Gomez seemed pestered by the 99-1 Gallagher longshot to his inside the entire backstretch. Looked like he was up on that one's heels a couple of times and meanwhile the rest of the field pulled clear of the back markers leaving him with too much to do once he had a clear run.

I did see the race, we will have to disagree. I don't think it was a valid excuse. The horse clearly wasn't the horse we have seen in his previous races, Gomez is one of the best riders in traffic and if he thought he had some horse I believe he would have gotten some run somewhere.

I suppose you could just go by what Gomez said after the race.