mccarron, for about 10 years, had a knack for doing two things while riding a race.
one, he had a tendency to get himself outmaneuvered and trapped on the rail.
two, he was beyond awful, i'm talking pg1985 awful, on speed horses going a route of ground. he often would take a horse like precisionist or bertrando and take them out of their game by trying to throttle their speed way down.
the idea being that if he saved horse early, he'd have more horse later. this might work on some horses, but when a horses only weapon is their raw blazing speed (talking routes here), making them run slow early makes them waste energy and also enables their opponents to conserve energy for the later stages of the race as well.
i think i've seen sal try to explain this concept to people on here, but for whatever reason, this simple piece of racing fact is somewhat elusive for most people here.
i'll give mccarron some credit though, as later in his career, sometime around the mid 90's, he actually figured this out and started to ride MUCH better. not only was he riding speed better, but his in race tactics were much sounder.
that's one of the things that drive me crazy about most jocks. they dont seem to enter a race with a concept of how the race will unfold, and inevitably will become a victim of how the race develops.
the other thing about mccarron, he was a known ass kisser of epic proportions at socal tracks back in the 80's and 90's. probably in the 2000s as well.
i was talking to the office manager of one of the better known socal trainers (hall of fame trainer) back around the early 90s. beyond being the officer manager of this trainer, she was also related to him. anyways, when we were talking about horses and jocks and such, she told me that when this trainer learned that mccarron had suffered a major injury (i believe a broken leg!), this trainer jumped out of his chair and was actually ecstatic.
i don't remember the exact quote she gave, but to paraphrase, it went something like "yes! serves that as.s kissing SOB right!".
he could not stand mccarron, even though he used him pretty frequently on some great animals.
nitpick and flame away.
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