pletcher is no dummy, and has made quite a fortune for himself and his owners by properly placing his many horses. he will put them in the best spot for a check, a graded win, and for future deals--that worked perfectly for him and others with any given saturday. call it what you will, or not, but it wouldn't be the first time he ducked a horse. look at the belmont, he didn't duck any one horse, but certainly was NOT going to have one of his horses face off with the top three finishers from the derby. he planned for the haskell, and it paid off nicely for him. had street sense declared from the travers, he may well have waited a week for that rather than go in the haskell. of course that's all speculation.
but i have NO doubt, had street sense skipped the travers (which was a distinct possibility) that he would have had a horse in there.
as for the jcgc, there are other opportunities to face older horses. that race imo isn't as big a deterrent as the haskell as far as getting a good field for the travers.
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Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren't very new at all.
Abraham Lincoln
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