I'm pretty disappointed with the
Jace's Road. But he has valid excuses, including
Kingsbarns delivering on his upside, pace setup, and track bias—as many here predicted.
I didn't try to unwind my wagers when Jace broke the gate, but that obviously changed his prospects. Not dueling and prevailing for the lead may have been the optimal decision to avoid burning him out entirely, but that also suggested a much less likely win.
All that said, he came in third in a field of 12, beat by good horses that took money. He took a good bit of his own money in the will pays, and he even held on to third choice in the win pool—there was plenty of time for big money to move around between his gate break and the start. Probably deserves some credit next time out accordingly.
The
Shopper's Revenge was really the only interesting longshot to do anything. Did what he had to, establish more forward position than his history would imply, which also saved him a bit of ground. The
hit some traffic and may otherwise have filled the bottom of the super instead, but I'm satisfied with Shopper's at 20-1.
Hard to know about what the
might have done. It'll be obvious he was compromised here next out, but he kind of seemed to get the worse of the gate break (the
seemed to bust through a little cleaner).
What happened to the favorite? We were all vaguely disinterested, but no one was really guns-a-blazin' against him. Unfortunately I was more accommodating of him than the other chalk defensively, and got beat by
just like I warned myself might happen.
Second choice over fourth choice exacta was no shocker, but it did include two of the most promising yet least proven contenders. And dropping the favorite boosted the payouts a bit. So it was indeed a good betting race.
