Post Mortem

[mjellish]

People talk sometimes as if its the Jock who runs the race.  At the end of the day they ride the race, not run it.  Nyquist has still never taken dirt.  And when Ex took the lead and dropped over on him he Nyq sure didnt wait long to veer back out and get out of that kickback.

IMO, and its only an opinion, i dunno what else the jock could have done.  He was on a horse who had never eaten dirt and probably wouldn\'t care for it.  He rode him more or less the only way he could have to avoid taking dirt after drawing inside of a lot of other speed.

[Silver Charm]

Well said. I said before he was 5 wide in the Juvy and 3 wide in the Derby. He has never sat in the pocket like Exag did on the far turn and we still don\'t know if he can.

The pace in the Preakness projected to be very fast and he projected to be wide. Or he could have tried to do something he has never done before. Rate inside or in traffic...

[ringato3]

MJ,

Respect your opinion, but think you are WAY offbase.

Tell me why Mario has to attack down the backstretch.  The 4 had backed off, the 2 was on the lead, Mario was on the outside in a nice stalking position, why go attack Uncle Lino.  No way that was to avoid taking dirt.  Just stupid race riding.

Sure, the horse doesn\'t want to take dirt, but that had nothing to do with the over aggressive move down the backstretch.  He and Uncle Lino ding donging down the backside only makes sense if the biggest concern Mario had was Uncle Lino getting away from him, which was silly, relative to the quality horse behind him.

Don\'t get me wrong, I am thrilled with the decision, as I bet Exaggerator in both legs of this triple crown (a bit on Danzig Candy in the Derby), but a strange ride IMO.  When i watch the replay, I see him pushing on the horse, not a Palace Malice Derby ride, where Smith lost control of the horse and he was run off.

Rob

[TempletonPeck]

mjellish Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> And when Ex took the lead and dropped over
> on him he Nyq sure didnt wait long to veer back
> out and get out of that kickback.

I\'m not sure if that was Nyquist or Gutierrez that wanted the quick lane-change, or maybe both, but it sure didn\'t take them long to get back out, did it?

> IMO, and its only an opinion, i dunno what else
> the jock could have done.

I tend to think this more than anything, and fwiw my feeling on Gutierrez is it\'s possible there is no worse rider who has won more. The race set up very poorly for them, and panned out not so well. Horse ran pretty game in defeat, and life goes on.

I think his real masterpiece of the weekend was in the BES, which was about the ride he gave Donworth in the Big \'Cap.

Having watched the replay now a few times, I am kinda thinking Velazquez did Stradivari no favors. I wonder, if he drops him to the rail, do we have a different story? Rail didn\'t harm Exaggerator or Cherry Wine, and could he have given Stradivari his head a little more and not fought with him so much? Kent D said he walked Exaggerator down to the rail during the parade/warm-up and thought it looked fine, so went for it, I guess Velazquez didn\'t, or didn\'t agree?

[P-Dub]

ringato3 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> MJ,
>
> Respect your opinion, but think you are WAY
> offbase.
>
> Tell me why Mario has to attack down the
> backstretch.  The 4 had backed off, the 2 was on
> the lead, Mario was on the outside in a nice
> stalking position, why go attack Uncle Lino.  No
> way that was to avoid taking dirt.  Just stupid
> race riding.
>
> Sure, the horse doesn\'t want to take dirt, but
> that had nothing to do with the over aggressive
> move down the backstretch.  He and Uncle Lino ding
> donging down the backside only makes sense if the
> biggest concern Mario had was Uncle Lino getting
> away from him, which was silly, relative to the
> quality horse behind him.
>
> Don\'t get me wrong, I am thrilled with the
> decision, as I bet Exaggerator in both legs of
> this triple crown (a bit on Danzig Candy in the
> Derby), but a strange ride IMO.  When i watch the
> replay, I see him pushing on the horse, not a
> Palace Malice Derby ride, where Smith lost control
> of the horse and he was run off.
>
> Rob

I gotta say, you\'re off base here. I just watched the replay.

Gutierrez did not push this horse down the backstretch. Leaving the gate he breaks sharply, veers out a bit to get the #4 off his flank while the #2 drives up inside of him. The 2 of them head around the turn into the backstretch.  At no point is Gutierrez scrubbing on him, urging him, or anything else other than sitting on him. Nyqvist is doing it on his own, because at that point that\'s what the horse wants to do. He leaves the gate flying, and is content to stay up front. Talking about Nyqvist. I don\'t think strangling the horse, which is what it would have took to slow him down, was a good idea either.

Its the horse that is doing the work.  I don\'t know why people think horses are cars, you just hit the gas or the breaks and they do whatever they want you to do. They are animals, 1200+ pound animals, and if they want to do something there isn\'t much a 115 pound man can do about it.

Gutierrez rode the race O\'Neill wanted him to. Stay outside, stay up front. Nyquist gave a tremendous effort considering the wicked pace. But blaming Gutierrez for the race ride, IMO isn\'t fair.

