McKee Blew it!

[Pedigree Ann]

Backtrack to February 1971. Whittingham has this promising colt who had come up from the Chile the previous summer and had won several nice races, and placed in a couple others, coming from off the pace. The Bald Eagle and his main man Shoemaker were finding their best strategy was to drop him out completely early and make a big looping move on the far turn. Today is the San Marcos H at 10f on the turf; Cougar II is the highweight and favorite. But when they spring from the gate, The Big Cat decides to throw out the script. He goes straight to the front and the Shoe wisely decides to humor him. He was 2 lengths in front the first time they went under the wire and 6 lengths in front the second time (the one that counted). His Felinity never did it again, I suppose because he had proved to his jock who was in control.

Moral of the story: Adjusting the plan to fit the horse's mood and race conditions works better than trying to force the horse to fit the plan. The ablility to make that kind of judgment on the fly is the difference between a top jock and a hard-working, consciencious midlevel jock like McKee.