Charlatan ran really well for a racehorse.
It was sporting to ship Nashville in and take a chance. I don't think he ran poorly, necessarily. You had the main rival coming off a layup after some ,'clean-up' type of surgery, and some damage control low-time (so it was a decent spot to try a G1 and learn more about an exciting prospect), but Charlatan did not diminish in form significantly. Any 'questions' on the layoff are probably answered by some minor health tune-ups and an overloaded barn coming into the BC.
Who knows, maybe if the Cox trained Knicks Go and the Baffert trained Charlatan had faced off in the "Ass Fans"
, the track would have reached some sort of 'critical mass', 'tipping point'? ...
I can't really say whether Charlatan improved, or simply ran about to form.
I took a small 'flyer' against Nashville in his Saratoga debut, but with this race being only six deep, I stayed out.
Nice call by Zico
One of the recent works on xbtv was pretty impressive for Charlatan. IIRC there were a couple horses finishing their work, at the point of the far turn where BB gallops-out his aces. So Charlatan had to go wider, and he appeared to be flashing some G1 stuff as the video ended. If you're a Charlatan super-fan; dig it up.
