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The two that I find ridiculous are the Wood and the Vosburgh.
The Vosburgh is easy. It seems to produce the sprint champ almost every year. There was a time when the California stakes used to do this (and in that era I thought some of California's sprint stakes were under-graded). But now the place to be for sprinters is New York. So what are they doing?
The Wood, I understand intellectually WHY they are doing this, but it's SOOOOOOOO stupid. What Derby prep produces the Derby winner is a random process. It's variance. There's a bunch of different circuits, and sometimes the best 3 year old will be in New York and sometimes it won't be. We see the same thing in California- sometimes the Santa Anita Derby is loaded and sometimes it sucks.
The Wood has produced some big time graded stakes winners. They didn't win the Derby, but that doesn't mean that the race didn't have high quality fields. And one of these years, the Wood winner WILL win the Derby again. I think the committee is missing the forest for the trees.
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