https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oomCIXGzsR0
Anyway...
I do get the positives with Shagaf. There was an obvious track bias on Gotham day. How many lengths was that worth? Two? Three? It's extremely tough to quantify this stuff. Let's say he airs in the Gotham on an unbiased day and runs something like a 93. That feels reasonable, right? Now, the Wood. Really, I think he was at the better part of the pace for the Wood. The Wood fractions were faster than advertised given that the track was slower that day (typical for a sloppy track) and the speed - a horse with the great name of Matt King Coal - totally fell apart as the 3/1 second choice. Had Shagaf been where he usually was, I don't know if he fires that day.
This feels like a horse that's outclassed and, if you try to correct for all the "trouble" he's had, still ends up right around the Gun Runners of the world in terms of speed.
Once again, you have managed to careen us off a cliff into a maze of absurd logic and crappy horse grandstanding. And we have this little game every year, where we play chicken with one bad horse each that we want to include heavily in our bets. You want Shagaf? Fine, I want Danzing Candy. Danzing Candy is the controlling speed of this race, and you can make the case for him in his last start that you can for Shagaf - he hated the muddy track in the Santa Anita Derby and he tired far too quickly from it. He's also one of three horses in this race to run a 100+ Beyer going two turns. And I get the pedigree issues too. He's not bred for 1 1/4 miles. You know who else wasn't bred for this distance?
Him...
or him.
If you're going to force us to add a horse to the bet that probably can't win, how about we include one that we'll at least be able to watch for the first 90 seconds of the race?!
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