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11-02-2020, 05:08 PM
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#61
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Registered User
Join Date: Aug 2012
Posts: 8,798
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Mike Smith on Pizzazz in the 6th at Del Mar 11/1.
It's just good to see Smith has still got it. The leaders went out fast but then tried to slow the pace down on the backstretch. Smith's internal stopwatch was working (he's probably more accurate than the timing devices at Gulfstream Park) and the moment they tried to relax up front, he sent Pizzazz running up to the leaders and then opened up on them on the far turn. The race was over.
Beautiful job. Riders are sometimes afraid to do this, because you look like an idiot if you send your horse early and then the horse tires and gets beat.
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11-02-2020, 11:16 PM
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#62
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Registered User
Join Date: Jul 2020
Location: Dry Run, PA, USA
Posts: 51
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dilanesp
Mike Smith on Pizzazz in the 6th at Del Mar 11/1.
It's just good to see Smith has still got it. The leaders went out fast but then tried to slow the pace down on the backstretch. Smith's internal stopwatch was working (he's probably more accurate than the timing devices at Gulfstream Park) and the moment they tried to relax up front, he sent Pizzazz running up to the leaders and then opened up on them on the far turn. The race was over.
Beautiful job. Riders are sometimes afraid to do this, because you look like an idiot if you send your horse early and then the horse tires and gets beat.
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In a sense, the best part is that the same strategy didn't work for Smith earlier in the card. In that race, he got nipped. But he tried it again in THIS race, and it worked.
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11-03-2020, 12:04 AM
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#63
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Registered User
Join Date: Jan 2015
Posts: 915
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dilanesp
Mike Smith on Pizzazz in the 6th at Del Mar 11/1.
It's just good to see Smith has still got it. The leaders went out fast but then tried to slow the pace down on the backstretch. Smith's internal stopwatch was working (he's probably more accurate than the timing devices at Gulfstream Park) and the moment they tried to relax up front, he sent Pizzazz running up to the leaders and then opened up on them on the far turn. The race was over.
Beautiful job. Riders are sometimes afraid to do this, because you look like an idiot if you send your horse early and then the horse tires and gets beat.
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Smith has been doing this constantly over the last several months, usually I'd say without success. Strange how he was able to be patient for an entire career & all of a sudden this has become his go-to move. On the big stage he did this a few times with Abel Tasman a few years back, but otherwise this seems like a pretty recent phenomenon.
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11-17-2020, 04:45 PM
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#64
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Registered User
Join Date: Aug 2012
Posts: 8,798
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Interestingly, Jen Pyfer tried to do the same thing on Capital Heat in the 2nd on Sunday 11/15, and she came back to the field and lost.
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11-17-2020, 10:16 PM
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#65
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Registered User
Join Date: Jan 2015
Posts: 915
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dilanesp
Interestingly, Jen Pyfer tried to do the same thing on Capital Heat in the 2nd on Sunday 11/15, and she came back to the field and lost.
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Huh?? Are you talking about the ride where she lost her iron for almost half the race? Not exactly strategy when you're just trying not to fall off.
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11-17-2020, 10:17 PM
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#66
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Registered User
Join Date: Aug 2012
Posts: 8,798
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SG4
Huh?? Are you talking about the ride where she lost her iron for almost half the race? Not exactly strategy when you're just trying not to fall off.
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I did not realize that was the explanation.
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02-21-2021, 01:02 PM
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#67
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Registered User
Join Date: Aug 2012
Posts: 8,798
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Tyler Baze on Let's Go Now in the 5th at Santa Anita on February 19.
4-1 shot, and I am not sure exactly what the problem was, but he was completely fighting the horse the first 1/4 mile. His leg may have been out of the iron, he was standing up in the saddle, and the horse was rank. The horse went clear of the field by a few lengths.
But Baze didn't panic. He righted the ship. He settled the horse down and got the horse to relax on the backstretch, coming back to the field while still leading.
