And the difference is that you will never see Jazil throw those sort of fractions. His best races have all been run in fractions between 24 and 25 the whole way. The mistake today was in taking him back too far early so that he was running slower than 25. It is a total oversimplication to categorize any horse who starts from deep as a closer. There are two totally different groups of horses that start near the back. The closers are the ones that have a late kick that will be better or worse depending on how fast they are forced to go early. The plodders are the horses that just run the same speed the whole way. You have late pace in your figures. You have to have seen that there are certain of your closers that have a late kick that totally varies dependant on how fast they go early and others, like Jazil, that are remarkably similar every race. Those ones actually probably have their late speed improve with added distance in your figures since finishing between 24 and 25 at 12 furlongs is much more impressive than at 6 furlongs.

I'm not on the Jara bandwagon but nobody would've won on him today. You won't ever see him close to the pace because the horse has no early speed at all. Second and most importantly, he was visibly tired at the end and being closer to the pace certainly wouldn't have helped him finish any stronger. How good is he? I don't know, but he should certainly improve off the start as it appears he needed the race and got something out of it.

Here were his fractions through 4 furlongs in each of his past races, all at a longer distance than yesterday's race was run:

9f Allowance GP - 48.80
Fountain of Youth - 48.90
Wood Memorial - 48.34
Kentucky Derby - 48.79
Belmont Stake - 49.04

Yesterday - 49.51

So in all of his five races he went at least three lengths faster in the early going than yesterday even though those races ranged from 9 to 12 furlongs. This wasn't a case where he couldn't have gone faster early. It was a case that his jockey had become so used to coming from deep that he ran the race as if he had to come deep when the horse should have been sitting 5-6 lengths off the slow pace early.

Just watched the race, it was a useful return. He put in a nice late run on the outside and the intention wasn't really to win this race. I wouldn't read too much into anythin on this, when he was asked he put his head down and went to work. That's all we really need to take out of it.

Yeah, it is doubtful he'll ever be in another paceless race but I hope if he does wind up in another one that they don't drop him deep and instead keep him right around the 24.5 clip that he is most effective at whether that means being 20 lengths back or 5. He should have a shot in the Gulfstream Park Handicap with the majority of good horses being in Dubai or California and a distance that should be to his liking. After that things are going to get a lot tougher.

I thought Jazil would win yesterday but would be hard pressed to ever bet him to win at what I knew would be a very short price. My question is how a horse like Jazil gets to be a short price. Who in their right mind would bet a horse who everybody knows has no shot of being above 2/5?

I really cant comprehend how any horse like this gets to be the price they are.

If I had to bet a horse at 2/5, one coming off a long layoff that comes from the clouds wouldnt be it. I would much rather have a speed horse that is going for consecutive victories or something like that.

Agreed. I thought 3/1 was a gift on Take the Bluff and structured my P4 tickets around him and the one next to him. Sadly it got burned up in the finale.

Nothing wrong with Jazil but 2/5 on a horse that really wasn't cranked up AND THE TRAINER INDICATED AS SO is ridiculous.