[ringato3]

P-Dub,

I read the O\'Neil comments and I guess that means they must be true.  But after the horse settled beautifully off a 45 and change half in the Derby, why would he instruct Mario to quarter horse this horse to the lead.

As for being pushed or not, we will have to agree to disagree.  Yes, he isn\'t whipping and slashing, for sure.  But after the 4 momentarily backed off, he is moving his hands shaking the horse a bit, which I think looks like asking him to go.  (otherwise why do it).

Now, while I think it was a bad ride by Mario, it is nowhere near the rise the absolute neanderthal gave the ride on the 4.  J.Toledo, who shouldn\'t be allowed in races of this magnitude, was trying to do exactly what with Awesome Speed?  he leaves hard, gets outsprinted, Ok.  But then not realizing they are going 45 and change setting apparently the fast variant adjusted preakness splits every, decides to whip and slash approaching the far turn to keep pressing the pace.  If he was a rabbit for Exaggerator, good ride.  Otherwise, ?

I think Exaggerator was the best horse on the day, on that surface and was going to win.  Don\'t want to take anything away from him.  But got a feeling the margin was going to be quite a bit different with anything close to a more normal/patient ride.  

Rob

[mjellish]

Rob,

I guess we disagree here.  NYQ was drawn inside with speed to his inside and out.  They all broke well.  I don\'t see how you could expect the jock to try to back down NYQ on the backstretch with Lino to his inside, Awesome Speed to his outside and Collected and Strad right there behind.  It\'s not like Lino and Nyquist drew off by 5 lengths on the field.  They were all right there.  

Assuming you could even get the horse to do it, why would you pull Nyquist back to let one cross over in front of him while being pinned inside by another?  So you can be stuck behind two horses taking dirt for the first time ever?  That would have been the definition of a bad ride.

Had Nyq drawn outside they would have had options.  But he didn\'t.  The horse ran how he had to run to not take dirt.  It was a horrible set up for him.  He ran really well IMO.  I don\'t fault the jock at all.  

As an aside, I doubt NYQ runs in the Belmont.  If I owned him I wouldn\'t.  I would give him enough time to forget about this race, rebuild his energy and confidence while pointing towards the Travers.

[Paolo]

IMO, Doug thought he had a \'Pharoah clone and gave instructions for a wire job. Afterwards he said he didn\'t think he could be beat, implicitly confirming that it was his tactical decision. Not sure if he underestimated the pace ability of \'Lino, or if he respected it enough to go early to prevent a runaway. Either way, I don\'t see how Mario deserves the brunt of the criticism (other than horseplayers being an unforgiving bunch).

Tough to see Billy the Kid depart town last year. No more talk of him coming back after watching the OKC Dub-drub last night!

[bobphilo]

Velasquez moved Stradivari to the inside from his outside post just outside of Exaggerator in the 2 path from the start. He only swung wide following EX in the stretch. He closed well just missing 3rd by a nose and a head. Not a bad ride by Velasquez, the horse just wasn\'t good enough to win.

[FrankD.]

Bob,

No doubt from that UN GODLY post it was as good a ride as JV could have given him and I\'m NO Johnny V fan. The old time Maryland horseman will tell you go 2 turns at Pimlico outside the 8 path the track actually slopes downward from the crown and they are running uphill on the turns, 8 or 9 degree banking as opposed to 14 or 15 degrees at most venues.

TG ground guys make 2 designations on turns entering and leaving. From years of sitting with Uncle Bill checking ground I\'m sure they have Strad 2W entering & 5W leaving thats before the fan out in the stretch. He lost some ground on the 2nd turn.

I totally agree that he was not good or seasoned enough to win, a really good race from out there considering all.

Goos luck,

Frank D.

[TempletonPeck]

Appeared to me that he was wider than that through the first turn and down the back stretch. I will try to find and watch the head-on.

[FrankD.]

Temp,

I would call the first turn 2W entering 3W leaving, the back stretch is a straight line.

[TempletonPeck]

Sounds like I might just plain be wrong.

I can admit to having a \"He\'s really not that great..\" Velazquez bias. Could be showing up here!

[Leamas57]

I read a lot about the ride on here, and I mostly agree: the jockey influences my betting when I have a clear opinion of how he will ride a horse.

But as I posted before the Preakness, the variant at CD was probably .02-.04 (some had it at 0.05 but I think the rain made it a little faster). I don\'t know what they came up with for the Preakness, but the track was probably .15 which implies two seconds slower.

Add the effect of a lot of new speed in the race and it explains (for me) at least as much as the ride and trip.

Leamas

[T Severini]

It was quick miff

From a site perspective, Nyquist was likely due for a regression and he certainly regressed, though the quick stepping effort would appear to have played a role.

That horse Abiding Star had some tactical speed, but he was way outfooted.

Everything else near the pace backed up substantially. Very interested in the final. Gotta figure Exaggerator put his mud zero in.