Didn't Birdstone ( the sire of Bird ) beat Smarty Jones ? I thought so...

[BeatTheChalk]

This horse was bred in the @!$%$$%W PURPLE Check it out for yourself.

He is out of the line .. by Fappiano .. Mr Prospector ! This line has won
at least 20 of the last 25 Derbies. So the horse is entitled to some respect.
On the other side .. nothing wrong with Storm Bird. And then there is a
horse called Smart Strike -- in the picture.

Check out the entire pedigree http://www.pedigreequery.com/mine+that+bird

Go all the way back. Gorgeous Colors throughout.

[ryesteve]

If you boxed every horse that traces back to Mr. Prospector, you'd have gone 15 deep...

Seriously though... how many horses can you ever look at in the Derby and NOT make a case for "outstanding breeding"?

[parlay]

I only used him underneath, but felt he was overlooked.
First, his Woodbine success was percieved as second class, and tainted by
surface.
His connections were unknown.
His races this year appeared to be to slow.
What he did have was alot of experience and success as a 2 year old against very good company.
Most importantly in this day and age, the breeding to get the distance and relish the going. This factor alone made him a superfecta candidate. All the others were floundering and he was just galloping. A great commentary on todays breeding.
Borel, you would think had his choice of any number of colts. Why and how did he end up on this one?
He was a shocker, but not nearly as great as is made out by many here.
Snobbery got the best of most horseplayers yesterday.

I did not bet him to win, i did not cash any tickets. Don't bother screaming at me. This is not a redboard, rather the observations of a CANADIAN who has a perspective on the AMERICAN psyche.

[kenwoodallpromos]

This horse was bred in the @!$%$$%W PURPLE Check it out for yourself.

He is out of the line .. by Fappiano .. Mr Prospector ! This line has won
at least 20 of the last 25 Derbies. So the horse is entitled to some respect.
On the other side .. nothing wrong with Storm Bird. And then there is a
horse called Smart Strike -- in the picture.

Check out the entire pedigree http://www.pedigreequery.com/mine+that+bird

Go all the way back. Gorgeous Colors throughout.
Yes, Bird Stone won the Belmont- and grandsire Grindstone won the Preakness.
Look at the 2009 Derby exacta's pedigreequey.com pedigrees and they both have most recent common ancestor DRONE.
Off and slow tracks open up the possible winners more than fast tracks for closers and horses with better stamina IMO.

[reckless]

... Birdstone won the Champagne Stakes at two on an off track... he was the leader pro-tem of the 3-year-old division the next spring before 2-3 poor efforts put him on the sidelines until the Belmont Stakes when he upset Smarty Jones at 35-1!! Zito said at the time that Birdstone loved having his races spaced out that he ran best off layoffs.

Smart Strike dominated the Monmouth Park meet as a 4-year-old, winning twice there, the first race off of a layoff of about a year!! He came down from Canada as well; Mark Frostad was the trainer. Smart Strike then ran admirably in the fall against Cigar and Skip Away in Woodward and Jockey Club stakes at Belmont before bowing a tendon.

The Dosage angle is terribly flawed and it surprises me that people still refer to it, even in passing. If a horse was bred for the Ky Derby distance it is most certainly Mine That Bird, regardless of faulty Dosage numbers, and more so the opinions of the media experts. Believe me, people on this site and others like it (if possible) are far more knowlegable than those in the print media and ESPN.

More breeding questions: On both sides of his pedigree, albeit a few generations back, resides two of the most superior off-track/mud/slop pedigrees in racing history... Le Fabuleaux and Cyane. Granted, that was way-back when but there are many of us on these sites who are of the age to recall more contemporary horses like Smarten and Grindstone that were accomplished stakes winners as well as veritable mud-larks, to use an 'old' phrase.

The Sunland Derby is now the key race of the year so far... Advice exited that race to win the Lexington Stakes at Keeneland next out, and Bird of Mine won the Derby in his next start off a dull effort in the Sunland Derby. <s>

Yes, the 6+ length win surprised me, no doubt. And, I didn't have a single penny on the gelding, so it is truly a red-board attempt <s>.But, on other threads here and elsewhere it is being bandied about that maybe the winner had some 'drugs' in him, justifying the big effort.

I say hogwash and it is quite possible that there were too many favorites and publicity-type horses in yesterday's Derby with drugs in their veins -- drugs not to make them run fast nor run slow but drugs to keep them from breaking down.

[Burls]

The Dosage angle is terribly flawed and it surprises me that people still refer to it, even in passing. If a horse was bred for the Ky Derby distance it is most certainly Mine That Bird, regardless of faulty Dosage numbers, and more so the opinions of the media experts.I read up on the concept of the dosage index after I discovered that Mine That Bird had the highest dosage figure in the race at 5.4.
Apparently, "retroactive research conducted in the mid-1980s the term "Dosage Index" first became common knowledge revealed that no horse having a Dosage Index of higher than 4.00 had won the KD since at least 1929 (a year chosen because by then the number of available of chefs-de-race on which to base the figures was thought to have reached a critical mass), and that over the same period only one Belmont Stakes winner (Damascus in 1967) had such a Dosage figure."
In recent years, for whatever reason, the sub-4.00 Dosage requirement has failed to consistently hold. In any case, too many people are aware of it for it to be a money-making angle anyway.

[46zilzal]

Dosage as a guideline has been skewed by the mania of breeding speed to speed and offering breeders NO GRADED STANDARD OF REFERENCE TO DIRT STAMINA. There simply are no races of stakes caliber horses that can bring out stamina, which also takes maturity.

Breed speed to speed, forget stamina offering no race tested yardstick of it, and then retire most before we know most anything about them, and you have ruined dosage as a separating factor.

[wisconsin]

Dosage as a guideline has been skewed by the mania of breeding speed to speed and offering breeders NO GRADED STANDARD OF REFERENCE TO DIRT STAMINA. There simply are no races of stakes caliber horses that can bring out stamina, which also takes maturity.

Breed speed to speed, forget stamina offering no race tested yardstick of it, and then retire most before we know most anything about them, and you have ruined dosage as a separating factor.

Not to mention the skewing of what a true chef-de-race is (or at least should be).

[Alyblakester]

Birdstone has surprised me with his performance at stud. He is proving fairly useful. Doubt if he has gotten the best mares. His progeny must move up in the mud, he had a filly run 2nd in the Oaks as well.