One Liner impresses in the Southwest Stakes
February 20th 2017
I’ll be having a new Kentucky Derby atop my next rankings: Todd Pletcher’s One Liner. He ran one hell of a race today with a winning time of 1:41.85. That is FAST!
This will easily result in the first 100+ Beyer of the year for this 3-year-old class. Consider that last year’s winner Suddenbreakingnews won it with a time of 1:45.14 and he received a 93 Beyer and finished 5th in the Kentucky Derby. One Liner would have won last year’s Southwest Stakes by a tractor-trailer length.
My favorite Uncontested ran the same race he did in the Smarty Jones but pooped out and was way behind Petrov at the mile mark, a horse he easily beat in the Smarty Jones. Overall, I was concerned that he raced at too brisk of a pace in the opening fractions. He simply did not run anywhere close to what he ran in the Smarty Jones Stakes even through 1 mile for whatever reason.
Back to One Liner, by my calculations, He ran the final 2 1/2 furlongs in 30.39, good for a speed of over 37mph. That is blazing speed for this age.
Stay tuned! I will be writing a Derby profile about One Liner in the very near future for http://www.usracing.com
–Michael
Mike's Derby Picks