Worst Ride of the Day
 

We've gone through some of the better rides of the day. What rides were bad? Alot of people are jumping all over Castellano's ride on Bernardini but I think he did fine riding him. He seemed to be in a no win situation.

John Velasquez on English Channel was not great, Corey Nak did not do Balletto many favors.

Castellano moved Bern prematurely and took him too wide around the turn. Considering what was at stake he gets the worst ride of the day.

Dont forget the guy was only an hour or so from being strapped on a board and loaded into an ambulance. He may have moved a touch early but the horse was not the same horse as he had been riding all year. Pretty much in all his races he pulls hard throughout but yesterday he looked to drop the bit down the backside and J cast may have hit the panic button a bit. But if he lets him drop back we all go crazy and say "How could he let him drop back to 10th??????"

I posted this on another thread:

"I think Castellano made his decision to move based on what Lava Man did. If you watch all of Lava Man's race the results are determined at the same spot of the track every single time. Lava Man made his typical move, and Castellano did the right thing by sending his horse. If Castellano waited to long, and it turned out that Lava Man could run on the track, we would have seen the same result we saw all summer in California."


What Castellano did, based on his competition was the correct thing to do. Before the race, Jerry Bailey also did a grid and pointed out the same thing would have to be done or you would be beat on the turn. In the end you plan the best strategy, but the guy with the most horse will beat you anyway.

I think that Bernardini ran his race. I thought he was moving great coming down the stretch. His stride looked as good as ever. I think the reason that he wasn't pulling as much was because they were going :46 3/5 yesterday. In his last couple of races they were going :48. If you try to get him to go :48, he's going to pull a little bit.

Javy may have moved a little early yesterday but it wasn't horrendous or anything. It was a little premature.

Stop with all your facts and making sense. Its easier to just say he wasn't moving right, didn't hold the track, or dropped the bit.

What I saw is a horse that was loping along at the pace he usually does, but like you said there was a more contested and robust pace so he found himself further back than normal.

He never faced the quality field that was in the Classic. I think he did well to finish 2nd although his move was a little early.

I thought Leparoux on Asi Siempre was horrendous. I am shocked to say it, but she was the best filly/mare in that race.

very true ..the best horse won that race..thanks to a good friend i ended up in the shadwell stud box on the rail.of the 3rd level..these guys were going ape ****..i had to join them..what a thrill///

I'll go with that one.Yesterday was not a great day for that guy.

He did have a decent ride in the Ack Ack, race 2...where he lost by a neck on a 20-1 shot, but aside from that one, I agree. I had that one to win too & didn't back it up :mad:

Luzzi had one of his typical butcher rides on Pegasus Wind.

What real chance did he have on that horse? Run him in the back like Teuflesberg and give him no chance? Try and get on top of the suicidal fractions set by the west coast horses? It was a pretty terrible spot to run that horse. He had no chance with any jockey on his back.

Which jockey would have done better on that horse?

Blaming the jockey for the performance of Pegasus Wind is like blaming your waiter for the high prices in a restaurant.

Ridiculous and embarrassing.

In no way am I blaming Luzzi for losing the race. Pegasus Wind wasn't going to win. The title of the thread is worst ride of the day, and going 3 wide and past the leaders on the backstretch instead of tucking behind them is a typical speed-crazy Luzzi ride that gave his horse no chance of even finishing in the money.

Fair enough.

Probably, however, riding to instructions.

Lukas wanted him to go to the front.Well,on this day,if you get to the front from out there,how much horse are you going to have? Highly compromised post(especially anybody who wanted to show speed from out there.)There are an incredible amount of horses that are gunna win coming out of bad finishes in those races on Saturday. Do you think H Hughes,TM Bling,Bordonaro,Siren Lure,Scatdaddy etc.etc.etc. are really gunna run anything like they did Saturday? That was like running on the surface of Mars.When is the last time you saw the 2 logical favorites in a race break down without being part of a chain rxn. accident of some sort? 2 Tired horses with high odds ...maybe,but not the 2 best fillys on paper. You can chalk that up to poor track condition.I will never buy into their garbage that it was a coincidence.They are gunna sell that one hard,and most in the industry will get in line and sell it with them. Do you really think this "special horse" called Henny Hughes (who had come top 2 in all 9 previous races) is that picky about track condition? 3 steps out of the gate,and Velasquez knew they were in trouble? What the hell surface was that? Beulah?

i only watched the replay once or twice, but my take on Henny was that his poor performance was based more on being in a step slow out of the gate and being in tight and getting bounced around. I'm not saying that he didn't care for the surface either, I really don't know. But I do know that 100 yards from the gate he was done for the day. He really was not able to get into stride or find a comfortable position to run in.

His rider told you the problem.He didn't handle the surface(for the 1st time 1n 10 starts.)Now,you don't like that,and so you come up with another reason.Johnny said 3 steps out of the gate he knew it was not gunna happen for this horse.Not 100 yards.Not the middle of the backstretch.That's creative fiction.

I don't base my opinions on which facts I like or dislike. I go by what I see with my eyes whether I like it or not. I saw him have a great deal of trouble after the break.

Henny was a single for me so I didn't like the end result, but I do not buy that it was mainly due to the surface.

As far as JV's comments, how in the hell can you know in three steps if the horse didn't handle the surface. I don't put much stock in jockey or trainer comments after a loss. How could the surface be so horrible that it had this huge impact on Henny in three steps, yet other horses went out of the gate unaffected?

This horse has so much speed I would have expected him to run with anybody on any type of track, for at least one or two quarters. If the track really wasn't to his liking I would have expected it to have a more subtle, slower effect, as in a slow fade to the rear out of a contending position.
I wouldn't expect it to virtually stop him right out of the gate.

Ramon on Rob Roy was not exactly a stellar ride...IMO

my 5 hour ride back home Saturday night having to ask the driver to pull over every 30 minutes so I could pee. I think he is still my pal, not sure:D

You're right Kev, and I'm a big Ramon fan...he sure did make the most out of his other two mounts, eh?

yeah...especially on BTN:mad: