American Pharoah wins again in brilliant fashion!

Am Pharoah is a really – really – really good horse and maybe even a great horse.  However, I can’t help but feel the Preakness Picture was muddied up by the torrential rains that fell, just a few minutes before the Preakness was loaded and sent off.  Certainly, Am Pharoah was great – he broke a little sideways, but responded to the urging of Victor Espinoza and he ran with some real brilliance to manage the entire field without any moment of discomfort – enve though he wasn’t running in his preferred fashion.  He did what all his fans must have wanted, he went to the lead and improved his position from there!

Firing Line didn’t break properly and started to pull himself up immediately, even though G. Stevens attempted to get him to run, to my eye, Firing Line simply would not run on the sealed – sloppy track.  Dortmund was a bit different, he tried to run, but ran as if his best effort was left a month ago.  To my eye, as great a job as Bob Baffert did with American Pharoah, he did not do his best work with Dortmund.  Horse’s even fool great trainers.  This is not a knock on B. Baffert, just a statement on how difficult training great race horses is, and he certainly is one of the best since I started following horse racing in the late 1970’s.

Divining Rod ran about the as expected, he made a nice run on the rail, caught up to the front and then started to go sideways in the stretch and was beaten by Tale of Verve who was clearly “much the 2nd best” and more likely to continue to improve at longer distances.  Nice effort for Tale of Verve….  Divining Rod looks like a nice miler to me…

Congrats to all connected with American Pharoah!

The Preakness Power Page is part of both the New York/ Belmont Power Page and the So. Cal./Santa Anita Power Page.  There is no additional charge!  At the Jerry J’s Power Page, we celebrate big races together.  So if you an new to our ways –  just purchase the normal Power Page for the track you like to play and the Preakness will be page #2…

In the previous blogs, I featured the Dortmund and Divining Rod, two horses that present handicapping problems.  In the case of Divining Rod, the answer was quite simple.  While in the case of Dortmund, it’s simply NOT SIMPLE.  But that is exactly how horse racing is as a sport, we accept risk to gain reward in sometimes backing a horse that is a big MAYBE against a horse that is Strong Definite.  So if anyone wants to bet on the MAYBE, just be sure you like the price.

Now that we have restated Dortmund and Divining Rod, we should take a moment to discuss American Pharoah and Firing Line.   This is really more simple that it looks, American Pharoah is set up to run a NEW BEST EFFORT and is highly likely to do so.  Firing Line is more likely to run to about his best effort or a little less and that would leave him short of Am Pharoah’s expected top race.  Not that we have talked a little general theory, the reality of what will happen on the track does not always conform and there are a few variables that need to be considered.  Am Pharoah has a particularly poor post, not as bad as the #1 post at Churchill Downs in the Kentucky Derby, but it’s still a disadvantage, probably about 1 lenght compared to Firing Line, if Firing Line doesn’t get parked too wide into the first turn.  By the looks of things, Firing Line should get decent position without losing much ground, that should work well to his natural advantage afforded him by being out near the crown of the track for the run into the first turn.  It’s just the simple mechanics of horse racing…   Also, Firing Line has not been changing his leads properly, and if he decides to do so tomorrow, we might see a little better finish from him than we have seen in the past…  So while at equal odds, I might be a strong backer of Am Pharoah, I might be willing to back Firing Line or even Dortmund if there is a reasonable overlay to be had…   But it’s fair to say, the most likely winner — in my opinion — is American Pharoah…  Get your Power Page, and then make your own decisions.