Quote:
Originally Posted by Track Phantom
Additional thoughts.....
5. People need to stop conflating the need for Justify to be helped (i.e. he would have won anyway) from whether or not there was an attempt to help Justify. It's not as if Justify was some piano dragger that needed the red sea parted in order to get to the finish line. One thing doesn't have anything to do with the other. It's simply whether or not Restoring Hope was purposely used in a way that was beneficial to his barnmate and at a determinant to his own chances.
7. A "rabbit" and a "blocker" are two completely different things in this context. Connections that enter a rabbit in a race with the attempt to soften the early pace is still acting within the boundaries of trying to win the race with said rabbit. It might be on the outer reaches of those boundaries but it isn't that far fetched to see a rabbit forget to stop and keep going despite the early pace. One cannot say that about a blocker who's only roll in the race is to actually create havoc for others.
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I agree on the conflating point.
If you are looking for plots and plans you will find one here for sure, but I would argue that you can find dozens of races that look just like this where normal race riding leads to a horse getting rushed up after getting out a little slowly, not handling the turn, herding horses behind them, etc.. with no entry mates or plots involved.
I can't fathom why people are so focused speculating on what the plans were with Restoring Hope when Repole flat out said the plans were to use Noble Indy to soften up Justify even though that horse was not part of an entry and people (like me) bet on him expecting a good faith effort.
