Quote:
Originally Posted by blackthroatedwind
The problem with this thinking is that most horses are apprehensive about rallying inside in the stretch, despite what a former poster here thinks, and will hesitate inside, but rally strongly once taking outside their rival(s) as St. John's River did. Take a look at the stretch of Saturday's Ft. Marcy at Belmont, for a good example of this, and one on turf so as to take away any possible dirt bias misunderstanding.
I'm not saying the rail was necessarily the best place to be Friday or Saturday, but with racing generally having an outside flow if the racetrack is even, and the races are run fairly, tracks can often appear to have an anti-rail bias when, in fact, one doesn't exist at all.
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I agree with this, if anything the track was very tiring and not kind to speed... which means the firster that won the maiden race for Baffert might actually be as good as advertised on the toteboard, and also Shackleford should be upgraded going forward.
For what it's worth I bet St. John's River and thought Rosie gave her a great ride, especially considering the horse took a right turn out of the gate and spotted the field a couple lengths. Whether or not riding the potentially dead rail till midstretch cost her a victory is certainly questionable but I'd say it didn't.