Owner blaming loss in Gold Cup and intention to run on dirt in BC for taking horse away from Ellis who has only trained the horse to 8 wins in 12 starts.

What makes this so silly is that I believe that Rail Trip very likely ran a better number than the winner in the race as Rail Trip spotted the winner 7 pounds and Bejarano kept Rail Trip wide the whole way so there was alot of ground loss relative to Awesome Gem who for once got a great rail skimming trip.

I feel bad in this for Ellis who seems like a great guy and who said before the race he was worried about the weight.  Bejarano is a great jock in general but he does lose alot of ground and I suppose he rode Rail Trip in the race as if he was the best horse so he wanted to keep him out of trouble but we knew from the sheets that he wasn\'t fast enough to overcome the weight and the ground loss.

Bottom line for me, amazing that the owners are so blind to weight and ground loss but I guess I shouldn\'t be so surprised given that handicappers consistently overlook the same issues.

I also think one of the forces at work is that the owners just got bad news from Ellis on another one of the horses he trains for them who won\'t make the Swaps and on the other side, a new private purchase that these same owners made for a 2 year old (Boys at Tosconova) just freaked in his first start for Dutrow.  I know how these things work from an owners perspective where you are getting good news from one trainer and a batch of bad news from another trainer and so the inclination is to switch all of the horses to the \"hot\" traines but it\'s not usually the right thing to do as these things tend to run in cycles.

Silver Charm: This is a bum deal but maybe they also want to get some dirt racing in him and dirt training. That is not gonna happen out west.

The owners have a pretty relationship with Ellis and have horses with the brother of Ellis\'s wife in the Ky circuit.

Anybody who saw the race KNOWS weight and trip got the horse beat. Not his training.....

Dana666: The wanting to run him on dirt angle makes more sense than saying Ellis screwed up. Bejarano got the horse beat. His ride was absolutely inexplicable. I\'ve seldom seen a worse ride in a big race. So the main pacesetter fails to break, and what does Bejarano do? Strangle his horse into submission 4 wide all the way around, and he was still running at the end of the race - it was a huge effort for Rail Trip. Bejarano is the worst leading rider at any track in North America. He has no sense of pace. His only strength is he has soft hands and very good mechanics as a rider, but he rides all monsters; take almost any jockey in the rider colony and give him Bejarano\'s mounts, and he/she would be number 1 too. No one goes west anymore because they\'re the best -they go west b/c they can\'t hack it in the east or they\'re running from something (usually their reputation) - that applies to horses, jockeys, and trainers. The opposite of what it was once like all those years ago when So. Cal had the best of everything. As far as Ellis, he has a Mr. Clean-type image (via TV shows and TVG), though I\'ve heard some less than flattering things about him (don\'t know him personally), and that he should be considered right up there with the great \"super\" trainers out west - you know all the usual suspects - Mitchell, O\'Neill, Sadler, Cerin, etc., etc. ....