Forever Together

[DaTruth]

On paper, Forever Together obviously rates strong consideration.. But her stretch run in the First Lady has raised some issues for me about her current form. Diamondrella is a tough mare, the distance was too short for FT, and it was only a prep for the big dance, but certainly FT should have rolled right past second place Tizaqueena, especially considering that Tizaqueena was a lot closer early to the free running Hotlantic.

That wasn't the only time this year that FT looked set to turn on the afterburners and the old finishing power turned out to be lacking. In the Canadian Hcp at Woodbine, she ended up dueling to the wire with Princess Haya and Much Obliged. Granted she clunked up for 3rd in that race last year, but this year's effort is more troubling because she was in a fight with those two horses unlike last year when she had the excuse of having too much ground to make up late . Even when FT won the Diana this year, it looked like she was going to blow past Caribbean Sunset inside the 1/16th pole, yet at the end it looked more like she was just holding that rival safe.

Perhaps it is simply a matter of FT being a year older and now wanting to do just enough to win her races. Jonathan Sheppard is reportedly very high on her chances. But to me the 2009 version of Forever Together does not look nearly as imposing as the 2008 version coming into the F&M Turf.