A quick look at this afternoon’s San Vincente:
Santa Anita: The Grade II, $150,000 San Vicente at 7 furlongs
INDIAN WINTER (#5) impressed in taking a minor stakes in his main track debut over the track and should benefit from a pace that looks suicidal on paper; call to make the last run the winning run. PREMIER PEGASUS (#8) went undefeated and kept answering every test sent his way as a juvenile and drew well for his 3yo debut; must answer the bell once again on real dirt for the first time, but would be no surprise. THE FACTOR (#7) simply could not have run any faster breaking his maiden on Opening Day over a track that more resembled a NASCAR strip than a dirt oval, but he’s facing winners today and might get fried with all the other speed signed on; looms as racing’s next superstar if he wins this.
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Brooklyn Backstretch 
Brian, Please comment on The Factor effort. Looked pretty snappy from here. Thanks
Bob,
I actually hosted an XpressBet Chat today at Santa Anita so I was very familiar with the racetrack and how it played and therefore I was pretty critical of The Factor’s performance. Today was about as inside speed-biased as a track could be, so I think The Factor was flattered a lot by the track and because of that I was not overly impressed with his performance. With the way the track was playing (cheap maiden claimers set a 5F track record) I really thought he would win off by open lengths and put on a show, but I left thinking that if Sway Away had run straight he would have won. But, to be fair, The Factor did what he had to do and still went 7F’s in 1:20 and change, so maybe I’m being a bit too harsh on a colt who was facing winners and stakes horses for the first time.
With that being said, I think we saw today that he probably is not cut out to be a two-turn horse and will ultimately make his hay at one-turn and sprinting. I’m sure he’ll go on to the San Felipe or San Rafael and try two turns, but I’ll look to beat him at underlaid odds.
I was really blown away by Sway Away’s performance today; it was his first start since August and first against stakes horses on real dirt and if you watch the replay clearly the horse still has no idea what he’s doing out there. He was rank and lugging in badly for much of the stretch but once straightened away he had a giant stride that was eating up ground on The Factor with every step…all over a track that no one closed on all day. I’m really looking forward to see how he runs in his next start, which will assuredly be at two turns. His run today was definitely one of the top 3yo performances I’ve seen all year.