Dead rail turn 2 in races 10 and 13. Why not for Preakness?
From the NBC blimp shot, I thought Orb was basically in the 2-path all the way around. Most of the jocks avoided the rail. Rosie went inside on Mylute briefly, then shifted out. Only Leparoux on Titletown Five stayed down there for any length of time.
We missed Titletown Five, he was the only horse on the rail the second turn in the Preakness and should have gotten one.
Keep in mind that a) the ground you see on the sheet is rounded off, and b) it\'s on the turns, which is usually all we get (I have the Parx trackman give us rail stretch daily because that place has so many dead rails, but it\'s extra work for them), and c) for whatever reason the dead rail is almost always a second turn phenomenon.
There\'s a lot of judgement involved in this. The sample size is small, and there are times in fact it may be the rail in the stretch, not on the turn, they just stay there snd stop running.
To clarify, now that we\'ve gone over it a few times here in the office and with ground guys-- ORB was 1-2 on the second turn. We didn\'t give him an \"X\", but it\'s possible he wasn\'t on the best part of the track.