WSB seemed like he had a shot to win. He liked the track the other time he ran on it.
I liked Bittel Road and overestimated his chances. Wasn't really a bettable race unless you really wanted to toss the top 2.
The winner was a decent animal and more of a longer-route turf horse than most of these. Bittel Road is probably more of a miler type of turf horse. Bernie had shown good versatility on synthetics.
The track is so bush league with the sand-storms they have going on. The place to be is generally forwardly placed up on the outside. - However the track was playing against speed - so missing the break didn't hurt Hold Me Back. Desormeaux got a pretty good trip.
Prado had Bernie in the absolute worst spot at turfway - saving ground behind horses. He probaby had breathed in a ton of that crap , you can see on the replays that he is running a lot of the race in a carpet-fibre dust cloud. Whether he is any good or not, it couldn't have helped him.
|