DonGuido, there is no doubt in my mind that the track was souped up but maybe I'm just bitter?! Let's go to a more reliable source - the over-blessed Chad Brown as quoted in the Thoroughbred Daily News on Saturday night with additional insight from Sierra Leone's jockey, Flavien Prat :
Though he appeared to lug in a bit in the Belmont stretch, that did not cost him the race. Brown noted that the track conditions worked against late-runners.
"It's a hard track to close ground on," Brown said. "Really, only
one race today someone closed. This would be the second one
that closed. It's disappointing the way they had the track today,
to be honest with you. It doesn't surprise me that a speed horse
won the race."
After the rough start, Brown said that Sierra Leone was unable
to deliver the type of strategic acceleration he needed to get
back into the race.
"My horse, he had an opportunity to improve his position on
the backside and he really didn't do it," Brown said. "It was a
tough beat."
Once he got Sierra Leone settled and running into the first turn, Prat figured things were OK.
"They were going quite fast so I was happy where I was," he
said. "I wish I could have gotten myself a little closer down the
backside, but I was not able."
Passing the quarter pole, Sierra Leone was on the move, but
he found trouble again when Protective (Medaglia d'Oro) forced
him to go very wide.
"The horse inside kept pushing me out," Prat said. "I wish I
could have just cleared him and get going. I was not able to do
that. We got to the turn and I took him back to the inside and he
came running, but he ran out of room."
Me again. Guess who was on Protective and pushed Sierra Leon out even further in the stretch to further insure he got beat? His former jockey - Tyler Gaffalione - that's who. And for the record, my hopes were mainly riding with Seize the Gray who I figured would like the speed-favoring track the most.
Here's the link to article I quoted in the Thoroughbred Daily News:
https://www.thoroughbreddailynews.co.../tdn240609.pdf