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Originally Posted by the_fat_man
While I certainly agree that trainers really need to prepare their horses better, I think that you're locked on to a particular way of looking at things. You've accepted what you've been taught and have heard over the years.
Thus, 'the horse is going to do what he wants'. But this isn't really true as you've certainly seen countless cases where a jock has jerked a horse, significantly, to get out of trouble. How does that work when the same jock, in your opinion, can't rate a horse?
I've commented in the past on rides by Cornelio and Kent, for example, on the same horse. Kent is stronger than most and is able to rate a horse while other jocks, like Cornelio, wrestle with it. In this sense, Kent does some of the work you expect the trainer to do. As for jocks like Cornelio, check out his last two rides on Pinckney Hill and ask yourself "who's the jock and who is the horse?".
As for Fischer's comment, he actually has something. Watch how some of the better speed jocks, the Bazes, for example, rate horses: they do it by relaxing the reins. If the jock relaxes, the horse does as well. If a jock lacks the strength to properly restrain a horse, then it can never get it to relax, cause the jock can't relax.
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A horse that gets jerked to get out of trouble is not necessarily a rank horse.
Cornelio is horrible right now. I don't know what has happened to him, but he looks petrified out there. Of course Baze can rate horses, he is always 3 to 5 and towers over the opposition many, many times.
I understand that many horses can and will relax. I'm just saying that it isn't always the case. I've seen Kent rate horses into submission in the past too. Was it Relaxed Gesture a few years ago where he gave that comically bad ride, strangling the horse back off the lead in a race with a pedestrian pace?
I'll be the first to admit I'm not a big jockey guy. I think the get too much credit and way too much blame. As I said, my opinion is that horse was not going to run well with any ride, he was rank and didn't look particularly good to me. We'll see in a few weeks if he came back ok.