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Originally Posted by the little guy
I don't know how completely blowing the break is a "good setup" but I thought it was a very promising debut. It was a relatively fast race and the runner up did not come back to the field at all.
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Good setup in terms of pace only (presuming he's a closing type). There was a strongly contested pace up front and once he recovered and got into stride down the backstretch he was in good position to capitalize if the frontrunners got rubber-legged. That's downplaying his tardy start, but the fact that he overcame that, the early climbing (which might have just been the kickback), and being checked off the tiring horse, stamps him as one to watch.
Maybe he'll pull a 180 once his gate issues are behind him and show speed; he certainly recovered better than the other 2 horses that broke poorly. In that respect maybe it was a blessing he missed out on mixing it up up front.
I expect the runner-up to be odds-on and to win by the length of the stretch all other things being equal next time out.
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As for turf, given he's a More Than Ready that Chad Brown left in NY for the Winter, it feels like turf is only in his future if he fails going forward on the dirt.
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Hard to tell how the barn stratifies its runners during the winter, especially since it has mostly high quality stock. The horse didn't start working until mid-October last year and was kept at Monmouth at the time. Relatively speaking, he was not an expensive purchase. I figured the horse was left in NY because he was behind in terms of foundation and/or perhaps was not highly regarded previously.
