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Originally Posted by Indulto
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Jeremy Plonk? I've read it. He mentions Eight Belles, and she is a decent example. She did have a big improvement, though it was at the the very odd distance of 1m 40y and probably was not a good number. But even so, she certainly stepped it up. However, it was going long, not sprinting. Young horses certainly do improve a lot more routing than sprinting.
Tiago made nothing close to the same jump. Mr. Hot Stuff had a 20 point jump, but again, going long. Lots of horses jump big going long, especially those that struggle sprinting. But to use Lawyer Ron is pretty ridiculous. The horse was terrible on fake surfaces. As soon as he tried dirt going long, he exploded.
As for Kling, I have since read the article, and I still don't buy it. Don't you think he should have cited at least ONE example?
There isn't a single horse that improved anywhere near the rate the Dutrow horse did by January of their 3 yo season. The horse had won by open lengths going both long and short and had 8 races! EIGHT!
I was much more liberal this time. I looked for horses with at least 3 starts as a 2yo, and looked to see how much they improved before the end of June as a 3yo. This is still a lot bigger window than This One's for Phil with much more lightly raced horses. Here is what I found:
Charasmatic, 66 at 2, 108 in May (going long)
Silver Charm, 97 at 2, 118 in May (going long)
Smoke Glacken, 93 at 2 to 114 in June
Victory Gallop, 90 at 2 to 110 in June (at 1 1/2 miles)
Bird Town, 80 at 2 to 101 in May (going long)
War Emblem, 83 at 2 to 114 in May (going long)
That is it. Nick said I could look it up. I did. Where are they?