’m not really ready to answer the question, I need time to relax and recover before I get back to making decisions on these two horses.  But this much I can say with some degree of certainty; Shackleford ran forwardly in the Preakness and Animal Kingdom ran a backward race.   On that analysis alone, I would back Shackleford.   But in fairness to full disclosure, Shack has run 3 hard races in a row, and we now have seen the level this horse is at right now and going 1 1/2 miles in The Belmont, he is definately vulnerable to another horse that is more suited to distance racing…  Animal Kingdom certainly could recover from his off race in the Preakness, in fact he is likely to race better, but I don’ t think his best is such a big deal anyway.   I definately think if the bias was reversed in the KD, Shack would have matched strides down the stretch with AK and it would have been close.   The other horses in the Preakness are not interesting to me at all, even the shoeless one…

New shooters should put their racing shoes on, because it’s their Belmont to win, but if it’s Shack and AK against the same gouup, then I would likely back Shack, based upon my sense of things RIGHT NOW.  More later, remember, I could change my mind!