Trainers can be creature of habits... I wanted to show a past Derby entrant of trainer Kiaran McLaughlin in the 2005 Kentucky Derby with Closing Argument; compare Mohaymen's last Derby prep race in the Florida Derby with Closing Argument's last Derby prep race in the Blue Grass Stakes;
Now I want to compare Nyquist's performance in the Florida Derby with Barbaro's performance in the Florida Derby in 2006.
It seems that Nyquist ran a similar race as Barbaro's Florida Derby race but the similarities end there. I believe that the big question mark for trainer Matz was if Barbaro would run well on dirt as Barbaro ran well in his first three lifetime starts on turf races with big sustained fractions in all three turf races.
Barbaro's Holy Bull performances removed all doubt as he was up close to the blistering pace and ran a respectable 9 furlong performance.
Now, I have a hard time finding a respectable sustained performance in any of Nyquist's races. This is just my two cents....
