I don't believe what I just saw! 

Steven Crist's latest blog, that is!  Seems Mr. Crist was more impressed this past weekend with Take of Ekati than he was Colonel John.  In fact, he contends that ToE's 93 BSF was suspect compared to Colonel John's 95 because while Tale of Ekati "chased" unusually fast fractions, Colonel John closed from 9^th into unusually slow fractions. 

What?  Excuse me?  Does that make a lick of sense to anyone? 

Granted, Mr. Crist is universally renowned for his East Coast bias, and his penchant for seeing every thing through Broadway binoculars.  But this borders on the inane.  For starters, ToE "chased" nothing.  He sat in the catbird seat with daylight behind War Pass and the Rabbit, and was fully four lengths behind War Pass when they turned for home.  Four lengths in arrears turning for home, to me, barely qualifies as stalking, much less "chasing."  And while he managed to make-up those four lengths and win, it was only because the horse in front of him was looking for a place to lie down!  ToE's "winning" final 3/8ths was a staggering 40.82!  Folks, conventional dirt racing surfaces can only get so slow.  They cannot magically turn to quicksand overnight, and those are quicksand fractions.

Meanwhile, Colonel John found himself behind eight other horses after a ¾ mile fraction of 1:11.3 on a track where the three "dirt" sprints on the same card registered two 1:07s and a 1:08 for the same distance.  At that and despite the fact that the two horses who loped 1-2 around the track early took off like rockets and virtually sprinted the final 3/8ths, he nonetheless managed to pass not just the six horses in front of him who also were sprinting, but also the two early loafers in a ridiculous final 3/8ths of :35 and not much change. Despite being blocked!

Look, I'm as East Coast biased as they come, but on Angel Dust I couldn't have put my name to something as obtuse and ridiculous as what Mr. Crist wrote, nor with a gun to my head could I find anything remotely rational to justify being "more impressed" with a horse who ran his final 3/8ths of a mile 28 lengths slower than another.

Could you?

I just don't think Mr. Crist has near the grasp on the game that most people just naturally take for granted, given his position, and this blog is just the latest example.

Octave-the-Rave