Tampa Wednesday - Race 1

[scanman]

Originally Posted by Bigsmc

I have never seen anything like this. In the first race, the 1 - Rexon's Halo's last ten comment lines read (newest race first, like The Form prints them):

Refused to break (He was the $.90 chalk in this one!!)
Dwelt badly start
Hesitated start
Hesitated start
Dwelt start
Dwelt start
Dwelt start
Dwelt start
No factor
Hesitated start

Obviously, this horse is still a maiden. Pretty incredible. I would love to hear trainer/owner, Barry Rose's story behind what he has tried to do with this one in the morning to get him to break better. I would think everything short of eye of newt.

Yeah and his 7 (all MSW at Calder) before that read:

Outrun (broke last)
Off slowly
Showed little (broke 8th out of 9)
Checked 1st turn (broke last)
Bumped early (broke last)
Bumped st, outrun (broke 8th out of 10)
Slow start

Could be that this guy just HATES the gate.

Reminds me of a horse I saw run in Ireland at the Laytown meeting last year. Racing at Laytown is a one day meeting on the beach about 40 miles north of Dublin. Trainer brings a horse over from England with horrible form. Of course, the horse "won for fun" at 5-1. Next day, I read in the paper where the trainer states that he specifically brought the over to run at Laytown because all the races were started with a "tape start" (no starting gate) and that the horse hated the starting gate (nothing like inside info).

Maybe they ought to give this guy a chance on the jumps circuit. He's a 3 yr old that still has lots of time to develop. He's shown a bit of form in the last 2 races that he completed. After Wednesday, he will be eligible for a Starter Allowance-type race for Florida-breds, 1 1/4 mile, at the Little Everglades Steeplechase meet on March 8th (provided they write that race again this year). It would be interesting to see how he would do racing from a flag start.