In the aftermath of this past weekend, we saw three clear things we all should be aware of.

1) American Pharoah is the real deal, the first truly great 3 year old colt since the great Affirmed / Alydar.

2) Bob Baffert is an amazing trainer.  His horses run beautifully, no matter the track, no matter the circumstance – with Baffert it’s not a maybe, but a near certainty that his horses are presented properly.  The bigger the stage the better the run!

3) Todd Pletcher is not a very good trainer on these big stages.  He gets the great horses, but they fail miserably year after year — for the most part.  A few that come to mind that fell apart before or during the Triple Crown  Eskendreya, Versailles, Constitution and now we can add Materiality and even Madefromlucky.  He isn’t totally hopeless, I do remember that TP won with Super Saver and had 2nds with Invisible Ink and Bluegrass Cat.  Maybe I am missing another good run here and there.  But I can assure you that he’s failed with many more that I have not mentioned here… That’s because I just came off the beach and maybe got too much sun!

Every year since the late 90’s he seems to have 3 or 4 big horses — that’s something like 50 top notch 3 year olds — and the 1 win and 2 2nds that I can think of seems pretty slim.

Now let’s compare briefly to Bob Baffert who has had 1 or 2 horses in the past 20 years but several good ones that just don’t make it.  So mayabe we are talking about 60 or 70 horses over a slightly longer period …  So here is what comes to mind Cavonnier (2), Secret Charm (1), Real Quiet (1) War Emblem (1), and now American Pharoah…

IF we talk, the Preakness, it’s just a silly bitch slap…

And while Todd Pletcher has had a little more success in the Belmont… He still doesn’t quite match up to Baffert there and Belmont is TP’s home track!

Just some thoughts while we are travelling… But you can always remember to — GET YOUR POWER PAGES….