How would The Classic have been...

[bogeydaman]

IMO I don't see how you can say the horse was "cruising" on an uncontested lead. There were 4 horses (AGS, LR, DS, and GW) trying to get to Hard Spun for the first 6 furlongs. Those 4 horses ended up getting beat a minumum of 24 lengths by Hard Spun. The only other 3 horses that were in the same area code as HS when the race was over were the horses that were "outrun early". Just because a horse was not head and head with HS by no means did he have an early lead. Just look at the results of the other 8 horses in the race.