Bad Ride

[CryingForTheHorses]

Ok you guys you can rip me, I willbe the first to knock Stewies ride!! First of all!! He should have thought about Baily on eddigton and solis on RHT. Didnt he think these guys were going to pressure him..First mistake..Gunnin himout of the gate..What was his hurry..Then not taking that chance to tuck him behind a horse so he would settle.No he lets Solis pressure him n the rail..Bailey is just off his flank smooching..Then there is Stewie giving into the pressure by coaxing his horse to stay on the lead..Not a smart ride by him . This is only my opinion.If he would have just sat on his horse and let the other two horses go to the lead..What the hell was RHT doing pressureing for the lead?.If anyone is to blame for this loss its not Smarty. The jock didnt have a clock in his head. Period

[Zaf]

I think he fell into the same dilema as Santos last year. I think both jocks did not to restrain their charges too much. It seemed like they both wanted to run.

ZAFONIC

[JustRalph]

1:35.44 for the mile says it all........

[kenwoodallpromos]

Beyer was right, SJ did not get the 1 1/2.
Ainslie is right, place for the stakes fav.
I was right, Sj always runs 12 seconds per furlong no matter what. The other jocks knew Sj always runs 12 per f and tag-teamed him.
SJ runs no more 1 1/2 mile races so I expect him to win a few more big ones.
Sj is great but not versatile.
SJ ran too slow for the speed of the track as per fractions of other races today.
Elliot did what he was supposed to do; sit on a mechanical horse and not fall off.
A horse's running style has to match track speed. Birdstone did what he needed to do and rated the best. Congrats to him.

[freeneasy]

well his race is over, then at the half i couldnt believe my eyes when elliot started moving on smarty jones and i said geez elliot, whats he doing? rock hard ten is going to be done by the time theyve gone 7/8ths, it'll all come back to you, just chilly up. ok so smarty jones is still looking good but now when hes gets the lead i said now wheres he going to go, hes still got a long ways to go so i said well ok but he better be good today. thats a lot of ground to hold off a closer today. and when you saw prado coming on birdstone and when smarty hit the top of the stretch then right there i knew that elliot was probably going to get beat. 16th to go, nutah smarty's beat, but there was still a 16th of a mile to go, but i think you just knew. you heard it and sensed it in the race callers voice, you knew what he knew. its pretty much over, smarty jones is going to get beat.
maybe elliot just didnt have a good enough head for the mile and a half today because i certainly didnt think that smarty jones didnt get that distance today.
sorry stu i think you lost the race. you had the horse, you just didnt have the head. and at the time you made it i think you knew it was a mistake, even tho you still had the best horse, to start to move on smarty jones as early as you did.

[NoDayJob]

Woulda, coulda and shoulda plus $0.25 won't buy you a cup of coffee. Face it, Smarty lost and that's it. Fogetta boudit.
It was a great try and we should enjoy the moment.

NDJ

[kenwoodallpromos]

What Stu did wrong was not whip SJ enough in the stretch, and not look outside for Birdstone, but SJ would lose anyway.
I thought everyone agrees that a lot of pressure while leading burns a horse out, but I guess Sj is assumed to be good enough to overcome that.

[JackS]

Yea everything is hindsight now. It appeared to me that the instructions to the jocks on the other speed may have been to keep pressure on SJ and not to let him get away on the front end as he had it in the previous two. This was the undoing for Smartie and a failed stratagy for Purge a RHT. The perfect set-up now is for something off the pace.

[Hosshead]

Originally posted by kenwoodallpromos
What Stu did wrong was not whip SJ enough in the stretch, and not look outside for Birdstone, but SJ would lose anyway.
I thought everyone agrees that a lot of pressure while leading burns a horse out, but I guess Sj is assumed to be good enough to overcome that.

I also thought Stu forgot about the stick in the stretch. When the winner was closing in, Stu just kept shaking the reins at him, and I kept saying that's what ya did at the Top of the stretch, -now it's time to go to the whip Stu. I think he used the whip 3-4 times and that was it.

It may not have mattered, as SJ was pretty spent from not relaxing earlier in the race, but for the triple crown, he could have gotten into SJ more. Some horses respond with a little reserve, and some don't. I think for 5mil, I would have asked the question.

The 1 mile fraction was fast, but wasn't a new track record for 6 1/2 furlongs set earlier in the day?

At least SJ showed up...and showed his consistency... again.

[sq764]

That always worries me when you see a horse cruise in a race, then get caught in a tough stretch drive next out.. You have to wonder how they will respond to the whip when they weren't touched the last race..

