I couldn’t agree with you more, Nick. Sometimes ole Kent is a plus but he has a tendency to get himself in trouble in races and that was a classic kent screw up. In a 20 horse field the inside is not the place to be when you are running from the 11 hole. I flinched when I saw he was on the horse but he has won the big one before.
I think Barbaro will have no trouble with the preakness, but of course nothing is certain in horse racing. For the Belmont there will be fresh horses and Barbaro will have two tough races under his belt. Then there is the classic problem that every horse faces in the belmont, will the jockey let the horse out too early. I believe with a better ride Smarty could have won the Belmont but the jockey misjudged the horse and the race. They just don’t understand how hard that stretch run is and even tho every body talks about it before the race they still pull the same thing and start a big sweeping move on the turn and blow it.
If I was training a horse for the Belmont I would have it jogged around the entire track several times and work it lightly with another horse for the entire distance of the race. Get it in the horses mind (and the jockeys) that it is one hell of a long ways and this is not the preakness.
I think your picks and reasoning are sound.
As for the rail trip, I’ve seen that many times with horses and even young greyhounds. They just don’t want to go through an opening there or have anything to do with it. They are animals and fear tight places where they might get trapped. I had a beauty on the turf at Calder once with rosemary homeister up but she was on the rail and there was an opening. I still don’t know if it was her or the horse but she was pulling on the reins something awful, the horse bobbled and rosemary went flying off. She cost me a great superfecta that day and I lost some of my enthusiasm for betting her. Fortunately niether she nor the horse were hurt.
Well like you said there’s always the Preakness and a lot of races before and after it.