I think you may have answered your own question correctly earlier in this thread.

why not be extra cautious with your 50 million dollar horse?

what exactly is risky about galloping a horse that is fine? i said that i can see wrapping him up, but pulling him up is another thing.

so should all $50 million horses be allowed to just pull up whenever they want, while all the other grunts have to battle it out?

he did it not because of a concern for the horse but because of the shame it would have caused to cross the wire 30 lengths behind with a 1-5 shot supposed super horse.

Coa is being criticized her for herding Big Brown on the backstretch? Funny stuff. I guess the irony of this is being missed by most. Desormeaux has been herding and intimidating other riders with regularity. Apparently Coa shouldn't return the favor?

How do you know what was going on in kent Desormeaux's brain ? Thats not what he said in the interview.

Something wasnt right and he didnt know what it was. Better to pull him up then to gallop him out if he wasnt sure.

No doubt Coa is a dirty rider but its all part of the game. Big Brown was the favorite and in order to win you have to beat the favorite. Race riding is part of it. I just hope that Big Brown's connections don't cry about it the way Smarty's connections did.

well, after reading your post, i went back and looked and sure enough, he did win it. which only furthers my point that secretariat did much more than win the tc.

i thought he said the horse wanted to keep going? i think it was kent who got cold feet and felt off, not the horse. i bet kd wanted to puke.

I must be missing the point, with a horse that was eased.

You know what we should be discussing when it comes to trips/rides? How about:

1) Cornelio blocking Kent the length of the stretch on Friday, with the other half of the Mott entry. I've been betting over 30 years and I've seen a lot of stupid **** but a jock going out of his way to shut off a winning move by his entry mate is about as DUMBASS as it gets. YET, no comments on this forum.

2) How about Edgar going 4 wide on the 1st turn with Pays to Dream? I mean, the horse is coming off the pace anyway so why not sit on the rail, like the winner, or the 2 path, like the runner up? Run an extra 30-45 feet or so, lose by 1/2 length and get vanned off. Nice at 11:1 ............

This kind of stuff is interesting when it comes to trips. A horse that doesn't fire, for whatever reason, is not.

Let's try to take it up a notch.

Agreed on all counts. Well said.

I think analyzing the ride is much ado about nothing.

You knew going into the race the other jocks would have a bullseye on BB's back.

You knew going in that Da Tara was going to make the lead - and KJD isn't stupid enough to hook a 40/1 longshot with a horse that has rated kindly and unleashed huge turn moves in both of the first two legs of the triple crown.

You knew going in that the ruthless Eibar Coa was riding Tale Of Ekati - who has tactical speed, was drawn outside of BB, and was obviously going to race ride BB.

In hindsight - the best strategy would have been a seemingly incredibly insane strategy going into the race. It would be for Kent to pull a page from the Ramon Dominguez playbook and stay glued to the rail. The rail was good enough - see Forefathers performance - and as it turned out ... Da Tara was clearly more horse than Tale of Ekati, which means Big Brown would have got out of the box if he had more horse than ToE.

However, Big Brown had no horse so all this doesn't matter.

What exactly is a " dirty rider? "

People comment on fragile horses these days but the animals aren't the only ones that are more genteel than the old days. If Coa is " dirty " then what about one of the greatest riders of all time, Angel Cordero?

Kent likes to get buried inside on the turf....it's his move and hardly Cornelio's fault. Out of curiousity.....did those two horses have the same owner? Didn't Cornelio finish second?

You know what a dirty rider is and Cordero certainly fit the descrption.

I think Desormeaux moving Real Quiet too early ten years ago may have cost him the Triple Crown, but nothing he could have done yesterday would have made a difference. The horse just didn't have it.

I just don't like the word, as it connotes something that I am not sure is true, at least in this sense, as a rider's job is to win. If what you do to win is within the rules, how can that be considered " dirty " riding, and wouldn't it be more fair to say that the rules need to be changed?

Don't get me wrong, I don't like some tactics riders use, but I don't necessarily fault them if they are doing what they can to help their mounts win. I fault riders more for the opposite.

id like to add that all the jocks that rode the 2/9/12 in the 5th should get the shaq award........

Kent likes to get buried inside? Who doesn't like to get buried inside?

Yeah, Cornelio finished 2nd but MOTT LOST a race he could've won.

Think he's happy? Assuming he's even aware of what happened?

Desormeaux didn't think the horse was fine, so he played it carefully. That was the absolute correct thing to do, unless you expect him to give him a full vet exam during the race.

Besides, it isn't like KD eased him while he was running hard for the win. Watch the replay - he doesn't do it until horses are already streaming by him.

The jock had nothing to do with the outcome -- period. Too many people bring far too much baggage to the table and one of the byproducts is to blame the jock. Far too convenient and common. It's kind of like "having to find an excuse" so to speak. The other side of the coin is people who have no idea what they are talking about. Being a good handicapper doesn't mean one knows everything about horses, jocks, etc. and all the "other" aspects of the game. People tend to collapse those aspects of the game as well.

As far as pulling him up -- as I've often said, it's really easy to make decisions from the grandstand or from behind a keyboard. I think people are reading far too much into this. It's not that complicated and there isn't a conspiracy behind it. He did it to protect the horse. He did it because he wanted to save face. He did because . . . because because because. If it makes you feel better, go for it.

As opposed to pulling him up, if he would have ridden the horse out -- there would be plenty of people who would be critisizing that move as well. Funny thing -- I am sure a few of them would be the same people who are critisizing the fact that he pulled him up.

Eric