You wonder if the horse is thinking "Why are you hitting me over and over, what am I supposed to do here"

[Tuffmug]

Blame yourself for betting on Smarty but don't blame Elliot for the loss. He rode a good race but the pressure up front and two big races before this one cooked Smarty till he was done. To say Elliot could have taken Smarty back is ridiculous. That horse was on the bit and was responding to the pressure from EDDINGTON and RHT DESPITE Elliiot pulling tight on the bit to restrain him.
Birdstone won because he was FRESH and in the right position to pick up the pieces. Birdstone will go off favored in his next few races and I will probably bet against him the way I bet against Sarava, Anees, Action This Day, Monarchos, Volponi, Lemon Drop Kid and a hundred others who won because of a perfect pace setup.

[highnote]

I have to agree with most of the posters here that Stu moved too early. Antley and Desormeaux did the same thing. You'd think they'd study past Belmonts and learn from them.

The race was over for Smarty after he got the lead at the half. What was Stu thinking?

There's an old quote something like: "Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it."

[Buckeye]

Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

[jotb]

Hello all:


What is this stuff about whipping a horse? Why does the public constantly think that sticking a horse is the answer to winning a race. A horse like Smarty that gives you all he has in a race each time does not need to get beat up to make him run faster. It just does not work that way. If you watch the race you will see Smarty was a tired horse. His stride was short and his head was down. Elliot tried his best by keeping Smarty together the last furlong. When a rider needs to resort to the whip, he must time his hit to the horse's stride. The time you want to hit a horse is when it's pushing off its hind legs and beginning to reach out with its front legs. This makes a horse reach out a bit further. You never want to hit a horse while its trying to collect itself off its front stride. You have to wait until the horse has already done that and is beginning to push off its hind legs. It's also important that, while you're hitting a horse, you're still hand ridin with the other hand. If you watch Elliot yesterday you could see he had to lean back a tad to help balance Smarty as he was foundering in his stride.

Joe

[rokitman]

If I go beat grandpa in his grave with a stick will he come back to life?

I think whipping him at that point in the race stood a better chance of making him finish even slower than he did.

[lsbets]

I stayed up till 3 in the morning here to watch the race and it was the first time I have seen Smarty run. In the stretch I was yelling at Elliot to go to the whip because it was obvious that Smarty was not going to hold on. After watching the replay though, I don't think it would have mattered. Smarty was spent from the Derby and Preakness. I think he beats all those horses hands down when he is fresh, but he did not have the juice to find anothe gear at the end today. That's what makes the Triple Crown so hard to win. Three races in five weeks is a lot to ask of today's thoroughbreds.

[kenwoodallpromos]

I think all agree SJ and Elliot did pretty good but SJ was not strong enough to carry all those 1-5 bettors across the finish line with him. Last 1 1/2 miler for him. Will anyone bet him next race?

[Tom]

Originally posted by Buckeye
Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

You mean like me betting this damn stupoid race year after year?
When will I ever learn?:D

[cj]

Originally posted by Tom
You mean like me betting this damn stupoid race year after year?
When will I ever learn?:D

Usually I can recall at least one really big score on all the big races. The Belmont...ZILCH. I can't remember a score, period! At least I learned this year and finally didn't bet a dime. Might look foolish with a 37-1 winning the race, but I wouldn't have picked him with a good set of darts, so no regrets from me, only joy!

[sq764]

Look at it this way..

a $100 win wager on SJ on all 3 races still got you a $380 profit.. Even with going down at 1/5

[highnote]

I bet Birdstone in the Derby but didn't in the Belmont. What would a $100 win bet on BS in both those races get you? Damn.

[highnote]

Originally posted by Buckeye
Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

Whoever wishes to foresee the future must consult the past; for human events ever resemble those of preceding times. This arises from the fact that they are produced by men who ever have been, and ever shall be, animated by the same passions, and thus they necessarily have the same results.
-- Machiavelli

History teaches everything including the future.
-- Lamartine

If you would understand anything, observe its beginning and its development.
-- Aristotle

With the historian it is an article of faith that knowledge of the past is a key to understanding the present.
-- Kenneth Stampp

[shots]

Originally posted by swetyejohn
Whoever wishes to foresee the future must consult the past; for human events ever resemble those of preceding times. This arises from the fact that they are produced by men who ever have been, and ever shall be, animated by the same passions, and thus they necessarily have the same results.
-- Machiavelli

History teaches everything including the future.
-- Lamartine

If you would understand anything, observe its beginning and its development.
-- Aristotle

With the historian it is an article of faith that knowledge of the past is a key to understanding the present.
-- Kenneth Stampp

Except in horse racing !

[highnote]

Originally posted by Buckeye
Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

I was curious about this quote. So I Yahoo'd it and came up with this:

"Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it." -George Santayana

Especially in horse racing!!

[shots]

If that's the case , how many on this board picked Birdstone on top?

[highnote]

I like this quote:

Poetry, therefore, is a more philosophical and a higher theory than history; for poetry tends to express the universal, history the particular.
-- Aristotle

The greatest rides by jockeys are like works of art -- poetry in motion. A great jockey intuitively knows that anything can happen in a race. Some things are likely to happen and some things are not so likely to happen. Statisticians call this a stochastic process. Each event has probability x of happening.

