Cappy has a point. It's one thing to work with an older horse that you claim and try to change is style, another to suddenly change a horse 7 weeks before the horses biggest career race. Would it have made sense in early march to have tried to teach Congaree or Spend a Buck or Affirmed to be a closer? You dance with what brought you at this point.
I agree that some horses can and do learn new tactics. Some never will. You might get them to rate kindly but they don't like the kickback or they find that they just don't like going out and passing horses. I have found that most speedball types are merely horses that don't care to change gears or paths in the middle of a race. They go as fast and as far as they can but they aren't adjustable and when you rate them they just gallop around.
What they do in the morning often doesn't translate into the real world in the afternoon. Some riders are pretty good at settling a horse without fighting, Ramon D and Calvin do a nice job taking a long hold.
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RIP Monroe.
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