Trainer Quotes from Monday's action

[The Indomitable DrugS]

Originally Posted by pgardn

He had the outside post. Should he have scratched? I watched that race a few times, I would like to know how Hard Spun was supposed to get to the rail before the stretch run in which he was very tired. From my view it would have been very difficult.

Believe me, the pace was so slow in that race, that Hard Spun certainly could have cleared.

To really get an idea of how slow the fractions were, go take a look at Uptothesky's form in race 3. He's basically a slowpoke, coming off of a 7th place finish in a 7.5K N2L life race last out--and a 8th beaten 23 lengths in a 5K N2L life two starts back.

Also, in four of his last five starts, he rated in 4th early on while going a route of ground.

He won wire-to-wire setting faster fractions than the Southwest winner.

Hard Spun had won all four of his prior races in wire-to-wire fashion, and absolutely had the natural speed to get a much better position early on.

Originally Posted by The Indomitable DrugS

Believe me, the pace was so slow in that race, that Hard Spun certainly could have cleared.

To really get an idea of how slow the fractions were, go take a look at Uptothesky's form in race 3. He's basically a slowpoke, coming off of a 7th place finish in a 7.5K N2L life race last out--and a 8th beaten 23 lengths in a 5K N2L life two starts back.

Also, in four of his last five starts, he rated in 4th early on while going a route of ground.

He won wire-to-wire setting faster fractions than the Southwest winner.

Hard Spun had won all four of his prior races in wire-to-wire fashion, and absolutely had the natural speed to get a much better position early on.

Clearly, you do you homework, Drugs; and always offer support for your position. In most cases, the support is of the general case type.

If you watch the race again, you'll HAVE to notice that the horse breaks slowly AND takes a bad/funky step a few strides after. It takes him a bit to settle in stride. Wouldn't you think that the jock was wise to just let him settle and run on his own
RATHER than pushing him to get the lead before a very short run to the turn?

Throw the race out and, if you like him, give him another chance.

[The Indomitable DrugS]

The Pletcher/Velazquez horse was the one who missed the break.

Hard Spun, from what I could see, was kept quiet in the pre-race, and it was pretty clear that the plan all along was to take him off the pace and to try and drop in.

IMO, his break was consistant with a horse who was being rated from the moment he left the gate.

In fact, I give the Oaklawn Park chart caller credit for picking that up. He has him breaking 6th of 9 in the field...and the comment of Hard Spun's running line starts "taken in hand at the start"

Okay

Let me get to a more serious issue:

what I really find annoying is the lack of consistency between tracks in terms of information presentation.

for example, in most cases, there's no stretch fraction for mile races

OAK is an exception, however.

So I have to add code to cover this for those rare cases when I want to chart a OAK race