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Originally Posted by pgardn
And thats the point. This is a stampede. There have to be some horrible trips. I dont see a Smarty Jones that can get out of the gate incredibly quickly, immediately find himself a good spot, run at a very tough pace holding a nice clean position, and have more than enough for the end. There is no horse with this capability. Curlin and Street Sense do not have this capability imo, especially Street Sense. They all need some luck. So I am going for the longer odds given that every horse needs racing luck. There is no horse that I can see, based on prior races, that will just lay it down and make the race his. Smarty JOnes and Barbaro did not suprise me. I did not know if they would win, but the fact they came in and dominated was not a shocker. I dont see any horse doing this in May.
The only horses with the physical capability of doing this are Nobiz and Curlin imo. If Curlin pulls this off, people are going to say I should have seen this coming, look how he had dominated. I wont be one of those. I can see him getting covered up and hating it. If Nobiz (who has the style) does this people will say look at this monster of a horse, everyone could see he was getting better at understanding his job after the blinks and going deaf, I wont. I will be suprised.
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I think Curlin is good enough to get good position and make his own trip. Of course, I don't have anywhere near that much confidence in Albarado.
As for NoCount:
I found it interesting that for the first time in his life he was able to actually run straight through the stretch. The blinkers/earplugs did the job. The problem here, of course, is that the jock didn't seem to realize it. I mean, he's only been on the horse for all his races and guess it didn't sink in that the horse
a) was on the rail --- which is where he wants to be (before and after the changes) and
b) unlike previous attempts, he was running straight
So Cornelio decides to start a steady stream of left handed whipping. This, of course, negates the INSIDE advantage the horse had throughout the race. He starts drifting, carrying AGS out with him (what inside bias, says Johnny V)
and almost blows the race. Almost loses to a runt. Very late stretch, Cornelio wakes up, stops with the lefty stream and starts riding/steering the horse towards the inside again. And he takes off and preserves the win.
So, he got the bias dream trip for most of the race, and almost lost the race to a plug when he lost the advantage. I'd say, NoCount, not only can't win with adversity but he can't win without a dream trip.