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Originally Posted by oracle80
I only have one question with him, and that will be answered when he has a gutcheck.
Hes never had to fight in the lane. Hes been clear and running at his own leisure. Until his last start he also always bore in in the lane. He works alone, and with no company. Ragozins guys did an extensive study years ago regarding horses figures and easy wins. I was listening to an audio cassette(remember those?) back in 1992 put out by those guys as I drove to the Belmont Stakes to watch Ap Indy. The guy on the tape talked about this and I thank God I was listening to it because its made me a hell of a lot of money and dispelled a notion that I had that I see that many people still cling to. That notion is the idea that a horse who wins easily with a big fig could go even faster if pushed harder. I'm sure TG and Jerry Brown have done a study(those guys study EVERYTHING!) but I haven't read or heard theirs so I am using ragozin as a basis. They said on the tape that their studies showed that horses always ran their best lifetime figs in easy wins. That the notion that if pushed and ridden harder that they would be faster in the next race was completely false. I've been using that theory successfully for 14 years now.
I guess the explanation has been described as that when a horse is under no pressure from either horses or stress, that he can run free and efficiently doling out his energy as he WANTS to use it. Kinda like if you or I went for a two mile run and went at our own pace as far as what felt good to us to do. If pushed harder and being forced to use our own energy in a manner that wasnt the way we felt best doing it we wouldnt go as fast.
Its not Bern's fault that so far hes been clear, thats because of his immense talent. But I really think too much is being made of him being clear by many in a surface he relished and beating Hemingway's Key and Minister.
The Preakness set up for him when Bro Derek was hurt at the gate, Barb broke down, and SNS didn't run his race(hasnt run since then) and weaved down the lane.
The test he will get from Bluegrass Cat is sure to be his sternest yet as at some point Blue Cat will challenge him. The old time trainers I know always said you couldnt beat a horse like Bern from in front of him, because he will make that move and crush your spirit. The old timers I know always said you had to get one like this from BEHIND and make him run in the lane with someone actually laying on him because then the gut check takes place.
I think it Bluegrass cat can look him in the eyeball in the lane then he can beat him, because we still don't know how Bern will respond if looked in the eye.
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I agree with you that in about 99% of the cases a horse that won big couldn't have gone much faster if pushed through the wire. The Dandy though is one of the 1% of races where the horse really was geared down and could have gone faster. He didn't just finish that race under a hand ride. He finished it while the jockey was fighting to pull him back and slow him down. Now the real question is if he had run 4 lengths faster would the Beyer have come in any higher or would they have just changed the variant so that he ran the same figure. So there may be a fundamental difference in whether a horse could have gone faster if pushed through the wire and whether they would have got a higher figure, especially when dealing with single race variants.