Weekend Quick Re-Cap

I'm in the process of updating the graded stakes results and divisional standing; I should have those completed and posted a little later this afternoon early tomorrow morning (got a bit sidetracked today). Below are some quick thoughts on the races this past weekend:

• A big preliminary Beyer for Shackleford and Caleb's Posse in the Met Mile - 115. Considering how fast they ran that mile (1:33.30), you had to think they were going to get a big fig. The Bris numbers should be out in the next day or so.
  
  Compare the preliminary Beyer from the Met Mile to the G1-Acorn, the race ran just before and at the exact same distance, and you get a huge gap. Contested earned a preliminary figure of 101, according to the Formulator Interactive Charts, a full 14 points below Shackleford and Caleb's Posse. The final times were roughly a second and a fifth apart - 1:33.30 (Met Mile) to 1:33.61 (Acorn). If we assume that one length = 1/5th of a second, the gap from Shack to Contested was roughly 6+ lengths. Looking at a beaten lengths adjustment chart for races at a mile, the different in figures would be around 11 points instead of 14.
  
  It's possible that the beaten lengths charts could have been tweaked for Belmont, or perhaps an argument was put forth that the track changed a bit from one race to the next (which seems highly unlikely given the conditions). Either way, I'm a little surprised that the difference between the figures for Contested and Shack was 14 points.
• After a tough race at Churchill Downs on Derby weekend, Nates Mineshaft bounced back in a big way to dominate the Lone Star Park Handicap and score a 107 Beyer in the process. At this point, it's pretty clear that if Nates Mineshaft is able to get the lead, he can run a huge race. If not, he's pretty much got no shot to win.
• Belle Royale's (IRE) win in the G1-Gamely came back at a fairly soft 91 on the preliminary Beyer scale, but Roman Threat's gate-to-wire win in the G3-Los Angeles Handicap earned a strong 107.
• Next weekend will be relatively quiet on the stakes front; we've got a bunch of G2 and G3s on tap but that's just a primer for Belmont weekend on June 8th - 10th (plus the G1-Stephen Foster and the G1-Vanity no the following weekend).