[the_fat_man]

yo, Phil

I wondered on another thread yesterday why Clement was riding Castellano back after Javier got the horse beat at KEE last out.

He has a clear lead and the horse is tiring; and he makes the mistake of sticking him righty, rather than just coaxing him to the wire. The horse jumps back into lefty lead. But that's not enough of a clue for Castellano. He then sticks the horse lefty which gets it back on righty lead. You'd think that at this point he'd just ride it to the wire. BUT, he continues sticking lefty and the horse ducks out severely -- so even if it'd won, there'd been a DQ.

Castellano is the master of HERDING in the stretch. If I didn't know better, I'd suspect that he wanted the horse to drift out.

So, while I blame Morales for not giving up the rail, I also feel that Castellano deserves to get bullied for all the times he's won by herding horses out while the stewards sit on their asses and do nothing. And the end, I blame the stewards for not properly policing what is a very dangerous sport.