I am referring to Strong Contender.....
It is well worth watching the replay of his trip. His trip was lousy and whether or not he had a shot going into the race he certainly had none given his trip.
I put little to no stock in what Donna Ward said after the race, but he gets shut off about 100 yards into the race and completely loses any decent position. To me this is the biggest trouble many horses have in races....something happens early in the race that causes them to be at a tactical disadvantage through no fault of their own. This is what happened to Sweetnorthernsaint in the Derby ( in a somewhat more extreme example ) and this is what happened to Strong Contender Saturday.
After getting shut off back to last he finally pecked his way to the two path and finally the rail as the field went into the turn. Unless the rail is golden, and there is a far bigger argument that it was NOT the place to be, this is not a good spot to commence a rally. Finally when they came into the stretch he had to extracate himself and was forced to continue to go very wide in order to get outside Rehoboth. I doubt Prado was overly concerned at this point because he obviously wasn't having an impact on the race.
It's also worth noting that nobody gained any significant ground in the race as the first three finishers were up close and among the top four basically the whole way. Thus, all in all, Strong Contender had an impossible trip and did reasonably well to run fifth. Whether or not this will move him up enough to be competitive for the Donn remains to be seen as even off his best races he would need to step up his game to beat either Premium Tap or Invasor should they show.
Look, he's a talented horse, probably not as talented as some think, and certainly not trained by someone I have a great deal of faith in. I am not inclined, at least at this point, to be overly optimistic about his chances in a month but there is no doubt to any unbiased observer that his trip on Saturday was not good and he ran fairly well all things considered.
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