Saratoga oddity

[Calzone Lord]

Yesterday at Emerald, for instance.

* A horse goes wire-to-wire and wins the 8th race by almost 20 lengths as the second choice in the betting.

* A horse goes wire-to-wire as the clear-cut longest shot on the board in the 9th race.

In the very next race after those two wire-jobs ... you see four different jockeys absolutely gun there horses out of the gate in the $65,000 Emerald Derby.

Going 9 furlongs on dirt, they went fractions of 21.80 and 44.91 while racing part of it around the first turn.

http://www1.drf.com/drfPDFChartRaces...20130811&RN=10

The race collapsed so badly, good horses faded off the tv screen in a race that went almost 40 seconds for the last 3 furlongs over a very fast main track.

Only two horses didn't send for the lead, and they made up a $143 exacta and were a city block in front of the rest of the field at the finish.

It's a hard thing to explain to people who don't bet ... and especially don't bet cheaper race tracks ... but the best times for expected pace meltdowns are after front running horses have had a successful recent run.