Take Control breaks down

[Merlinsky]

Originally Posted by Kasept

Appreciate Chuck separating the 2 portions of the situation. I was conveying from the original post about Take Control's 'soundness', that those nearest to him of late felt he was sound and going well. Obviously his back story indicate there have been plenty of things that kept him out of training.

Steve, a horse doesn't have to be hobbling on the track to be a ticking time bomb. He was in my stable mail, I had a pretty good idea of much hard training he got and was concerned but I just figured the fact that Bob was still making a go of it was a good sign. Now I wonder what it was a sign of exactly. TC was sound until he wasn't and when he wasn't he really really wasn't. Three times and we all know how the 3rd one went. Compared to TC, Monzante was an iron horse.

Take Control clearly had issues that could appear all of a sudden (well, as far as we were concerned) and take him out for lengthy periods of time. You'd think that'd make them a little trigger happy with the x-rays after a poor performance. I'd be looking at him like he was made of glass after his last two incidents. No way does his Awesome Again not call for a thorough going over. Did he get it? Orb did after his last face plant. Great that clockers thought TC looked fine. Clearly wasn't fine enough to finish anything other than dead last in his last race. He's a better horse than that. Something wasn't right, the kind of not right that would get some connections to wait for next year, not go to the Breeders' Cup. Imagine if they decided to give him the winter off so as to not risk another year lost or worse. Didn't Baffert talk about how well a horse has to be doing to warrant coming to the BC? TC was gonna bring his A game? What exactly does that look like? Forgive me I've only seen it once in 2009 and once in 2012. It sounds harsh because I was invested in a horse I felt had writing on the wall, but I can't be sorry for that harshness. It's just something that seems obvious to me, and clearly other posters here. I don't get how this happened despite that obviousness. Whatever his training, his racing form didn't make me think he was sitting on a big one.