Trainers like Lukas and Baffert depended on innate talent for their stayers, since neither learned much about conditioning while training QHs. Lukas had a good eye for an athlete, and Baffert had people with a good eye for an athlete, who picked out Silver Charms and Real Quiets for him.
Afleet Alex came out of his exhausting Derby, and his acrobatic miracle in the Preakness, to run his best race ever in the Belmont because he had been properly conditioned, by a horseman who knew how to get a horse fit.
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