What was up with Quality Road's braid beed?
 

Why does a horse need its hair braided - to look pretty or something?

Who knows if it distracted him at all - but a big plastic bead from his braid was slapping him in the right eye the entire stretch run.

Watch the stretch head on. He's twirling his left front. That's what he starts doing when he 2 turns away from the Gulf Street. He needs pavement.

It's fitting that the first responder is someone with experience when it comes to having beads in their eye.

I guess there is difference between plastic beads and liquid beads - but hey, whatever.

Instead of making fun of you for starting a thread like this, I told you why he gets beat in this situation.

I give you credit for having a good eye to have noticed this. I didn't notice it the first time but after reading your post I watched it again and it is clear that it was slapping him in the face and possibly in the eye.

Too funny, Scuds


Have a feeling RA's gunna need some pavement in that next start too…

Zenyatta

He needs his forelock braided so he doesn't look like this.



and that might be a good excuse for not winning the race. There just has to be an excuse.... please?

I'm not saying it's an excuse ... I'm simply pointing out that it came free at some point - either during the race or when Haynefield charged the gate - and a big bead - larger than a marble - repeatedly kept slapping him in the right eye.

Would it be distracting for a human if a big bead kept slapping them in the eye while they were trying to run? I would think so. For a horse? How would I know.

I thought Johnny V. was to focused on looking around for Blame rather run his race. Continual looking underneath both arms starting into the far turn and continuing into deep stretch. He caught Blame around the turn on the inside with his first glance back, looked back inside mid stretch, and Blame had positioned himself to the outside for his run. Blame comes to him quickly and Johnny reacts way to late and is only able to whip QR at the base of the neck in tight. Is QR better??? or is Johnny V. to Blame?

Scat Out (Beat reporter for trying find out how QR lost?)

You're either like 15 or 80 - which is it?

You win the prize for the fastest reply to the Scat post!!!! Seriously you want to know my age? That Dude is a little strange...ah-keh...


Scat

How about giving the horse a little haircut instead?

Maybe it was a *Samson* superstition?!:)

Stop it. QR quit and Blame didn't. Simple as that.

What about the race Musket Man ran?

He was really taken out of his game - and rushed the whole way - had to race wider on both turns than QR did and still managed to finish as well as a perfect trip QR.

Before looking at any figures - I was befuddled by how well MM ran. If Haynesfield and QR hook up early in a pace battle .. and Musket Man is in the garden spot a few lengths off of it with first run on Blame .. than it's he and Blame who are in a thriller and QR winds up a very soundly beaten 3rd.

Instead - Quality Road ended up with the candy trip - and Musket Man, a horse who doesn't have a ton of natural speed is having his ears ridden off while two paths wider through the first turn, just to put whatever kind of minimal early pressure on QR that he could ... cause Ramon Dominguez opted to apply none on Haynesfield.

QR was clearly 3rd best today IMO.

A closer inspection reveals it was a tiny, but very heavy weight.

It's amazing that Velazquez didn't say anything about the braid bead in the post race ...

While you were looking every which way but straight ahead .. your horse was getting slapped in the eye over and over by a plastic rock while going almost 40MPH.

Didn't bother him in the Met

It only bothers him in routes. Obviously

:D


I'll go with 15.

That looks like a rubber band type tie instead of a big plastic ball - and his hair seems a lot shorter where it can't reach his eyeball there.

This silly stuff is an area where I shouldn't bother with - but again, maybe it wouldn't bother a horse to have a plastic ball hitting his eye over and over while he runs... but I know it would bother a human big time.

If that didn't bother Quality Road .. he ran an absolutely disgraceful race today - and Musket Man is without question the better horse off of that performance.

Clearly, MM didn't get the best of trips, with Dominguez not keeping his end of the bargain. But how does MM's race in the Whitney, off the poor trip, fit in with his perfect trip in the Met? Wasn't he 'chasing' slow fractions today? And, wasn't he also the 3rd best horse going into the race?

Is it harder to chase slow fractions than to pass 2 horses that have set them?

I thought Musket Man had a total dream trip in the Met Mile - and I gave him no chance today.

When Dominguez didn't hold up his end of the bargain - and Ravij started riding the ears off of Musket Man and was a couple paths wider the entire way around the first turn ... I would have bet anything that he was going to run like total ratsh!t. He was basically totally sacrfacing his horse in an effort to put what minimal pace pressure on QR he could muster.

QR's race today was just breathtakingly bad. I know the pace wasn't quite as slow as it might seem because the track was a little more deep and tiring than par ... but he had the race handed to him on a golden platter and still couldn't outfinish an insanely poorly ridden Musket Man.

I thought Blame had the better trip than Musket Man. I thought Quality Road had the much better trip than Blame.

For this to be true, MM's run has to have an impact on Blame's run. Which means that MM's run has to affect QR's run. But this never happened. MM huffed and puffed but he never threatened QR at any point in the race. MM never got close enough to do this. Blame's run was, essentially, unaided.

Musket Man ran like he was attempting to act as Blame's rabbit .. parked out wide the entire way around the first turn while being ridden.

The last time he was 2nd or better after a quarter mile in race - he finished 3rd in the 2009 Sam Davis Stakes at Tampa going 8.5fs ... the horrendous 33/1 shot Sumo easily ran past him in the stretch that day and finished 3 lengths in front of him.

I probably need to watch more cycling - but I'm sorry, he got a truly idiotic ride and was taken out of his game. How he wasn't beaten a lot further leaves me suspicious of this race.

A braid hitting/bouncing around can't be that much more annoying than a tongue tied outside the mouth. Horses are smart and notice things, but I doubt stuff like that really affects their performance.

Maragh was only doing what he had to because Dominguez tried to get cute and work out a stalking trip. Not only MM but Blame, as well, was forced to run earlier than he might've wanted to. Clearly, Gomez is pushing him along on the backstretch. To say that Musket Man affected QR early is to say that Fatal Bullet affected Hollywood Hit last out and set the race up for Smokey Fire. Hollywood Hit is 2 ahead out of the gate while Fatal Bullet's jock is pumping away just to keep up. There's never any point in the race where FB causes HH to do something he doesn't want to.

If you want to say that QR just didn't fire, and Blame was a fortunate recipient, I can somewhat understand this. Of course, Hollywood Hit ran insane fractions and never changed leads, while QR got away with a slow pace and just couldn't hold on.

Blame proved best today and since this is about as good as it gets in terms of setups for QR, I suspect he will best that one again should they meet in the future.

Quality Road is a very talented horse capable of winning at any time. If he were to meet Blame and win next go round it certainly would not shock anyone. Today was just not his day. Only great horses find the wire every time regardless of any excuses.

So, I guess horses like Man o/war and Secretariat (to name but a few) were not great horse? And, please, I'm not comparing QR to the Big Reds - just addressing the comment.

Ok, almost every time.

You're talking about directly on an eye ball though.

If you go up to a horse in its stall and take the butt end of the whip and poke or slap at its eyeball I would think the horse might get annoyed.

won't have a rematch til the classic, with blame going to the jcgc next, and quality road pointing for the woodward. wonder where musket man will go next? they plan to keep him long, so his eventual target appears to be the classic as well.
blame certainly is the number one horse in the country now, with his win over what many considered the biggest threat in the handicap division. i have to think that the longer distance will suit blame even more, while it will be a bigger hurdle for quality road.