GlenninOhio |
04-04-2006 05:01 PM |
And while not a Derby trail situation, let's not forget Brass Hat in for $15,000 in a maiden claimer.
No question in my mind that in these cases the trainers did not have any idea of what they had - very few trainers (and even fewer owners) would risk a claim to get an easier spot for a horse that's viewed as having realistic Derby potential.
Also, much depends on what the owner paid for a horse. If it's a homebred and the stud fee was modest to middling, a trainer has a chance of getting a horse that displays less than overwhelming talent into a MC event. But if a horse cost $150k at a sale, the owner will tend to be extremely resistant to a MC even if reality points to it.
But the bottom line as I see it is if the owner is in it for the "blue sky" potential of a horse that might be good enough to win a Triple Crown race (with visions of sugar plums and syndication) he's not going to risk losing the horse - even if the tag is $100,000 and the purse is $50,000. In the vast majority of cases, I'd say the horses entered in a race like that have already been classified by their connections as having some limitation to their upside.
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