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#1
08-09-2010, 11:38 AM
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I felt like Rajiv Maragh was struggling towards the end of the Belmont meet and that really hasn't changed at Saratoga. In fact, it's probably gotten worse.
Since winning the 1st and 2nd two weeks ago he has two winners. One was Wow Wow Wow, who he astutely took off the pace but did basically nothing special with regards to finishing. The race was served up to him on a silver platter. His ride Friday on Sotique was good, but how horrendous did Lezcano look as he impotently let Fandangle change leads, drift out and basically do everything possible to lose that race? Maragh does not move horses up whatsoever. He is not a good finisher and has serious problems when he has to assess the pace scenario in a given race. He also seems to have to put horses in a drive earlier than most riders, I don't know if it's part of his style but the innate things that elite jockeys can do to get horses moving (Dominguez can do it without the whip or even really moving his body) are totally lost on Rajiv Maragh. NT 
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#3
08-09-2010, 11:45 AM
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The sad part is that these 'things' NEVER improve. You have owners and trainers relying on figure makers to determine claims and race placement YET when jocks take money out of their pockets they do nothing about it. Why do these jocks not take steps to improve their race 'comprehension' skills? Seems to me, that this impetus needs to come from the owners/trainers. Or course, they're even more clueless in this area.  Daniel Dennett has argued that even MICE understand modus ponens. Clearly, jocks don't.
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#4
08-09-2010, 03:56 PM
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I have to disagree that his ride was "mind-bogglingly incompetent." His hand was forced once Dominguez decided not to press Quality Road for who knows what reason. Rajiv couldn't have known that QR was going to come back to the field like he did, and the fractions were soft, so he pressed the pace. The wideness certainly hurt him, but other than that, I don't see his ride as terrible.
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#5
08-09-2010, 05:40 PM
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That results in him being 2 paths wider than QR the whole way around the first turn - and 3 paths wider than Blame .. meaning he's giving away 3 lengths in ground loss to Quality Road and 4.5 lengths to Blame while riding the ears off of a horse who couldn't hold off Sumo the last time he was that close to the pace. On the backstretch - he puts Dominguez in a box and starts race riding him ... Haynesfield's a 12/1 shot who broke through the gate pre-start - and he's treating him like he's Cigar or something. Dominguez has to get shoulder to shoulder and pushes Musket Man out to get out of the box on the turn .. while Musket Man's getting shoved out he's about a path and a half wider than Quality Road on the far turn ... and Gomez's had a flawless ground saving ride in behind him while Quality Road's had a dream trip in front of him.
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#6
08-09-2010, 05:44 PM
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#7
08-09-2010, 06:04 PM
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If Gomez rode Blame the way Margah rode Musket Man - Blame would have been beaten a significant margin. I get your point that his chance of winning appeared to be 0% when Dominguez opted to use passive tactics. But that doesn't mean he needed to act as a rabbit for Blame and Mine That Bird.
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#8
08-09-2010, 05:53 PM
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"There are NO TRIP in SLOW (PACED) Races"
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#9
08-09-2010, 06:09 PM
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First of all - yes, there are trips in slow paced races. Whoever said there isn't is nuts. Second of all - the pace wasn't all that slow. The pace figure was only 9 points slower than the final figure. I would call it a moderate pace in relation to final time.
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