Now Quality Road refuses to board plane

[RockHardTen1985]

Originally Posted by 2Hot4TV

(From the owner,) Initially, the gate crew handled things what I perceived to be very properly, patting him on the head and neck and reassuring him. He already was agitated and hesitant and they tried to do things in a calm way. Then they went right away to the harsh stuff, like the blindfold. It went from not loading to dangerous pretty quickly.

Get a grip son, I think they should of grabbed both his ear and lip to drag his a s s in and then fined your butt for sending a green race horse to the Classic. How can you blame the gate crew!

This could very well be the owners fault. This horse had NO gate issues when running for Jimmy Jerkens.

[Travis Stone]

Originally Posted by RockHardTen1985

This could very well be the owners fault. This horse had NO gate issues when running for Jimmy Jerkens.

I can't tell if this is sarcastic.

Folks - these are horses. I just watched a horse on TV scared to step into a small pond. They can be borderline nuts sometimes, much like a lot of people we converse with here!

[NTamm1215]

I really only watch NY racing on a day-to-day basis and all I'll say about the whole thing is that there are usually a number of different things that the NY gate crew try to get an unruly horse in (walking them around, linking arms and pushing, or simply waiting for the horse to calm down) that the gate crew at SA really didn't try.

I, of course, have never tried to put a horse in the starting gate, so my opinion is incomplete, but it did seem like there were more things that could have been tried.

I also can understand that QR should have been schooled at SA but you can't simulate race conditions with a mare loading to his inside.

NT

[Travis Stone]

Originally Posted by NTamm1215

I also can understand that QR should have been schooled at SA but you can't simulate race conditions with a mare loading to his inside.

NT

If it were a dirt track, he would have walked in right away no doubt.

[Sightseek]

There are actually people on Facebook saying he is on cocaine.

[GenuineRisk]

Originally Posted by Sightseek

There are actually people on Facebook saying he is on cocaine.

Really?

face/palm

Teh stupid, it burns.

I really felt for the gate crew- talk about a no-win situation. They've got a very expensive animal absolutely freaking on them, and 13 other very expensive animals with the potential to start freaking any second. It's well and good for the barn manager to say, oh, they started out doing the right thing, petting him and reassuring him, but then just moved on to severe things too fast, but how long were they supposed to pet him at the expense of the other horses' nerves? And the gate can't scratch him themselves, can they? Even if they could, then they've got an angry owner and angry bettors to deal with. I thought they did the best they could in an impossible circumstance- one of the last horses to load freaking out right before the biggest race of the year.

Though I'd like to put that footage on my iphone so I can bring it up whenever a well-meaning friend says,"But isn't it mean to make horses run around in a circle?" and don't believe me when I tell them it's very hard to get a 1000 pound animal to do something he doesn't want to do.

(And then when they ask if he was on cocaine I will face/palm again.)

[Indian Charlie]

I'm tellin you all, it's PG's fault.

Look at the two horses he has hyped for months and how high his expectations were for the BC with these two horses.

First, Zensational didn't break from the gate well at all. It was like he was afraid to leave the gate and it cost him dearly.

I honestly believe that Quality Road saw Zensational's failed attempt at not running, and decided to take more drastic measures so as to not risk injury to himself or his reputation.

Think about it!

[Riot]

Originally Posted by Sightseek

There are actually people on Facebook saying he is on cocaine.

Tell them all the BC horses came back clean (Bloodhorse.com)

[Honu]

Originally Posted by NTamm1215

I really only watch NY racing on a day-to-day basis and all I'll say about the whole thing is that there are usually a number of different things that the NY gate crew try to get an unruly horse in (walking them around, linking arms and pushing, or simply waiting for the horse to calm down) that the gate crew at SA really didn't try.

I, of course, have never tried to put a horse in the starting gate, so my opinion is incomplete, but it did seem like there were more things that could have been tried.

I also can understand that QR should have been schooled at SA but you can't simulate race conditions with a mare loading to his inside.

NT

So you didnt see them when they locked arms behind him and he was full on jack kicking with both hind legs! You didnt see the part where Gilly tried to pet and move him from side to side to get him to budge.
Please step in one day and just try and get a horse to go into the gate that doesnt want to go. If you want to blame someone blame Todd Pletcher for not having the horse schooled prior to the race.
Horses and I mean fully intact male horses most often times in the morning during schooling hours stand in the gate with mare's and filly's and geldings and other studs.
I suggest you watch the whole scene , this horse wasnt going in the gate , and when they finally got him in and he relized it he really went even more over the edge.
So who do you blame for the horse not getting on the plane , the professional horse haulers that are part of the crew or the groom that was with him?
This horse was out of his mind and from what I read this isnt the first time he has been horrible at the gate. The guys that are on this gate crew in So Cali are some of the best there are anywhere , they are horseman and they did the best they could with a bad situation.

[NTamm1215]

Originally Posted by Honu

So you didnt see them when they locked arms behind him and he was full on jack kicking with both hind legs! You didnt see the part where Gilly tried to pet and move him from side to side to get him to budge.
Please step in one day and just try and get a horse to go into the gate that doesnt want to go. If you want to blame someone blame Todd Pletcher for not having the horse schooled prior to the race.
Horses and I mean fully intact male horses most often times in the morning during schooling hours stand in the gate with mare's and filly's and geldings and other studs.
I suggest you watch the whole scene , this horse wasnt going in the gate , and when they finally got him in and he relized it he really went even more over the edge.
So who do you blame for the horse not getting on the plane , the professional horse haulers that are part of the crew or the groom that was with him?
This horse was out of his mind and from what I read this isnt the first time he has been horrible at the gate. The guys that are on this gate crew in So Cali are some of the best there are anywhere , they are horseman and they did the best they could with a bad situation.

I knew it wouldn't be long before someone showed up with the "why don't you try to load a horse into the gate" routine.

I made it clear, I don't ride horses (thank goodness for them), I don't train horses, all I do is bet on horses. I've seen many, many horses act up at the gate before and I thought the gate crew could have done a few things differently. Perhaps the blame falls on Pletcher for not letting him school with that crew. I did think it was funny that Jerry Bailey had a few suggestions on what should be done once QR's initial buffoonery started and of course none of them were tried.

The member of the gate crew who's being applauded for grabbing the reins as QR started walking out of the gate blind-folded deserves a great bit of praise. However, QR being in that situation was incredibly dangerous and a poor decision on someone's part to let disaster almost strike.

NT

[Honu]

[quote=NTamm1215]I knew it wouldn't be long before someone showed up with the "why don't you try to load a horse into the gate" routine.

I made it clear, I don't ride horses (thank goodness for them), I don't train horses, all I do is bet on horses. I've seen many, many horses act up at the gate before and I thought the gate crew could have done a few things differently. Perhaps the blame falls on Pletcher for not letting him school with that crew. I did think it was funny that Jerry Bailey had a few suggestions on what should be done once QR's initial buffoonery started and of course none of them were tried.

The member of the gate crew who's being applauded for grabbing the reins as QR started walking out of the gate blind-folded deserves a great bit of praise. However, QR being in that situation was incredibly dangerous and a poor decision on someone's part to let disaster almost strike.

Id love to hear what you would have done . Pletcher has admitted that he only stood QR 3 times in between the Travers and the BC , now there is where something could have been done differently.