A New York-bred named Next Question was a 5-length winner of an open nw1x at Belmont Wednesday. The distance and surface were 7f on the turf. He was the clear favorite, despite having finished 5th and 4th in his last two in New York-bred nw1xs. Looking at that, you'd think Next Question was a "wise guy" horse. To an extent he may have been; the Form past performances indicate a tough trip for him last time, and he went off at 2-1 that day. But when I look deeper, this race was just astonishingly absent of qualified horses.
Fresh maiden winners are appealing prospects in nw1xs, at least in terms of their long-term potential, if not their bettability. There weren't any of those in the race.
Four horses had run in the condition last out, by which I mean in an open nw1x. None had hit the board; Ivanho, 4th by 5 1/4, had been the most competitive.
Wishful Tomcat had run in open nw2xs on the dirt, finishing way back.
The rest of the field came from claimers and starters.
If you read this blog with some regularity, you know that the high volume of turf racing in New York drives me crazy. It would be easier to accept if the big fields the races drew really indicated they were filling a need of the New York-horse population. But in this case, there appears to have been absolutely no need for this race, and maybe only three horses really well qualified for the condition (this counts a horse like second-choice Becky's Kitten, who was in for the 25k optional, and did have decent tries in the condition two and three back). What you had here was really very interesting; even with horses who didn't belong, there were mass entries, with the trainers seemingly knowing that none of the others would qualified, either. The race was basically a faux nw1x; it could have just as easily been the non-winners-from-the-last-six-months $20,000 claimer of race 9.
No comments:
Post a Comment