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Originally Posted by ateamstupid
I didn't say the filly was extremely lucky, I said Smith was lucky that there was a hole at the rail. If he gets stopped there, he loses. Period.
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This is very presumptuous. Firstly, Smith only went for the hole because it was, in fact,
there. He didn't sit behind horses waiting for it to open. From the looks of it, he was looking to split tiring horses rather than follow Salty wide through the turn. Seeing fellow closer Union Strike under a drive at the 3/8s pole probably gave Smith confidence there would be room to run in the pocket.
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You wanted him to take the same risk again, irrespective of circumstances, instead of "taxing the filly" by sending her into a 25-second quarter down a straightaway after his main competition missed the break.
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It was hardly a risk in the Acorn. Again, the hole was there. If it wasn't, Smith would have simply split horses (it was a 6-horse field) and been able to unleash her turn of foot at the top of the stretch. She wouldn't have got the jump on Salty perhaps, but considering she's handle that rival 3 times now, it probably didn't matter.
As for Salty missing the break in the CCA Oaks, wasn't that pretty much the death knell for her race? Note her wide sweep and wilt in the stretch. How Smith moving Abel Tasman way too early somehow helped exploit the fact that Salty missed the break is beyond me. The damage had already been done. He should have won the race by open lengths, not survived an inquiry.