"Charismatic" on ESPN

[Calzone Lord]

I'm not sure what Ron Anderson was babbling about when he was attempting to defend the ride ... the horse ran his race and didn't break down until after the finish line.

If you're taking the position of defending the ride - it's a very simple explanation - the filly Silverbulletday came into that race with form and numbers that were clearly superior to any of Charismatic's male rivals.

If Silverbulletday was allowed no pressure on an uncontested lead -- she was almost 100% likely to run to her best numbers. Charismatic was also stretching out off of a very fast paced 9.5 furlong race - and was never that far back in the Derby -- what really made the ride appear to be so terrible after the fact was the dismal way Silverbulletday performed in the final quarter mile after getting all that pressure through very legit fractions.





SILVERBULLETDAY




Was it a terrible ride? In a sense that Charismatic still ran to his good form despite the more forward tactics - and his best challenger fell apart very late from the pressure - the tactics actually worked because they achieved the desired goal in that sense.

The problem was two horses (Lemon Drop Kid and Vision And Verse) both made significant improvement over the form they brought into the race.

Trying to erase an advantage of your toughest competitior on paper is A LOT different than doing something truly insane and going after a 100/1 shot on paper like Franklin did in '79.

That aside -- Antley was one F'ed up mo-fo who needed help.