'Rags' with hairline fracture; '08 possible

[miraja2]

Originally Posted by SentToStud

And to think Elliot and Servis were over for dinner tonight and I forgot to ask them as suggested.

I was taking Smarty himself out for our usual daily gallop today, and I asked him about it but it doesn't seem like he enjoys talking about that race.
I guess even he is sick of talking about the '04 Belmont.

[Danzig]

Originally Posted by miraja2

I was taking Smarty himself out for our usual daily gallop today, and I asked him about it but it doesn't seem like he enjoys talking about that race.
I guess even he is sick of talking about the '04 Belmont.

yeah, well birdstone told me you can never believe smarty--that he was named 'smarty' for a reason! don't believe me? go ask birdstone yourself! besides, i verified it with ol' marylou, she says birdstone is honest as the day is long. but his mama--whew, that gal makes up stories (marylous' words, not mine!).

[ultracapper]

i hate to speak for anybody, especially andy, but i think his point was that it's the entire triple crown campaign, preps included, that will wear a horse out. after making it all the way to the belmont, a 3yo will most likely need a breather, perhaps for a very extended period of time. and if that colt happened to be running for 5mil, he may have gone in the belmont when he really shouldn't have. definitely monarchos should not have run, and many would say funny cide could have used a break after the preakness. if they were in a different order, say kd,b,p, we'd have a thread that says the preakness has done it again.

i still think it's the derby. look what it did to barbaro.

[SniperSB23]

It is the focus on the Derby rather than on the whole Triple Crown that is causing the problems. Everyone is campaigning their horse to be at their best come Derby Day and not giving any thought to having them prepared to go on to the Preakness and the Belmont. Two years in a row we had horses skip a March prep (Closing Argument and Barbaro) which lead to them running their best race in the Derby and then suffering a career ending injury in the Preakness. Barbaro had never even run on less than five weeks rest before the Preakness. How can you condition a horse to run on 5-8 weeks rest and then suddenly expect them to run back in two weeks off the longest and most demanding race of their life or to run three times in five weeks? I think the trainers need to take the focus off just having a fresh horse for the Derby and instead on having a horse prepared for the Triple Crown or we will just keep on seeing more horses wiped out by the Triple Crown.