"But there is no doubt something has changed over the years. The trail has been plagued by a disease that continues to spread each year and can derail even the most talented trainers and their steeds. It is called fear. Not fear as in one’s character, but the deep-rooted fear of losing. What makes this malady so baffling is that the Derby trail is designed in good part to use defeat as a positive."

“I do not believe he was a short horse the other day. Maybe I’m wrong,” said Pletcher, who said he would not get more aggressive with Uncle Mo’s training. “Sometimes, making up for if you felt like you didn’t have him fit enough and going the other way would be a mistake.”

"Secretariat lost before the Kentucky Derby," Baffert said Saturday after his Midnight Interlude rallied in the stretch to post a 13-1 upset in the 74th running of the Santa Anita Derby. "I still think (Uncle Mo's) a very good horse and he'll bounce back."

"In the moments after the race, Uncle Mo’s trainer, Todd Pletcher, and owner, Mike Repole, were gracious despite being clearly shocked. Maybe, Pletcher acknowledged, this was the hard race Uncle Mo needed. Maybe he had been too easy on him, and Uncle Mo was a short, or not fit, horse."

"Here is one man's opinion: Uncle Mo's defeat was not as bad as it seems. Shocking? Absolutely. A loss that he cannot recover from? I don't believe so. It's impossible to quantify how much the grabbed quarter affected his overall performance, but I'm going to offer a guess that it didn't have a major impact on the outcome and say that he lost mainly because he was a short horse. No more, no less. For the first time in five lifetime starts he just didn't fire. He was going nine furlongs for the first time and it took more out of him than most of us anticipated, including Pletcher. But let's keep it in perspective; he was beaten 1 1/4 lengths, not 5 1/4 lengths."

Re: running nine furlongs and track bias at Gulfstream: "When you step back and put the Fountain of Youth in context, Soldat was not as good as he looked and To Honor and Serve was not as bad as he looked."

"... rather than lament the shrinking schedules or the declining significance of some traditional preps, it might instead be more appropriate to applaud the trainers who don't feel constrained by methods of the past but who adapt to the needs of individual horses. What worked for Citation obviously wouldn't have worked for Super Saver."

"The ability to blow out the competition remains a hallmark of the current-day Derby contender. Super Saver was last year's only entrant with a pair of career victories of 5 lengths or greater in winning margin, while 8 of the last 9 Derby winners owned at least 1 career victory of 7 lengths or more in "blowout ability." That makes sense when you consider the average winning margin of the past 5 Kentucky Derby renewals has been 4-1/2 lengths, while the photo finish camera has been collecting dust since 1999."

"On the surface, the big prize is the $1 million they'll be giving away in the 8th running of the Delta Downs Jackpot, a Grade 3 event. There's nothing wrong with winning a race where the top prize is $600,000, but it's not exactly the $600,000 itself. It's where the $600,000 gets you."