Quote:
Originally Posted by RolloTomasi
It was hardly a risk in the Acorn. Again, the hole was there. If it wasn't, Smith would have simply split horses (it was a 6-horse field) and been able to unleash her turn of foot at the top of the stretch. She wouldn't have got the jump on Salty perhaps, but considering she's handle that rival 3 times now, it probably didn't matter.
As for Salty missing the break in the CCA Oaks, wasn't that pretty much the death knell for her race? Note her wide sweep and wilt in the stretch. How Smith moving Abel Tasman way too early somehow helped exploit the fact that Salty missed the break is beyond me. The damage had already been done. He should have won the race by open lengths, not survived an inquiry.
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She's beaten Salty three times with much better trips each time. You left that part out.
And the point was to take advantage of Salty breaking slowly by putting as much distance on her as he could while up on a slow pace, instead of having her alongside Salty at the rear and having to outmaneuver her from the back again. Why put yourself in that position again when the race is there for the taking? I noticed you don't have an argument for why it's bad to be aggressive into a 25-second middle split when no one else wants the lead.