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Originally Posted by cmorioles
It has been in vogue because strangling a rank horse doesn't work either. It is up to the trainer to have the horse relaxed. A rider can try, but in the end, the horse is going to do what he wants. This isn't Gallop Racer.
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While I certainly agree that trainers really need to prepare their horses better, I think that you're locked on to a particular way of looking at things. You've accepted what you've been taught and have heard over the years.
Thus, 'the horse is going to do what he wants'. But this isn't really true as you've certainly seen countless cases where a jock has jerked a horse, significantly, to get out of trouble. How does that work when the same jock, in your opinion, can't rate a horse?
I've commented in the past on rides by Cornelio and Kent, for example, on the same horse. Kent is stronger than most and is able to rate a horse while other jocks, like Cornelio, wrestle with it. In this sense, Kent does some of the work you expect the trainer to do. As for jocks like Cornelio, check out his last two rides on Pinckney Hill and ask yourself "who's the jock and who is the horse?".
As for Fischer's comment, he actually has something. Watch how some of the better speed jocks, the Bazes, for example, rate horses: they do it by relaxing the reins. If the jock relaxes, the horse does as well. If a jock lacks the strength to properly restrain a horse, then it can never get it to relax, cause the jock can't relax.