Nice tactics by Indian Blessing's camp
 

You have a filly with tremendous early speed who has repeatedly staggered home through the stretch in all of her race except her debut at 5.5 furlongs - only winning each times because Indian Blessing fractures fields with her tremendous speed - which has always been on display in either the early or middle stages.

Gomez opts to rate her - takes away by far her greatest weapon (her natural speed) and basically turns the race into a 2 furlong stretch sprint with a filly who has always won inspite of staggering through the stretch.

That was really fun stuff to watch. You have a four horse field - two of which are VERY overmatched - and the connections of the more likely winner of the other two do everything in there power to give the other runner every chance.

I was hoping Indian Blessing would not be on her game today and made a bet on Proud spell to get her revenge. Agree with you on the jocks ride however. She could have opened up very easily coming out of the turn..

different tactics likely would have yielded the same result at that distance. she staggers home in all her races.

It's a long year but this one will be hard to top for stupidest ride. I only hope he was following instructions because I'd hate to believe he was the dumb on his own.

That is very wrong.

She could have easily opened up 5 without being asked - and only rated slightly instead of being strangled.

Though - if Gomez did that - the no-name jock on the winner would have had to use Proud Spell to keep her within a length or two.

Different tactics would have made things a lot tougher on Proud Spell - no matter how easy the breater, Indian Blessing is never going to accelerate in the lane.

They used different tactics at that distance the last time and the result was different.

There was a multiple stakes winning pace setting sprinter in that race (Miss Missile) to keep Indian Blessing from being ridden stupidly.

Normally - an early speed horse is best served by getting the kind of ride Gomez gave Indian Blessing today. However, Indian Blessing is not your typical speed horse...anyone who's ever seen her races should know that.

It's a lot of fun to see human connections give races away.

I thought for a minute that Jose Santos must have come back and climbed aboard for that ride.

You wouldn't think he would be....but who knows.
He had a good day overall. I thought some of his other rides today were timed perfectly.

my number one pet peeve...if you have the clearly superior pace horse you dont try to steal it and turn it into a turf race the last 2 furlongs. Sure if you are not as good and trying to steel it you try that but that horse has one advantage over the field, her speed.

Honestly though isnt that what Gomez does on all his mounts? He would rate Holy Bull.

I thought this was the likeliest scenario today. Proud Spell gets run into the ground by Indian Blessing. Instead, Gomez gets cute and Proud Spell is handed the race.

Very true... he's best from off the pace.

and for the record I was not criticizing his riding in general, just saying you know what you are getting with him going in.

Oh yea, I wasn't responding thinking you were criticizing him. Indian Blessing needs Pat Day to come out of retirement. She needs that extra quarter tank late in the race.

I'll venture to say she wins the Test Stakes this year.

Gomez is a fine rider - there's no doubt of that. I was his biggest fan on the old AOL boards - back when he was a rider who couldn't ever crack the top 5 standings out west and got awful mounts.

His ride on Hard Spun in the Belmont was also very interesting - he could have made an easy, clear, and unpressured lead with Hard Spun in that race - but instead he opted to strangle him off the pace and get drowned by Tiago in the process.

:D

thats wrong, your way off if gomez let her open up the race was over

dont get me wrong proud spell is a very very good filly, but today she should not have won

It made NO difference what Gomez did if they went 50 49 48 47 or 46 to the half Proud spell was going to be right off her flank that was there game plan going in. So to say Gomez gave her a poor ride is totally absurd. The better filly won today.

i think he gave her a poor ride as he fought with her thru much of the race-an unwinnable situation for all involved. rather than expend her energy running, she had to fight her rider. she's headstrong, and he knows it. best thing to do would be let her run her race, and hope she had enough at the end.
had proud spell made an effort to stay with her early on with presumably faster fractions, she may not have had enough left at the end to finish strongly and pass the leader.