Another thing that really cost Smarty was being ridden out in the Preakness and winning by 10 lengths. When you know you just had a hard race two weeks before and you know that you're going to have another hard race in 3 weeks, the smart thing to do is to take a nice tight hold of the horse and cruise home by 3-4 lengths. Why ask the horse and win by 10 lengths? That just knocks the horse out. In fairness to Elliot, there are very few jockeys that wouldn't have done the same thing that Elliot did. Most jockeys don't think about saving the horse for their next race. One jockey that was extremely smart and who would often times save the horse for their next race was Jerry Bailey. Do you remember Bailey's ride on Saint Liam in the Woodward? That was the horse's final race before the BC Classic. Bailey never asked the horse. He won under a strangle-hold. That is the way to do it. If you could win every race like that, your horse might last forever. I think of it like a lemon. You don't want to squeeze the lemon dry. When you ask a horse for all he's got, you're sqeezing all the juice out of the lemon.
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