As a former trainer, switching leads is extremely important. The biggest reason is that horses tire on their leads. If a horse doesn't switch leads down the lane and then finally does, he'll move up three to four lengths just from doing that. Switching leads is something I watch for every single race. If you do that you'll see that a horse on the wrong lead will hang in the stretch and if they finally do switch they re-fire again. Alot of horses will not switch until they get so tired they have to. That's a little dangerous for the horse.
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