Barclay Tagg Quotations

Last year was a lost year for him, and we're lucky anything worse didn't happen.

Richie said he started to idle, and then Richie panicked and cracked him. You really don't want to hit him any more than you have to. He got him running again, but I think it caught him off guard.

I didn't want to bring him back going a mile and one-eighth in the Hal's Hope because there are some hotshots in there who might make him overextend himself, and I didn't want to knock him out. He's really not a six-furlong horse. I would really have preferred to start him at seven furlongs or a mile, but I wanted to get a competitive race under his belt, and whether he wins or loses, it shouldn't exhaust him.

He hurt his back last year, and we had to completely stop on him. He looks good and strong now, and he training better than ever.

He has to be in tip-top condition. I'm not going to put him into a tough race. Probably good judgment and good sense would say not to run, but there is only one Kentucky Derby and he's done everything we've asked of him, so you think you have to give him a chance.

He galloped out strong; he came out of it well. He's doing really, really well. I hope he runs well.

He was full of himself. If everything looks good on Wednesday (of Derby Week), I'll enter him and if everything looks good on Thursday, I'll ship.

He didn't go quite as fast as he did last time. This is what we wanted.

He kept going lame. He was going through growing pains, I guess.

I thought he wasn't going to run and it was going to be a disaster, but Cornelio said he had plenty of horse and he was just cruising. He knew more about him than I did. It's hard to tell through binoculars. He manages to handle things smoothly and he's an absolute pleasure to train.

I thought he was finished. And he came on.

We'll probably run, but first let's see how he comes out of this.

Too many things can happen to start getting excited.

First, he's got to win on Saturday. I'm not going to think beyond that. I don't even know if he can beat Like Now.

It was a little slower than I wanted him to go, but we just wanted him to stretch his legs. Everything is on go, as long as everything goes well. I'd like to see how he comes out of the workout tomorrow and gallop him on Wednesday before we enter him.

Probably with good judgment and good sense, you wouldn't do it. But there again, they're only 3 once, and there's only one Derby. It's hard to deny them that when they've done nothing wrong in 2006.

Probably good judgment and good sense would say not to run, but there is only one Kentucky Derby.

This is going to be a big jump for him. I usually don't like to do this sort of thing, but he's got such a good psyche about him. He does things with such ease. Mentally, it's like he's done it 100 times.

It was only his second start since July, and he had to fight hard. I'd have rather seen him not get hit and win by five, but I'm happy.

It was probably too much pressure on him. I wish I had a more definitive answer. Maybe he's just not as good as he was.

I have some ideas why he didn't run very well, but I don't want to speculate.

I'm just happy he showed some life this time. The biggest thing is that he proved he could still run hard from the start and finish strong.

But he hasn't missed a lick in his training since getting down here in November, and it doesn't seem like he's lost a step in the morning. I don't know if he's still a Grade 1 horse or not, but if everything goes well Saturday we'll give him a shot at the Donn and see what happens.

I don't know if we even belong with these horses, but you sure hope you do.

He's training well, we'll give it a shot. He likes it hard and fast, so it'll probably be wet and soft.

He's got a couple of races under his belt, he's training dynamite, he looks good, he feels good. We've got no excuses. I feel good about it. Right distance, right spot, right track. He's perfect. He's as right as I can get him right now.