I said in a prior post about Cobalt Blue's performance "the most hardened students of trip handicapping will tell you his race was every bit as good as his stake win at SA last time out."
In the SA Stake race, he was basically allowed to walk on an uncontested lead, through very soft early fractions. He went from the trip of a lifetime, to, for a horse with his style, the trip from hell.
In both Hard Spun's Southwest and CB's race---you had a lightly raced speed horse, who's connections came into the race with the plan of taking back and rating from off the pace for the first time. Both horses found themselves off the pace, and racing wide, over strongly inside-speed tracks.
IMO, it's a recipe for a career worst performance. I have no problem if you don't agree with that--and I bet you surely are in the strong majority.
In Hard Spun's case, I predicted minutes before the race, albeit on another board, that he would surely lose that race. And when he did lose the race, I strongly defended his performance before he came back and proved an easy winner in the Lane's End.
I only say that, because I don't want to sound like I bet him and it's all just a case of sour grapes.
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