The Blue Grass

Street Sense comes in off 4 weeks after enduring a possibly taxing effort in his return. He had battled Any Given Saturday in the TB Derby and in fact, Any Given Saturday came back last week on just 3 weeks rest and weakened in the stretch. I bring this fact up in this race because I see a major difference in the way Saturday trained leading up to his last prep and the way Street Sense has trained. Any Given Saturday needed to recover from his prior taxing effort suffered in the TB Derby and only had 1 published work that was an easy breeze. So his trainer tipped off he had a tired horse.
In comparison, Street Sense has trained very well heading into the Blue Grass. And because Street Sense has had so much "bottom" and "conditioning" added to him by running so well and so deeply last year as a 2-year-old, his trainer, Carl Nafzger is able to bring his horse along at his own pace. In fact Street does not even need to win this race on Saturday, however most importantly he needs to get this race under his belt especially at 1 1/8 miles headed into the Kentucky Derby. He seems primed and ready to run his best race yet.

Great Hunter also has the great fortune of being able to train and race at his own pace since his trainer, Doug O'Neill also instilled a ton of "bottom" and "conditioning" into his horse through his 2-year-old campaign. The amount of races and the quality efforts he has run as a 2-year-old is excellent. In his first start back as a 3-year-old he has already shown improvement from last year and he has been training consistantly well all along. In reality, Great Hunter does not need to win this race however getting this race under his belt especially at 1 1/8 miles is very important. Hunter is primed to run the best race of his career this Saturday and I can't see him finishing worse than 2nd.