Contenders

I've been rooting through online publications and trying to figure out what 3 year old horses will be the big players in the upcoming spring prep season riding up to the Kentucky Derby. One method I use is simply compiling top ten/twenty lists from nationally known handicappers, media reporters, etc into one spreadsheet, then averaging out the rankings to see which horses have the most support (buzz).

This year, I've tracked down the following people to include as data sources:

Ashley Walker, John Asher, Jill Byrne, Dan Shapiro, Steve Haskin, Jennie Rees, Rick Bozich, Eric Crawford, David Grening, Cliff Guilliams, Jay Privman, and Gary West.

I'll try to add other experts to my spreadsheet as time marches on.

After compiling and averaging, here's the list of hot horses as of January 31, 2008.

	Top Horses
1	War Pass
2	Pyro
3	Into Mischief
4	Court Vision
5	El Gato Malo
6	Colonel John
7	Monba
8	Anak Nakal
9	Tale Of Ekati
10	Majestic Warrior
11	Z Fortune
12	Cowboy Cal
13	Etched
14	Z Humor
15	Blackberry Road
16	Crown of Thorns
17	Turf War
17	Country Star
19	Visionaire
20	Check It Twice
21	Cool Coal Man
22	Atoned

Predictably, War pass was on just about everyone's top 5; however, he was not the favorite in most cases. Court Vision has a lot of support as the top contender right now.