American Pharoah, boom or bust?
Winning in the Rebel was certainly a good thing, but there is so much more to accomplish to be ready for the KD, that I doubt it’s possible! So — as far as teh Kentucky Derby is concerned for Am Pharaoah — I’d have to say , BUST. If I made crazy bets, I would almost be willing to bet American Pharoah will not even run in the Kentucky Derby. Keep in mine, that his best 2 year old race was a 79.5 and then he didn’t race until Saturday’s Rebel Stakes. So here’s what happened on Saturday, he race in a low competition race, completing the 1 16th in 1:46 +, while two races earilier, in the Razorback older colts ran 1:44 +. Now I agree with all of you who might say, he ran fast enough to win — that’s absolutely true, but it’s NOT ON POINT. To be on point, not oly does a horse have to get enough points to qualify for entry into the KD, they also have to get enough conditioning to go 1 1/4 under 126 lbs and defeat top of the line competition! ON the negative side, an old bromide is — never bet a 3 year old that hasn’t competed as fast as his two year old numbers. This makes perfect sense, because we would assume that a 3 year old is bigger, stronger and therefore faster as a 3 year old, then he was as a 2 year old. So while AM Pharaoah ran a 79.5 in his best 2 year old race, I doubt his comback race was any better than a 76.0 – I have not done an official calculation, so at the moment we could call this number — approximate. Whiel it is aproximate, it’s certainly not off by that much. So here is my take at this time… American Pharoah, has not faced top nothc competition in 6 months, he has not carried stakes weight in 6 months and he has only 48 days to become fit enough to carry more weight, go farther and against much better. So if he runs fast enough to compete in his next race, he’s really highly likely to “bounce” in the KD… If he doesn’t do more in his next out, he will never have the right conditioning…. At this time — he is a Bust — at least that’s how I would play this one…