Very little Raise a Native 3 year olds on the trail
 

Anyone else notice that the RAN shortage on this years trail? Who died and left Giants Causeway in charge? MC

Have you noticed that El Padrino , Hansen and Union Rags have RAN on both sides ?

I guess I should have been more specific and typed what I meant to say! I was referring to sire line. Seems like there is very little sire line influence this year.

I don't know. I have 149 classic contenders profiled at my web site and 55 of them are from the Raise a Native sire line including 8 among the top 20 by graded stakes earnings. How many would it take for there not to be "very little sire line influence"?

I must admit Doc, Ive been fairly lazy and just quickly perused Haskins derby dozen but even so, it seems that in years past, there were more RANs in the top ten. Just curious, who are the leading RANs this season?

Love your website Doc, and in perusing past Kentucky Derbys going 4 or 5 years back, previous Derbys(my guess would be going back 10-15 yrs) have averaged close to 6-8 RAN sire line starters with last year(2011) dropping to 2. This year it appears that only a couple of dual qualifiers are RAN sire line side. Could we be seeing the end of the RAN domination in the KD or is this just a statistical blip on the radar?

What constitutes a leading Raise a Native-line contender is partly a matter of opinion, but a few that are getting some attention include Bodemeister, Castaway, Dullahan, Groovin' Solo, I'll Have Another, Mark Valeski, Mr. Bowling and Secret Circle. I'm sure there are some additional contenders fancied by other people.

Last year was definitely an anomaly. The number of Raise a Native-line horses that drew in from 2011 back to 1998 are 2-9-6-6-7-9-7-8-6-8-7-6-4-7.