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Originally Posted by slotdirt
philcski - I respect your knowledge. Immensely, but I just watched all of those races and I don't care what the charts might say, my man was within a few lengths of the lead in the Juvenile, Sanford, Hopeful, Arkansas Derby, virutally throughout. That's not what I would call a pure closer.
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Slot,
Perhaps it is a matter of semantics but I would call Afleet Alex a closer.
I would draw a distinction between those I would call a deep closer (which would not be AA) and just a closer.
I also think that by the Belmont he was much more of a closer than he was in his 2yo campaign.
If you look at his last two races, I think JRose figured out after the Derby that the colt did his best running if he was allowed to lope along near the back of the pack and then make one big run near the end of the race. To me.....that is a closer, but again this is really just semantics.
I think the more important point is that a horse does not have to be anywhere near the lead to win the Belmont.