Male Sprinter Division
Grade 1 Bing Crosby won by Dr Schivel with a Beyer of 90. That’s lower than the Par for NW1 ALW at DMR.
Grade 1 Vanderbilt (which looked very strong on paper based on accomplishments) won by Lexitonian at 34-1 with a Beyer of 102. That’s about the Par for a Classified ALW or Grade 3 years ago.
Something doesn’t make sense.
We are told horses are being bred for speed and that’s why they have trouble stretching out to 10-12 furlongs, but our sprint division hasn’t been really good in quite awhile. Even Mitole who strung together a series of very impressive wins with fast figures “by today’s standards” never got into the triple digit teens. Back in the day, a top sprint field would have multiple horses in the triple digit teens.
Maybe there’s been some figure shrinkage, Lasix off, tracks are deeper so paces are slower etc… but a 90 wins a Grade 1?
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