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I think many trainers will tell you that seconditis often occurs because of a "chase" mentality on the part of the horse. They love to chase another competitior but do not want to be chased (ie. on the lead). You will see many of these animals in maiden races, where they pile up loads of seconds. That's because their overall ability is higher than the competition so it's easy for them to be chasing right at the front of the pace. Sometimes a chaser will find themselves on the front end which usually happens when a horse they had been chasing stops abruptly. In this case, the chaser just slows down until another horse passes him and then he resumes the chase. This sort of mentality actually has some relevance to the evolutionary biology of the horse. A horse is a herd and prey animal, depending on its speed to survive. It has little or nothing in the way of offensive weaponry when confronted by a sharp-toothed carnivore. Therefore, it runs. But running away is an uncomfortable position to be in because it's hard to know when something is gaining on you. So horses do not naturally want to be chased. On the other hand, chasing is something that horses know something about because that's how a male gets rid of unwanted suitors to his harem of mares. So chasing is a sign of strength and dominance. That is also why these "seconditis" types tend to be males rather than females. As for the "head of the herd" theory relating to Affirmed and Alydar, I think it's nonsense. You're trying to tell me that Alydar, in the all-out heat of battle, with his head inches away from Affirmed and the jockeys whipping for their lives, KNEW for a fact that he had to adjust his stride downward to keep Affirmed's nose a few inches ahead of him? Were this true, Alydar would not have just been a better horse than Affirmed, but also the sharpest-visioned horse in history, with the greatest body control of any species of athlete, AND the greatest judge of exactly how much energy his opponent had left in every remaining stride of the race, because if Affirmed had as much as hiccupped, Alydar would have been past him. I think we can safely disregard this theory no matter how avant garde and sexy it may seem.
As for the idea of playing for exactly place. Well, there's nothing inherently outrageous in the idea itself. In fact, you could create pools for every possible finishing position whereby the worst horse in the race would be the "favorite" to finish last. However, the question is: Do we need more wagering options? I think the answer is "no". With rolling doubles and rolling picks and supers and soon (I predict) you will see more and more pents, particularly with 10-cent minimums as Balmoral harness is now doing, the pools are diluted enough. And just IMHO, the more of these wagering vehicles we dream up, the more the carnival atmosphere surrounding the races we create. Somehow the dignity of the sport suffers.
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