Quote:
Originally Posted by PalaceOfFortLarned
I think Japan will win the Kentucky Derby at some point in time. They've invested heavily in doing as much.
Just last year, Crown Pride was a solid entry, and went off at 18/1. A very valuable lesson was learned; in that trying to run American horses off their feet isn't the way to win a 10F Classic race in the states. A complete reverse of 'lessons learned' with Lani in 2016 that was a grinder that looked to pass tiring horses and simply never had enough speed to seriously contend.
While Crown Pride and his fellow non-American entry-mate in Summer Is Tomorrow rolled off ridiculous splits to set up the crazy winner in Rich Strike, they did show their talent.
With those ridiculous splits that compromised many a good horse, Crown Pride finished just behind one of our best horses in training in Taiba.
Since the KD, Crown Pride has rolled off 3 consecutive 2nd place finishes. Will be interesting to see if he shows up in the Dubai or Saudi Cup races coming up in the next couple of months.
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Thought Crown Pride's performance was strong, and better than his finishing position.
Coming into the '22 Derby, I gave Summer is Tomorrow a chance to win, and I respected Crown Pride. I thought Summer is Tomorrow would give them a run for their money on the lead, but did not expect Crown Pride to join them. I knew Taiba was a win contender (and I think his performance was also better than his finishing position).
Completely missed the scenario of a pace collapse. With Taiba and Summer is Tomorrow opinion combined much higher than the public (and I'm sure it would be easy to find a bunch of horseplayers who think Summer is Tomorrow was terrible even after the race), and Epicenter, and then possibly others (Messier? Brad Cox? etc...) near the pace... I should have forseen it at least as a possible scenario.
I had doubles and gimmicks to Summer is Tomorrow, I used Mo Donegal, but I should have included Barber Road and Rich Strike on some O/D dd etc.
Crown Pride went too, the biggest priced closer happened to win, and hindsight is 20/20.
