I want to commend Jerry on his analysis of RA in the Preakness. I did not see the TG numbers but everyone understood that RA was coming off a very fast figure from which she figured to regress. The main question was how much and would it be enough to cause her to lose or run out of the money. Jerry\'s comments on the board were pretty accurate, including his analysis of her pace abilities. Watching the race it seemed like she could have cleared the field but Borel elected to have her stalk just outside BD and then she made the lead as she pleased.
Based on how the horses came in, beaten lengths and times throughout the day I guestimated that she ran about 3 points slower than on Oaks Day. We\'ll see how the figs come back. If so her pattern is going to look a lot like War Emblem\'s and BB\'s. I made a killing betting against WE in the Belmont and last year failed to do so by not betting against BB -- mainly because I believed my eyes in the Preakness (note to self, never do that again).
I also appreciated Jerry\'s view of why the big efforts cause problems, though I do think that sometimes the effort actually does cause a significant physical issue that is not detected pre-race (thinking Barbaro here).
The list of top horses that went bad after big efforts seems to dwarf the number of horses that just ran consistently good numbers in the normal range. From memory I have Ruffian, Go For Wand, Fusaichi Pegasus, Charismatic, Big Brown, Afleet Alex, Point Given (granted he ran a number of ridiculous numbers but I think his last race was his fastest and he never ran again), Riboletta, the list goes on. It is a game of percentages, not certainties. I\'ll ride the percentages every day.
I don\'t want to go too simple on these two points, but let me comment on them anyway.
I always thought Charismatic\'s last 4 races were a product of medication rules. He went from a strict state to a lenient one to another lenient one to a semi-strict state (Cal to Ky to Md to NY.) Before the Belmont I predicted to my buddies at the Los Alamitos OTB that he would break down in the race. I figured he would finally feel the pain and take a bad step in NY after feeling no pain in Ky and Md.
As for Ruffian and Go For Wand, I was at both races. My eyes could have deceived me, but Ruffian took her bad step when Foolish Pleasure was rushed up alongside her, early in the race. It was the first time any horse ever got that close to her.
Go For Wand was scary for me. I was sitting above the turn with God-awful powerful binoculars and had a bead on her when Bayakoa drew alongside her. I was looking at her eyes and I thought she flinched just at that moment. Like Ruffian, I imagined she was shocked to see another horse at a peak moment, when that had not happened to her before. Bad step and the worst fall I had seen up to that time.
It doesn\'t take much.