And then at the top of the stretch, 2 horses came at him, one on the inside and one on the outside. They looked like they were going to pass him. But Baze, herding the other two horses just a bit (not enough to result in a foul), kept Let's Go Now to his business and somehow got the horse to go entire 1 1/8 miles and won it in a thrilling finish.
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04-19-2021, 02:10 PM
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#68
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Registered User
Join Date: Aug 2012
Posts: 8,798
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Flavien Prat on Cezanne in yesterday's Kona Gold Stakes. The favorite, Brickyard Ride, went out way too fast (and unnecessarily so; it was a 4 horse field and there wasn't a ton of pressure). Prat stayed way back, moved at the proper time, and then was able to come through on the inside when the tired favorite bore out at the top of the stretch.
Prat's a really good rider. He doesn't make many mistakes.
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04-19-2021, 02:34 PM
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#69
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Registered User
Join Date: Nov 2009
Posts: 3,053
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dilanesp
Flavien Prat on Cezanne in yesterday's Kona Gold Stakes. The favorite, Brickyard Ride, went out way too fast (and unnecessarily so; it was a 4 horse field and there wasn't a ton of pressure). Prat stayed way back, moved at the proper time, and then was able to come through on the inside when the tired favorite bore out at the top of the stretch.
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Brickyard Ride is a run-off anyways, but you don't think Ax Man was on a mission the first 1/4 mile?
Not going to give Prat props for successfully negotiating a 4-horse field in which a stablemate was in there solely to hound the front-running favorite.
He rode about as well as Bill Shoemaker did in the 1980 Woodward.
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04-19-2021, 04:50 PM
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#70
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@TimeformUSfigs
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: Moore, OK
Posts: 46,828
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Spalding No!
Brickyard Ride is a run-off anyways, but you don't think Ax Man was on a mission the first 1/4 mile?
Not going to give Prat props for successfully negotiating a 4-horse field in which a stablemate was in there solely to hound the front-running favorite.
He rode about as well as Bill Shoemaker did in the 1980 Woodward.
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That was as clear a tag team effort as you'll see. Ax Man was in that race for one reason only, to set it up for Cezanne.
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04-19-2021, 05:04 PM
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#71
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clean money
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: Maryland
Posts: 23,559
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It's debatable that Maldonado gave the better ride
__________________
Preparation. Discipline. Patience. Decisiveness.
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05-28-2021, 07:35 PM
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#72
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Registered User
Join Date: Aug 2012
Posts: 8,798
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Cesar Ortega on Maybe Sometime in the 6th at Santa Anita on May 22.
Just a beautiful trip, saving all the ground and moving through a momentary hole on the inside, and then he got the horse to outfinish a shorter priced runner in the stretch and win at 25 to 1.
Just a beautiful job by a totally unheralded rider.
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05-28-2021, 07:44 PM
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#73
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Registered User
Join Date: May 2013
Posts: 3,601
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dilanesp
Cesar Ortega on Maybe Sometime in the 6th at Santa Anita on May 22.
Just a beautiful trip, saving all the ground and moving through a momentary hole on the inside, and then he got the horse to outfinish a shorter priced runner in the stretch and win at 25 to 1.
Just a beautiful job by a totally unheralded rider.
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He's based @ Los Al.
He won't be there much longer.......his talent level will take him to bigger things.
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06-20-2021, 02:15 PM
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#74
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Registered User
Join Date: Aug 2012
Posts: 8,798
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I don't know if this counts as a ride, but in Friday's second race at Santa Anita, Ricardo Gonzalez anticipated the start with Summer Rose, rousing his mount forward a split second before the gate opened. The result was he broke 2 lengths in front. And he won the race by a nose, so that might have made the difference.
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07-21-2021, 10:59 AM
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#75
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Registered User
Join Date: Aug 2012
Posts: 8,798
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Jessica Pyfer has already shown me a lot, and Sunday, July 18, in the 4th at Del Mar, she was on a 30 to 1 shot, Cute Impact, and she made a big looping move to engage in a stretch duel with a ONE TO FIVE shot, Sally Stanford. And darn it Pyfer didn't win the duel. If you bet her horse, you got $63.
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