Road To The Roses Fantasy League

Are you riding Soldat all the way to Churchill?

Soldat, jockey Alan Garcia up, wires the field for a front-running win in the Fountain of Youth Stakes.

     Just about everyone in the Stride LIVE league for the Road to the Roses Fantasy Game had Soldat to win the Fountain of Youth. Flashpoint winning the Hutcheson? Not so much.  Many stables also had Gourmet Dinner, To Honor And Serve and Travelin Man.
     With One weeks of results, here are the Top 5 stables in Stride LIVE's league. Anyone see anything familiar? Apparently Barry Mitchell and Keith Cooper knew something the rest of us didn't.

Rank    Score    Stable Name - Player - Hometown
1               56    CMCC, Barry Mitchell, Inglewood
2               50    Zain-in-my-heart Stable, Keith Cooper, cassatt
3               48    Zain-In-My-Heart-2, Keith Cooper, cassatt
4               46    Ivargroup, Barry Mitchell, Inglewood
4               46    Professor Thoroughbred, Barry Mitchell, Inglewood

     According to several interview, Soldat's trainer Kiaran McLaughlin believes the colt is just as amenable to being on the front end as he is rating, which is good news on the Derby Trail.  Soldat earned a 96 Beyer Speed Rating for the win, down from the 102 he earned in his dirt track allowance debut in the slop. Still, the 96 is respectable.
     What's is next on the Derby Trail?  Next weekend has the Gotham Stakes and the John Battaglia Memorial as races where you can earn RTTR points. We will analyze those races later, but it looks like Stay Thirsty, Toby's Corner and maybe even Hutcheson scratch Crossbow might vie for honors.
      Who are your sleepers? From looking at the entrants in the Stride LIVE league, many have chosen the horses who occupy many of the Top Ten lists out there.  Some folks do have Fort Hughes, Wilkinson, Sweet Ducky, Albergatti and the like.  We like Crimson China, he has a chance to be a real difference maker. If you don't have him in your stable yet, you will after he wins the Spiral.
     If you have an RTTR Stable and still want to become a part of the Stride LIVE league, here is our information.

OUR LEAGUE INFO:
Entry link: http://www.roadtotheroses.com/G=94/game/join_league.phtml 
League Number:1313038988
Activation Code:4192170078

     To Barry and Keith, very nice job this week. Question is...will your stable be able to hold up for the entire Derby Trail?  Front runners don't exactly do well at Churchill.  Stay tuned...

2011 Road To The Roses Fantasy Derby League

        WinStar Farms and Twinspires.com are hosting THE Road To The Roses fantasy horse racing contest.  The prizes for this thing are very nice and the first race that counts isn't until February 26th. So, you have time to enter.  We have started our own league inside this contest.  The League Name is "Stride Road To The Roses" with a League # of 1313038988 and an Activation Code of #4192170078.

     In addition to the prizes being offered in the contest, Stride LIVE will give the winner of our league a DVD with the Zenyatta video in HD. Of course, you have to beat us. Our selections are to the left.  It is kind of tough this time of year. Everyone wants to put Uncle Mo on their list, but who knows how he will run as a three-year-old.  You also have To Honor And Serve on the shelf waiting to make his 2011 debut. So, knowing that Uncle Mo and To Honor And Serve were #1 and #2 made those two pics easy, but the rest were incredibly hard. Had to go digging underground and go surfing to come up with the developing horses that might generate points.  The same can be said for the trainer selection. Todd Pletcher is a given, but after that, who has more than one horse? We went with Baffert because he always seems to get horses ready around this time of year, but he is no guarantee.

League Name: Stride Road To The Roses, League #1313038988, Activation Code #4192170078