A Note About Mendelssohn That Deserves Its Own Thread
 

Over all the replays available and maybe the only racing days at Meydan (Mar 31, Mar 10, Mar 1, Feb 22, Feb 17, and Feb 15) there were 17 races for thoroughbreds on dirt - 16 of those races were won wire to wire by an inside speed horse. Thats an amazing bias...

I get your point but I think it would apply to Mendelssohn more if he was just some random horse that all the sudden jumped up out of nowhere but he is a 3 million dollar horse that was bred to win the KY derby and he had already won a Breeders Cup race before the show he put on in the UAE derby .

All 3 of Justify races have been ideal set ups for him and that hasn’t slowed down his hype train any ...

plus he broke the stakes record and won by some 18 lengths

The previous record holder......

:lol::lol::lol: Oh my Gosh Tom!! LOL....

Whole new meaning to "beaten by a neck"!

Winning on the rail and WINNING on the rail aren't necessarily equal
 

Raya had the rail the whole trip, she came in 18 lengths back, but ahead of Reride, who has beaten a horse guaranteed a spot in the KY derby. She is going to be in the Oaks and has been shipped to Baffert. She would be the UAE derby winner and 100 pt KY derby qualifier but for Mendelssohn.

The rail may have helped Mendelssohn, but by 18 lengths? 3.5 seconds? I find it hard to believe Justify was 15 lengths faster than his time says he was, I find it hard to believe Mendelssohn was 18 lengths slower than his time says he was. Why don't we split the difference and say they are exactly the same, if we are going to play fast and loose with objective reality?

Serious question: Several derby hopefuls lost to Mendelssohn in the BCJT, how does their lengths behind him compare to Reride's time and lengths behind Raya (accounting for the difference in length)? How does their lengths behind Mendelssohn in the BCJT comepare to their performances vis a vis other derby horses to date?

The rail may have helped, but he was also in blinkers and on the surface he was bred for for the first time, those may have helped more, and maybe Reride was disadvantaged by no Lasix, but by over 18 lengths?

I've never seen Justify nor Mendelssohn in person. It is hard to judge how big they are vis a vis each other (on TV they 2 inches tall), and how nice they look vis a vis each other, but Coolmore and Spendthrift wanted Mendelssohn so badly the dueled it out. Spendthrift wanted him because of his relationship with Beholder and Into Mischief. Coolmore wanted him to replace Scat Daddy. As we see by the likely derby starting gate entants, there were no shortage of quality Scat Daddies and Into Mischiefs in this crop, but they wanted this one, $3 million dollars badly enough. That's nothing to sniff at or dismiss because of a golden rail.

Secretariat won by 31 and got beat next time out. :eek:
When a horse goes out alone like, it is not usually a sign of greatness, just opportunity.

I seriously doubt Mendy will run anything close that race ever again.

There is no Mendelssohn hype train?

The reason he has his pedigree and other races is why he is not being throughly dismissed due to the bias.

Does he need too to win this Derby? Doubt it. I am not sold on Justify, short fields everything his way in only three races, so what. Mendy is intriguing to me and hope he comes into the race in good order with a decent post.

Secretariat did win his next race by 9, at AP, a fifth off the track record at a mile and an eighth. Yeah he lost to Onion and Prove Out after his Belmont, but later set a world record in the Marlboro for a mile and an eighth and a track record on the turf at Woodbine later in the year. No reason to think Mendy cannot improve off of that effort, even with the rail bias of Meydan.

He is a great moving colt who is a half to Beholder who herself ran an amazing runner up effort in her CD Oaks, I remember she was a mess pre race, threw her jock, ran on a fast pace and barely got run down late. Beholder was about as hard a trying mare as you will ever see.
I am giving Mendy a long look this year, hopefully he does not pull a Thunder Snow 'bucking bronco' show like last year.

I can't wait to see! We had 2 runaway winners everyone is calling BS on. One of them be better odds. You really rootin for chalk? Mendy looks better.

A horse's turf form has practically no relevance to it's dirt form and vice versa.

If that was the case then using U S Navy Flag (10th in the BC Juvenile) as our common link, Mendelssohn--found wanting 2.5 lengths behind U S Navy Flag in the Dewhurst on turf--would be be about 28 lengths behind the trio of Good Magic, Solomini, and Bolt D'Oro on strict form lines.

The good news is, he only has 3 lengths to make up on Free Drop Billy...

posts like this makes me believe spanky won't be retired this year by the UAE winner......although spanky has now set up shop in the wood

think I caught the super that day-I was on fire!

Justify has been the poster child for “opportunity” lol

Can you imagine what Mendelssohn would have done to the fields Justify faced in his first 2 races ... And do you really think if Mendelssohn would have gotten the same match race type scenario against Bolt that Justify did do you think Mendelssohn would have been all out to win by a few lengths ?