Quote:
Originally Posted by Travis Stone
Bad rides cost us three Triple Crown winners at least. Real Quiet, Smarty Jones and Spectacular Bid...
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Real Quiet and Smarty Jones were both very well ridden in the Belmont IMO.
Had I trained Real Quiet - I would have defended that ride to the hills.
Look at the Moss pace figures - Real Quiet ran outright faster for 8fs on them than any horse in the Derby since '91 including Congaree and Unbridled's Song. Look at who Real Quiet's best progeny are - Closing sprinters like Midnight Lute and Pussycat Doll.
Desormeaux was moving his hands on Real Quiet every step of the way because that's how he was ridden in all of his good races - and it's how he wasn't ridden in the countless races where he ran like total dogsh!t.
Real Quiet didn't blow open the race on the far turn in the Belmont because of anything Desormeaux did - he blew open the lead because he had been running spectacularly fast through that stage of his prior races - and Grand Slam and Chilito stopping only added to the image.
I suppose Desormeaux could have tried to ride him like Jose Santos did so many turf horses - and keep a choke hold on him until Victory Gallop gets along side and than try to spurt away from VG. I'm not sure that would have worked any better.
As for Smarty Jones - what could Elliot have done different? Let Rock Hard Ten go in the middle of the race? In hindsight, obviously that would have been the right move, but RHT was seemingly the only horse to beat... and to just invite him past you with an inside move would have made Elliot look bad had RHT won the race.
06-24-2011, 08:04 AM
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