Maragh was only doing what he had to because Dominguez tried to get cute and work out a stalking trip. Not only MM but Blame, as well, was forced to run earlier than he might've wanted to. Clearly, Gomez is pushing him along on the backstretch. To say that Musket Man affected QR early is to say that Fatal Bullet affected Hollywood Hit last out and set the race up for Smokey Fire. Hollywood Hit is 2 ahead out of the gate while Fatal Bullet's jock is pumping away just to keep up. There's never any point in the race where FB causes HH to do something he doesn't want to.
If you want to say that QR just didn't fire, and Blame was a fortunate recipient, I can somewhat understand this. Of course, Hollywood Hit ran insane fractions and never changed leads, while QR got away with a slow pace and just couldn't hold on.
Blame proved best today and since this is about as good as it gets in terms of setups for QR, I suspect he will best that one again should they meet in the future.
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