King's Drama

[SniperSB23]

Originally Posted by point given

The only thing is that I wonder why the jock doesnot notice it in the warmup of the horse ? If the horse warms up poorly, why not scratch prerace ? Very few are scratched in this manner. Midrace, also no problem, save the horse and don't take chances, but short of that, unless an obvious sound etc. should have been scratched at the gate to protect both the animal and the public.

Just from what I've observed on track I don't think you can really tell if something is wrong with a horse until it runs full speed. Virtually every late scratch I've seen has occured after the jockey sensed something, started warming the horse up at full speed and could then tell something was wrong. If the horse doesn't give the jock enough of an indication that something is wrong so that the jock runs him hard while warming up then I don't think he can know until he is in the race. And you don't want the jock tiring the horse out pre-race by running him all out so there really has to seem to be something wrong to give that a try.