Smooth Air was 7 1/2 lengths clear of the third place finisher. He rallied from sixth, which was the best finish of horses closest to the pace top to bottom. The second, third, fourth and fifth-place horses early could manage only seventh or worse.
Perfect trip or not, he ran his race, which was good enough for a solid second. If people want to label such performances as "suck-up" I can rattle off a massive list of good suck-up horses who won some pretty big races.
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