Velazquez's ride on Big Drama
 

What do you make of Velazquez's ride on Big Drama? When they came out of the gate there was a stumble, then Velazquez seemed to immediately guide Big Drama to the middle of the track. My first thought was that this was a Forty-Niner/Winning Colors type ploy, and that Velazquez was an idiot. Then I considered two other possibilities:

1. Velazquez had determined that the rail was slow and wanted to get out to a faster path.

2. After the gate incident and the stumble out of the gate, Velazquez wanted to get his horse away from the rail in case he did something crazy.

In the quotes thread, Velazquez is quoted as saying Big Drama ran away with him. Was it really Big Drama running away from that rail?

--Dunbar

It seemed to me that the rail had been playing dead friday and saturday and most horses in the lead were a couple of paths wider than what you would normally see.

Interesting combination it seemed of speed holding with dead inside paths. Maybe one of ours registered trip doctors can expound.

Agree, even though it's the opposite of how Pimlico typically plays, but the results of the Maryland BC Sprint backs you up. Silver Edition was best but got stuck inside the winner on the rail.

Saw something about Big Drama having a new cast placed on race day.....would have liked to have known that before betting him. Seems like BS if they were really hidingthat from the public.

No, he got cast in his stall, stuck and unable to get up, not a cast for a leg or something of that ilk ...

Horses roll in their stalls and get cast ... This horse is a common SOB, bad tempered, and nearly got himself cast again in the starting gate before the race ..

It was reported that he got cast that morning or the night before, in his stall ...

Thanks

I think you may be right, even when RA could get to the rail at the 3/8ths Borel kept her in the 3 path.

The cast in the new Star Trek movie did better than I anticipated.

dalakhani, Hoss, and phil, thanks for the input.

--Dunbar

I already mentioned this in another thread, but I thought JV's ride showed he didn't believe he had the horse to win the Preakness, the 3 path was immaterial to me, what was evident was he was riding to not finish last rather than riding to win. In my opinion the only way BD could have won the race was to try to steal it on the front, it is impossible to know whether Borel would have gone after BD early on or taken back to track him had JV decided to take charge at the gate by opening a lead and then trying to slow it down, however as anyone saw his arms were motionless until they hit the midway part of the backstretch. Thus he was riding safe.

I kept thinking the same.. what is he doing.... now if he was fighting the horse... I thought he had a nice path....unless he was leaving the rail open for MTB....[ opps ...Bo-rail was on the filly ]