Street Sense Lead Change and Other Ramblings

[Uncle Buck]

SS has raced down the stretch on his right lead in both 2007 starts. In the BC last fall he raced on his left lead coming home and looked like a completely different animal.

Can someone smarter than me share with us the significance of this?

In other thoughts...Steve Assmusen killed me Saturday. His Oaklawn horses looked like mules on the sheets. I had none of them. I thought Curlin would regress to a 3 or 4 and surely someone would step forward. NOT...

Watch the ARK Derby replay and check out Curlin\'s ears turning for home. They\'re straight up waiting for Albarado for ask the question. This is a very smart and talented animal...Nice stride. Red coat - kind of reminds me of Big Red a little

[imallin]

Its a combination of struggling for air and the way the horse is built. Some animals legs are built a certain way that makes it comfortable for them to race on the improper lead at certain stages of the race. This Street Sense has front bandages too, i can\'t imagine that\'s a positive handicapping angle.

Also, some horse\'s race on the incorrect lead thru heredity. I think Strike the Gold had problems changing leads being a son of Alydar who also was beaten numerous times by Affirmed because he didn\'t know how to change leadslate in races. STG was \'built\' to be comfortable racing that way.

I believe STG switched leads late in the stretch in his Derby win and really kicked in when he did.

Street Sense actually switches leads turning for home and then flips back halfway down the lane.....where as a horse like Alydar never changed leads at all on most occasions.

Also, one last thing....although we are not privy to this type of videotape, seeing which lead a horse races on while on the backstretch may tell a different tale. When horses are on the backstretch, they are \'going easily\' and not extended, so which lead they race on may be different from the lead they race on down the homestretch when heavy pressure is applied by the rider.

Being on the \'wrong\' lead can\'t ever be a good thing. Its not necessarily bad depending on each individual horse\'s habits, but i can\'t imagine you can ever say its positive in any way.

[miff]

Nafzager uses fronts often, so I\'m not sure if that is significant for SS but his repeated bearing in on Sat may be. Could also be that he doesn\'t run his best/smoothest on poly.Horses are usually on their left leads early and change to their right when asked to do so in the stretch or in multiple turn races.An unsound horse may not change leads or change several times if he is uncomfortable. Some just have a habit of finishing a race on their left(wrong) lead.I thought Alydar would have beaten Affirmed a couple of times had he switched leads late,but maybe not.Some horses are flawless athletes that change leads without you noticing it while others have a very pronounced/visible stride change that you can see.

I was unaware that struggling for air had anything to do with lead changes and never heard that before.


Mike

[NoCarolinaTony]

Also this is the first time in the last three races that Street Sense raced on the outside not down the rail.

Maybe that is why Borel has always come down the rail, except this year it was taken by Zanjero and quite honestly was not the best place to be so far this meet.

NC Tony