Last week at Fair Grounds we say a very dull race, either the ALL the colts hated the track or the ALL the colts who participated are not very good.  While at Gulfstream Park we saw a very good, competitive race with a solid hard fought finish, clearly a much better group.  However, I can’t help but feel we have many questions about the colts involved on a few different issues.  Constitution is so lightly races and he had the proverbial perfect trip getting through on the rail, while he did run well, he wasn’t asked to make up one step of extra.   In almost every race, a horse has to “make up at least one-sep-of extra”!  Combining these two “flaws” makes me wonder out loud if this colt could possibly be ready on the First Saturday in May.  The next question has to be whether or not Wildcat Heir and General A Rod want to go a step past 1 1/8 mile.  It looks like they are stretched even to that distance and Cairo Prince is just hard to imagine what his problem is — maybe just one bad race and we should throw it out.

So starting on Saturday night we can start comparing the runners in both the Wood Memorial and the Santa Anita Derby and even The Bay Shore to Constitution.  Of course everyone want to have an opinion on Social Inclusion, he’s already been compared to Seattle Slew but to me, he is more akin (at this point ) to Le Prince and all the other “fastest horses since the great Seattle Slew” that are short on seasoning as they begin to take on the best of their division.  The very thing that could make these horses great is the thing that brings them down.  Their own incredible speed is what ultimately makes the pounding they take – stride after stride – that seems to make them infirm.   That’s the only explanation I can come up with, that the best of our sport, just simply don’t stand up to the rigors of racing.  When I first became a fan of horse racing, the best sire wasn’t Bold Ruler, it was Raise a Native.  Raise A Native only race a few times – undefeated — and then was sent off to breed.   I never did see Raise A Native race, but I have seen hundreds like him that are blinding fast and they don’t even make it to the KD…

Social Inclusions two races are jaw dropping on the visuals, but when you look at his 2nd race, he stretched out very nicely, but the race was a little slow easy and it allowed him to just get into his own rhythm, this is of course very good, especially if he could have another race or two to progress before he has to really do battle.  And he will have to do battle if Samaraat shows up for real and Uncle Sigh and even Kristo.  These are not simply good hard hitting colts, they are very talented and have a great advantage in seasoning.   When you look at the Power Page ranking, please don’t be mad at me that Social Inclusion is not the top rated horse, he hasn’t run as fast as Samaraat and Samaraat has taken the overland route and suffered the hard trips, which seem to be within his grasp of handling.  On someones tout sheet then can imagine who is the fastest, but on the Power Page we know how fast each horse has run and then I make the same – cool – analysis.  Horse who have only run twine, who have just run a lifetime top that is beyond the norm for their class are NEVER given a forward number, but in the case I did assign Social Inclusion the exact number he ran in his last race.  This is the highest number I have ever assigned to a horse that has only race twice in his life.   And I must opine out loud, that for me, at 2/1 he is a huge underlay…

The Santa Anita Derby is without a doubt a fab race with some really talented colts.  Hopportunity is really interesting, he hated The Fair Grounds (I guess) in his trip there, but everyone of his other efforts are stellar and Candy Boy has really stepped up and probably fits with this one and of course the really fast California – California Chrome who has run the fastest race of any colt in the country this year – for real.  CC has got to be the legit favorite, especially if Santa Anita is speed favoring – he just loveses this oval and he doesn’t need the lead.  Tactically, he has everyone over a barrel, but tactics only win races when both horses are equal, if one of these is growing up into the best horse, he should be able to handle the difficulties…  This leads we to opine one more comment, a bonus for anyone who took the time to read to the end of this article.  I think a great “proposition play” is to box California Chrome, Hopportunity and Candy Boy – because to me they are the only 3 horses in the race that count.  Here is a chance to play the race, maybe earn as much as 2/1 and not worry who actually wins…  I might take a single unit to make that play…