Correction on Saturday’s Breeeders’ Cup Power Page —  in Race #6…   The correct PPN for JOHN SCOTT  is 79.00.  Please note this correction…

The Breeders’ Cup was loaded with exciting races and some upside down results.  I’m not sure which was more surprising, Hightail the maiden winning the opening Juvy Sprint or seeing Royal Delta out on a comfortable lead with Questing and Awesome Feathers NOT!   I personally thought that Awesome Feather was going to continue the Chad Brown promenade through the best horses in the world and win with a flourish.  Not to be.  Royal Delta shows herself to be a really great filly with plenty of talent, she’s dangerous from off the pace and she’s maybe double dangerous on the lead.

The Power Page did only one thing really well — it showed how closely competitive most of the races were, especially from the 6th on to the last.  I thought the main track was a bit early speed favoring and the Turf course seemed to favor come-from-behind types.  Not saying a speed horses couldn’t have manage to win, but Marketing Mix attended the pace and remained to the finish, getting a place finish.  Out of the 3 grass races, 8 of 9 placing horses came from behind although it should be noted that the 8th race had very slow fraction for this class which did help Marketing Mix to stick around.  By the way, I loved Lady of Shamrock in that race, she finished 5th at 10/1 and was making up some ground late, but really started from too far back in a this slow-paced affair…  This leads me to ask, what the ^%)*^)^W$R was In Lingerie doing she should have been trying to make the lead and get comfortable on the front!  She certainly wasn’t going to out close this class of filly in her first attempt on the turf.   Judging from this race and the poor showing of others, I have to wonder what’s going on with Todd Pletcher.  He’s no Richard Mandella, that for certain.

One other point from the seminar that I think really rings out as true,  these lightly raced colts and fillies  that run one or two very fast races and get bet like the second coming of Secretariat, burn more money than %$#%$#&#…  So while everyone who had a chance to beat Merit Man scratched, Merit Man was still beatable, simply because he wasn’t seasoned enough…  One other thing to mention, the number of young horses who ran their lifetime best efforts, then shipped across the country to  Santa Anita, for the most part, got their butts kicked, the exception was Flotilla, who was sensational…

More comments and opinions to follow over the next few days, so keep coming back…Thanks, Jerry

PS… I should say out loud, that my personal handicapping of Friday was not sharp.  I expect to get better runs on Saturday!