I'm trying to figure out what that race really decided. As I suspected, nobody really wanted the lead. Soldat and Flashpoint never tried for it and, in my opinion, Shackleford kind of inherited the lead.
A lot of pace and speed handicappers say the pace was fast and the track was favoring speed. If that's true, why did Soldat and Flashpoint back up? Not only did they not close as they had intended to do but they backed up even though they wern't that close to the pace. Very strange race in my opinion.
They say Dialed In closed on a fast pace with slow late fractions. What happened to Stay Thirsty and Soldat? Why didn't they close? As happened to Hard Spun and Big Brown, I think when you take a speed horse off his game, in most cases, they don't run good.
Dialed In may be the real goods but I still have doubts because he just nipped the front runner at the wire and those two were the only ones running at the finish. This makes two FL derbys in a row for Zito with the same type horses. He doesn't have many now-a-days but he sure knows how to get them ready.
I still feel that the KY Derby winner is going to come out of the AK races. It may or may not be The Factor but we'll know more after the AK Derby. He blew the field away in the Rebel but he was also the lone speed in that race and most of the time a lone speed winner will put up a life time mark. We have to see what happens if he's challenged, if anyone is able to do that.
Some big races on tap for next week and I'll look at them later in the week.
Backstretch
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