Eight Belles Epiphany

[Chuckles_the_Clown2]

I was just laying down to sleep with dreams of race horses dancing through my head and right at the moment of slumber it all finally coalesced upon me. Eight Belles had a genetic affliction, not a race induced flaw.

If you go to her Kentucky Derby site:

http://www.kentuckyderby.com/2008/contenders/eight-belles

You will see a record of her races with video. If you watch these races in order, what you\'ll find is that as a two year old she didn\'t change leads. She stayed on her right lead in the stretch and didn\'t finish. Somewhere at the end of her two year old year, she learned to left lead in the stretch and was not beaten again until the Derby. However, what you\'ll also observe is that she ran with her head held high and to the right as if eyeballin the track with her left eye. She also pounded the track pretty aggressively with a high kick right fore when on her left lead. In both her races and workouts she would veer in or out suddenly in her stretch runs. I\'m too tired to confirm it tonight, but I think you\'ll find some of these directional wavers were due to lead changes, some due to a burst and head movement.

Whats all this mean?...I don\'t think she had a race induced affliction or was over raced but I do think she had different or somewhat skewed conformation and that fatigue and a hard race put additional stress upon her and her genetic flaws manifested themselves despite the fact she was building bone through an excellent race foundation.

Lets see what the autopsy says.

She was beautiful wasn\'t she? Look at her classic head. The fillies are always prettier than the colts.

[Uncle Buck]

My GOD. That Martha Washington race from Oaklawn was unreal. She passed \'em all in the blink of an eye. That was really breathtaking

[Chuckles_the_Clown2]

Uncle Buck Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> My GOD. That Martha Washington race from Oaklawn
> was unreal. She passed \'em all in the blink of an
> eye. That was really breathtaking

It was wasn\'t it.

The race before the Derby she had some trouble with the break. She ran wide on relatively slow fractions and still got up on desire. It was the race that sold me on her. In the Derby had she been able to keep her momentum a la Brown, it may have been interesting. She certainly could have run an even better Derby than she ran.

[miff]

\"Only one of the other 19 horses that ran in the Derby last Saturday - Recapturetheglory, the fifth-place finisher - will oppose Big Brown in the $1 million Preakness, and Dutrow already is sizing up the prospective opposition for the 1 3/16-mile race. He said \"Pletcher\'s white horse\" - Harlem Rocker, the Withers Stakes winner trained by Todd Pletcher - is the only one that concerns him, but otherwise, a horse to upset Big Brown \"is going to have to be a really good one.\"