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Originally Posted by dalakhani
This is only Kent's third season at Saratoga so all of this had to have happened since 2006. I dont doubt it happened. My point is that I dont remember the race or the horse and i doubt many others do. It is rather insignificant.
Without being on Big Brown it is impossible for you or I to know what the horse was feeling like. I would imagine after the Eight Belles tragedy that Kent was going to be a little cautious. How do you know that the owner didnt give him "just in case" instructions? It would be extremely ignorant to think that Kent pulled him up because he didnt feel like riding him out.
When I read the critiques on racing forums heaped upon ride after ride I find myself wondering how many critics have EVER been on top of a horse. Sometimes, horses just dont do what you want them to. No matter, if the race doesnt come out like planned, its automatically the jockey's fault. Some rides will be "good" and some "bad" but at the end of the day more times than not the best horse wins.
There are basic laws of business. If your gardner is bad and your yard looks like crap, you find a new gardner. If Kent continuously gives bad rides and is this awful symbol, how does he continue to get good mounts? Are all of these people stupid? Bill Mott stupid?
When I first got to this site all i ever saw was people beating the crap out of Gomez. Now, I dont ever see a word. Did he suddenly learn how to ride? Or is he just getting better horses?
For the record, I am not denying that a ride CAN make a difference in a race. At the same time, the laws of averages kick in.
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A healthy debate really requires more of a response than "it is rather insignificant". It wasn't to the dam of Capote's Crown who was being sold and a Grade 1 stakes placing would have sent the cost up another 3 million dollars. Nor was it to the fans, handicappers who included him in their tri's.
The law of averages assumes a given set of consistent variables. With Kent you never know what kind of ride you are going to get. His mood/disagreeable nature/insecurities all factor in. With other jocks you don't have so many of these kinds of factors that filter into their rides.
Trainers ride Jock's for all sorts of reasons. Dutrow has made it clear he wouldn't have him on his horses except the owners have told him that they want him. That frequently happens. As for what happened at Belmont no one knows for sure. I think the combination of a horse that wasn't as fit as he needed to be along with a horrible ride were the main factors. What was the most prominent factor is anyone's guess. I mean it was Da Tara out there. We aren't talking about Affirmed and Alydar here.
But I have seen it so often in the last three years. When Kent is rounding the turn with a horse he is giving up on, he doesn't ride him and pulls him up very quickly at or just past the finish which is always very bad for the horse. And I challenge you to watch him after the finish line and see how far he gallops his horses out. I was at Churchill at the beginning of July and the fans were all over him there for doing that. There are many trainers who won't ride him now. I assume there will be more to come. He hasn't put up his house on Long Island for no reason. He's fixing to move on AGAIN.