forget Summer Bird for a minute. Who Was Better Dunkirk or Mine That Bird?

[Indian Charlie]

Originally Posted by Bobby Fischer

What can we make of these comments?

Unless there was an airport style "moving walkway" under the track it isn't really possible for a paceless race to go 23.41 for the first quarter of a 12 furlong race. I don't know what JV could have possibly been expecting for a 12 furlong race with the 2 fastest runners on form being Charitable Man and Miner's Escape. Both of those runners have only route speed - they aren't sprinters...

Was JV that clueless to reality? Was he making excuses for breaking a stretch runner too keenly in a 12 furlong race with little expected pace? Was he intimidated with having an inside post and felt that he had to use some horse from the gate to avoid feeling the squeeze early??
Who knows.

Velazquez is pretty much a negative in any situation now except for dominant outside speed.

Uhm, perhaps the track was insanely fast? While I tend to think jockeys are retards and often make things up as they speak, that's both CB and JRV who said the pace was very slow.

Also, watching the race, Dunkirk did not look like a horse that was going 47.