All of the early speed other than Oxbow was totally fried.
Oxbow finished a heroic 6th beaten 10 lengths, but it gets ugly after that.
Palace Malice stopped cold in the stretch even though he was free running on a loose lead. Goldencents was beaten 50 lengths. Vyjack was beaten more than 50 lengths. Verrezano was beaten 16 lengths with no trip excuse. It'smyluckyday was beaten 22 lengths.
After the fact, it's clear that Castallano basically misjudged the pace on Normandy Invasion.
Pace meltdowns happen.
The Giacomo year the half mile fraction was 45.38 and the final time was 2.02.75
This year, the half mile fraction was 45.33 and the final time was 2:02.89
The pace was 0.05 seconds faster this year than the Giacomo year, and the final time was 0.14 seconds slower this year than the Giacomo year.
Good horses like Flower Alley and Bellamy Road both got fried chasing that pace. Afleet Alex made a premature inside move that I'm sure Rose regrets. He was flat in the stretch.
Giacomo was 18th beaten 16 lengths and Don't Get Mad was 19th beaten 19 lengths and they surged wide to finish 1st and 4th at odds of 50/1 and 30/1.
This year it was five deep closers making up the top five spots. All of them raced 18+ lengths off of the early pace other than Normandy Invasion...who was surprisingly close and made the eye-catching early move.
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