Life at 10 has never gone off higher than 4-1 in her lifetime on dirt, how is she going to be an overlay in her next start? Unless she goes back to turf, but going off of her lone turf try that would be foolish. Furthermore doesn't she regress off of her duel with Rach? Doesn't seem like a great bet to me next out.

That's exactly the kind of reasoning that DrugS is saying is going to happen next time she runs.

I know his reasoning, I agree at times a bad last race on paper is a great betting angle, but when a horse has never been higher than 4-1 on dirt in her life, what odds are good odds? Say what you want about Rachel Alexandra, horses that have hooked her have not fared well in their next races. Ie. Unrivaled Belle, Zardana...ect.

True enough.

It's an odd thing that in the three races RA has lost this year, it's been something like double digits lengths back to the third horse.

One thing I do respect about Rachel and I say this in all sincerity, she runs hard and takes no prisoner's in her races. She is a career killer, and who knows what lies ahead for Life At 10. She won a race at 1 1/4 at Delaware on an easy slow lead. That enough should be enough to question if she is a true 1 1/4 horse. I do like her at Belmont BUT if she does run in the Beldame at 4-1 or less, I would steer clear of her. I can't see her as anything higher than 2nd or 3rd choice for that race.

That doesn't strike me as odd for distance races with five-horse fields of very questionable quality.

Even the races she's won have featured huge gaps back to the second and third place horses. What was the margin back to third in that Monmouth race?

She does put horses away, even in defeat, very far away and they stay there for a long time. I am not sure enough bettors could recognize that trend though and think the odds you suggest are probably correct. If Blind Luck goes there LAT would float a little higher I think seeing what she can do at 10f.

The question should be how much does Life at 10 have in the tank after the PE, not whether it may or may not have been the most impressive 11.5 defeat in history? It may have been a compelling post by IDS in all his brilliance, however I never took it seriously at first or second glance.

Let's just pretend that this race was a match-race between Rachel and Life and Ten. Rachel would have obviously been the favorite. But what would the over/under have been in terms of margin of victory by Rachel? It would have been somewhere around 4 lengths or maybe 5 lengths at the absolute most. Life and ten ended up getting beat by Rachel by 10 lengths. So how can you act like Life at Ten ran well? How can you like act like she outperformed expectations? She totally underperformed.

If it would have been a match-race, we would have known that these two fillies would pretty much go head and head. If I would have offered you Life at Ten plus 9 lengths, I'm sure you would have taken that bet in a second. And you would have been extremely disappointed with her performance just like everybody else would have been, myself included. I don't know how you can act like she ran well when Rachel beat her by 10 lengths. Life at Ten totally underperformed expecations and it's not as if anything unexpected happened. If it would have been a match-race, the race would have probably unfolded pretty much identical to the way it happened on Sunday.

I judge performances in relation to the running line on the form in which they produce. That involves watching trips, understanding pace, and understanding every horse involved in the race.

I'm not impressed at all when a horse loafs on an uncontested lead - and wins some 750K 10 furlong Grade 2 stakes race for their 6th win a row.

I am impressed when the same horse gets hooked up in a duel with a better horse - is being herded and pushed out through the first turn - and stops to run a Beyer in the 70's and loses dismally to a Persistenly. Those are the kind of performances that I'm a fan of.

A tale of two trips with Life At Ten and Persistently ...

From finishing 11.25 lengths behind her last time to finishing 8.75 lengths in front of her today. You have a 19 length reversal.

That's basically the joy of dirt racing .. the supposedly fluky nature of it. The fact that one extremely poor tactical decision can cost a horse a city block of ground versus a benefiting rival.

As opposed to synthetic races .. where it basically mostly just boils down to whoever can finish and early speed is often almost worthless on most versions the surface.