A great jockey has to be a historian and a poet. He or she has to know the particular of each horse's past performance and then create a strategy to try to win the race. Then they have to run the race against several other horses carrying jockeys who have probably spent some time trying to predict how the race will be run and created strategies to win. Then in the middle of the race events might unfold not as planned. The more experienced jocks might try to change strategies to suit the circumstances. The less experienced may stick with their original strategy.

I don't know if Stu rode a poor race or if he is a great jockey but chose the wrong strategy. Maybe he chose the strategy that he thought would give him the best chance of winning? Maybe he decided to let the horse run its race?

I don't know if it can be known. I wasn't on the back of Smarty going 35 miles an hour in what might be the biggest race of the year.

What a great sport!

[highnote]

Originally posted by shots
If that's the case , how many on this board picked Birdstone on top?

It's not easy picking Birdstone. I figured Smarty might lose, but I didn't know who would win.

I would have layed Smarty on the betting exchanges if I would have been at home. I was at Belmont so didn't have that option.

I did know enough to look for value in the place and show pools based on history. Everyone loves betting the favorite to win in these big races, but they think there is no value in the place and show pools. Just the opposite is true. There is lots of value in the place and show pools.

[PaceAdvantage]

I didn't bet one dime on the race (save for a few $2 souvenir win tickets)

I say if you get beat a length at 1 1/2 miles, there is SOMETHING the jock could have done to close that gap. That's all I'm going to say.

[highnote]

[i]OI say if you get beat a length at 1 1/2 miles, there is SOMETHING the jock could have done to close that gap. That's all I'm going to say. [/B]

I keep going back and forth on whether Stu rode a good race or not.

In my gut I feel the jock or the trainer or Smarty didn't have enough experience over the Belmont course. And that cost them the race. I think Antley and Desormeaux moved too soon in their Belmont TC races. If Stu didn't move too soon then he probably couldn't get his charge to rate enough or relax enough. It's much easier to run quickly around the Belmont turns than the CD or PIM turns. So IMHO Smarty used too much energy early. Whether that is Stu's fault or caused by Smarty having to fight off challenges early on, I don't know.

Maybe gamesmanship cost him the race?

[Milleruszk]

I say if you get beat a length at 1 1/2 miles, there is SOMETHING the jock could have done to close that gap. That's all I'm going to say. [/B][/QUOTE]


While I generally agree that Elliot did not make a serious blunder in the race that cost him.............you do make an excellent point. What if Elliot had waited only another 3 or 4 seconds before going for the lead?

Tom

[highnote]

While I generally agree that Elliot did not make a serious blunder in the race that cost him.............you do make an excellent point. What if Elliot had waited only another 3 or 4 seconds before going for the lead?

Tom

Tom,
This is the question I'm struggling with, too. What if Desormeaux or Antley had waited another second or two, too?

Maybe they couldn't wait? Maybe the horse made the move?

What is the role of the jockey? If Stu says he couldn't restrain the colt for fear of a negative effect then maybe taking no action was the best action for him to take?

After reading all the posts about this, I don't know if the truth can be known.

[cato]

My wife, who grew up with horses and knows all about riding etc (and we'll leave it at that) ;)
said as they hit the first turn and headed to the backstretch--"jeez, look at the jockey on Smarty--he's having to really hold him back--smarty is wild to run today" something like that.

And so I watched the reins and the jockey and the horse's neck and shoulders to try to see that and it was clear that Smarty was absolutely not going to rate or settle or anything close to that.

If the jockey had held him back much longer (and lost) everyone would have said, "what an idiot...he fought the horse and drained his energy and spirit" (or something like that)

The jockey did the best he could under the circumstances. Smarty is a really really good horse who survived a tough pace and several sacrifical runs by the other early horses.

I think that if Smarty rated, he wins; but he did not and could not lasty Saturday

I am really looking forward to Smarty's return later this summer and fall. I am betting he kicks ass.

take care, Cato

[delayjf]

I agree that a race at Belmont is a big advantage for a horse, perhaps SJ (as did Silver Charm, Charasmatic, Real Quiet) got fooled into a premature move, aided by the pressure from Edd and RHT. At any rate, I would not blame the Jockey, looks like the only thing he might have done was to tuck in behind horses and force the horse to settle. But taking a horse out of his natural running style id also dangerous.

[CryingForTheHorses]

Originally posted by delayjf
I agree that a race at Belmont is a big advantage for a horse, perhaps SJ (as did Silver Charm, Charasmatic, Real Quiet) got fooled into a premature move, aided by the pressure from Edd and RHT. At any rate, I would not blame the Jockey, looks like the only thing he might have done was to tuck in behind horses and force the horse to settle. But taking a horse out of his natural running style id also dangerous.

Key word here is TUCK HIM IN,Wasnt settled as he was gunned out of the gate..Also makes me wonder..How many days did he walk before the race?..