But each of his victories came on synthetic surfaces, two of them here at Keeneland, and Dominican is a troubling 0 for 4 on dirt, which happens to be the surface at Churchill Downs.

And as for Curlin:

Curlin, the son of Smart Strike, has, indeed, looked untouchable in his three starts, which he has won by a combined 28 ½ lengths. Beyond the question of the quality of competition that the colt has faced in his brief career, there is the matter of some foreboding history. Curlin did not race as a 2-year-old, and the last Derby winner not to race as a 2-year-old was Apollo in 1882. The last horse to win the Derby after only three starts was the filly Regret in 1915.

Even Todd Pletcher comes in for a reality check:

His horses are likely to fill a quarter of the Derby starting gate, but that guarantees him only a busy time saddling horses in the paddock. Besides Scat Daddy, there is the Louisiana Derby winner, Circular Quay, a colt who will be coming off an eight-week layoff and has not run beyond a mile and a sixteenth.

To reiterate, Drape’s tone always seems to spring from dry facts; by contrast, the latest Andrew Beyer article covering largely similar ground in the Washington Post comes across sounding like little more than spoiled arrogance:

But when four horses reached the finish line at Keeneland almost simultaneously, with 8-to-1 shot Dominican prevailing by a nose, the result revealed almost nothing about their relative merits. It told nothing about what may happen at Churchill Downs three weeks hence. In fact the Blue Grass, which was contested for the first time over the artificial surface Polytrack, bore little resemblance to thoroughbred racing as most Americans know it.

Beyer goes on to complain that racing on Keeneland’s Polytrack has a distinctly European flavor that doesn’t favor ‘American’ speed — but given that American horses had little more to show for their recent trip to Dubai were some good finishes in sprints, shouldn’t we worry that we’re practically blurring the line between Thoroughbreds and Quarter Horses in some corners of the commercial breeding market? Rewarding stamina over early speed certainly seems like an admirable goal to me — and as Drape ably demonstrated, it’s entirely possible to highlight questions about a topic without simulating apoplexy. One would almost think Beyer was taking it a bit personally that his speed figures might not be the perfect statistic for Keeneland’s new surface…

Curlin’s utter destruction of the field in the Arkansas Derby has made him the favorite in the final Derby Future Wager; he certainly looked impressive, but the field he beat wasn’t quite as talented as the Blue Grass and there’s always the worry that his outstanding performance could prove to be shades of Bellamy Road — particularly since the Derby will only be his fourth lifetime start.

Chelokee worked a bullet at Palm Meadows today, so here’s hoping he makes the Derby field; he certainly seems like a very talented horse who is just coming into his own and I would rank him above quite a few currently pointing in that direction. The Sports Illustrated article on trainer Michael Matz reinforces the point that relying on graded earnings is a useful indicator of who deserves to run in the Derby, but by the time the first weekend in May rolls around, the picture of which developing three-year-old is ready for the big dance may have changed dramatically.

Finally, I’d like to welcome all readers of Tim Woolley Racing who may be stopping by — I hope to be an able deputy for Alex while he’s away. I’ll be blogging there next Saturday through the following Wednesday — perhaps I’ll see some of you at Delaware Park.