Quote:
Originally Posted by iamthelurker
The outrage over jockeys who wrap on horses that are going to run off the board is a tricky debate to get into. Is a rider supposed to lay into a tiring horse for the sake of the money placed on that horses efforts? Or is he supposed to take the horses well being and condition coming out of the race into mind. What would the gambler want? What would the trainer/owner want? What is right?
This is why things like this most likely warrant case by case opinions but both gamblers and trainers/owners all only have one scapegoat once the gates open and that's the man risking his life on board.
And really come on guys this Jose Ortiz couldn't even shine Jose Santos or Kent D's boots when it comes to wrapping up on a horse who may have actually ran 2nd instead of 4th.
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I have no problem with riders wrapping up on tiring horses. That is not something that I ever complain about. But these two cases looked different. In both of these cases, he is easing horses at the quarter pole. When you see that, you are expecting one of two things. The first possibility is that the horses are lame and are going to be pulled up. The second possibility is that the horses are dead tired and are stopping bad. But neither of those possibilities came to fruition in the two races in question. When you watch those two horses coming down the stretch, they both appeared to be travelling ok and they weren't that tired. Neither horse was really shortening stride. You could see that Gem City Gal still had some run in her.
In fairness to Ortiz, in both of these cases it is possible that these horses just didn't feel right to him. But if I was a steward, I would certainly call him in on both of these cases and get an explanation.