Quote:
Originally Posted by dilanesp
What's the excuse this time? Doesn't like to run on the lead? Had to give weight to those 3 year olds? Got caught in a vise between horses?
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The horse is utterly useless with blinkers. Tacitus is meant to come off the place and Mott jumped the gun adding them for the Suburban after Jose Lezcano and John Velasquez got the horse to settle and finish in his first 2 starts of the year. This coming after all the damage done during Blinker Fiasco Part 1 in 2019 (see Travers + JCGC).
Even when Mott added them back, John Velasquez was smart enough not to follow the trainer's lead and wisely put a vice grip on the horse out of the gate in the Suburban, who in turn settled and responded with a classic "third-off-the-layoff" peak performance. The same can't be said for Jose Ortiz as he and Mott have been caught up worried about other people's horses in the small, paceless fields he's met in his last pair.
Since Mott is still at the helm, and inexplicably still thinks the blinkers are a good idea, I'm not going to hold my breath that he will take them off again. And he won't get John Velasquez back with Authentic in line for the Classic.
That said, plenty of bridesmaid types and Grade 2-types have won the BC Classic. Wild Again, Skywalker, Arcangues, Alphabet Soup, Cat Thief, Volponi, Pleasantly Perfect, Drosselmeyer, and Vino Rosso all fit that bill. Had Ferdinand not had a well orchestrated build-up to the 1987 BC in well-spaced, sub-tier races (Cabrillo, Goodwood), I'm sure we could get a few on this board to call him a bridesmaid, too.
