Quote:
Originally Posted by classhandicapper
I have a slightly different take.
That's the point I was trying to make in an earlier post.
When I saw him get away like that, my first thought was "oh crap". But my second thought was "at least horses are winning from way back there today and Smith is not panicking and rushing him up into contention. It's not hopeless".
IMHO, people's initial reactions wers based what they see "in general", but both the track and ride were perfect for trying to overcome that start. Horses were closing, horses were making wide winning moves, and Smith was patient.
It was tough, especially when you consider the top few did not collapse, but imo it wasn't a killer trip.
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There was nothing "in general" about THAT race, unless you've seen a lot of races where a horse gets squeezed early and is way back, then sweeps by a field of Grade 1 winners in a race where the 2nd-3rd-4th-5th place horses early were in the exact same spots at the end and no one else in the field closed at all. Making it sound like it wasn't remarkable just because horses sometimes recover from early trouble is slighting the horse to a ridiculous degree.
I'm not going to try to rank Arrogate vs. horses from 50 or 100 years ago that ran more often under different weights in what was basically a different world. All I know is he's had four tremendous performances and I'm glad I've gotten to see them.
