Fountain of Youth

Five years ago I posted a blog about out crossing where I said I hoped there would be more of it done after what we saw with Animal Kingdom. In the ensuing years I have noticed more and more out crossed horses on the TC trail. Out crossed horses are designated on Chef-de-Race.com  as NP/P or P/NP where the P stands for Phalaris and NP as Non Phalaris. This is designated through the sire and damsire lines by those who do this work. However, I take a slightly different tack being that I go back farther and I also look for the cross to be in specific spots in the pedigree.

In addition, I look for another step in the process which involves bringing the out cross back into the original INBRED line. Personally, I don't believe a cross works unless it is used with very inbred lines.

So, to get to the race at hand; The favorite, Mohaymen, is sired by Tapit and has the cross of In Reality, which is the old Man O' War line, brought in as the maternal G. dam sire line. He also has another pattern of Northern Dancer/Turn To which is a good sign.

Awesome Speed and Awesome Banner also have the same cross of In Reality which is also the maternal G. dam sire line. Probably a toss up with these two but I lean a little to Awesome Speed.

Zulu is another in here that has an out cross by way of the maternal G dam but this line is the old Hyperion line. This is a great long distance line and I think Vaguely Noble won the "Arc". He also has another pattern of Nearctic/Nasrullah which is very good. This is a superbly bred colt. It looks as though Pletcher is taking a different route to the derby this year and it's probably better than his prior method. Problem is, it's asking a lot for this colt to be taking on experienced horses like Mohaymen off two sprints. I have an idea this one will rate and may give the favorite fits.

I can't see any value in this race but it should be fun to watch.

1- #6  Mohaymen  6/5
2-  #2  Zulu  3/1
3-  #4  Awesome Speed  4/1
4-  #5  Awesome Banner  7/2

Backstretch