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Originally Posted by ManilaRose
I'm not on the Jara bandwagon but nobody would've won on him today. You won't ever see him close to the pace because the horse has no early speed at all. Second and most importantly, he was visibly tired at the end and being closer to the pace certainly wouldn't have helped him finish any stronger. How good is he? I don't know, but he should certainly improve off the start as it appears he needed the race and got something out of it.
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Here were his fractions through 4 furlongs in each of his past races, all at a longer distance than yesterday's race was run:
9f Allowance GP - 48.80
Fountain of Youth - 48.90
Wood Memorial - 48.34
Kentucky Derby - 48.79
Belmont Stake - 49.04
Yesterday - 49.51
So in all of his five races he went at least three lengths faster in the early going than yesterday even though those races ranged from 9 to 12 furlongs. This wasn't a case where he couldn't have gone faster early. It was a case that his jockey had become so used to coming from deep that he ran the race as if he had to come deep when the horse should have been sitting 5-6 lengths off the slow pace early.