The weekend of the 3 Big Preps…

The Wood Memorial, The Toyota Bluegrass and The Santa Anita Derby make this one of the most important racing days of the year.  And will settle numerous handicapping questions, such as

1. Can Blended Citizen continue to show good form on a Classic Dirt Track.
2. Can Bolt d’Oro run back to and thru his 2-year old figure.
3. Can the freaky fast, Justify, take the next step to rendering Apollo a footnote in the past…
4. Can Enticed continue to move forward and can Restoring Hope restore the hope that many had for him before he started to race!
5. Can Good Magic wave his wand through the stretch in Keeneland and make people forget about Audible, Bolt d’Oro, Mendelssohn, Blended Citizen and all the rest of this seasons fantastic colts!

Mendelssohn runs a 78.0 on JJ’s Fabulous Figs!

I was finally able to complete and certify the figs for Mendelssohn’s fantastic win in Dubai.  As the headline says, it was a 78.0.  Still a notch below others, but we are concerned about the direction of his form… he might well be getting better at the right time…

Just a comment on making the numbers for such a race… it’s really difficult, because all the other horses represent NO DATA for comparison.  And I do not keep pars for the Meydan Racing… and they really don’t have a class structure…  Also, all the distances are “About Distance” because their races are measured in Meters, not Yards…  This is meaningful…   But with horses like Thunder Snow, West Coast and several other horses I have in my databases, it is done and the number is correct.  This is a big figure and I will be discussing it in my Gaming Today article that will be published this upcoming Tuesday!

And finally, updates to this site will have to wait a couple more days…

We are back on the Turf at Aqueduct, this is always exciting and upgrades the card significantly.  Tomorrow’s card has two 6 furlong Sprints, which is my favorite distance for Turf Sprints.

ON Saturday, all purchases will get a complementary for the Big Three… The Bluegrass, The Santa Anita Derby and The Wood Memorial.

I believe the two Derby’s of greatest importance are The Bluegrass and the Santa Anita Derby, the Wood seems to be lagging behind again in talent, I wonder why…

On the Road to the Kentucky Derby:

I have completed making a number for Mendelssohn’s explosive effort in the Dubai.  I settled on a 78.0 taking into account the “about distances” which are really nothing more than a conversion form Meters to Yards… But I also take into account other important factors…  Just remember this, the number assigned to Mendlessohn is not independent of the numbers assigned to Thunder Snow, West Coast and Mubtaahij…

Speaking of Thunder Snow, he ran a 76.0 in winning the same race that Mendelssohn won last week, so it’s pretty clear that Mendelssohn is a better horse – at least at this juncture – but so is the whole class!  I have heard comments that Mendelssohn ran a faster race than any other 2-year old this year… but I DO NOT AGREE!  But the important thing to remember, it’s not how fast they ran last week, it’s how fast they will run on May 5th.  We are in the forecasting business, not in the identifying the past business as a ‘static’ idea.  We need to use the information from the past as a way to forecast going forward…

Clearly, Mendelssohn is very good and a great contender for this years KD, which is exactly the way I have viewed him form day #1, as evidenced that he has always been on our KD Contender’s list…. which will be up again tomorrow…

I am still running a little behind, so the full update will have to wait another day or two…