Don’t worry Spanky, we’ll get it all back in the Preakness
Some afterthoughts about the race from my horseman mind, not my handicapping mind
When Sweetnorthernsaint won the Illinois Derby just prior to the Kentucky Derby, he was on the outside the whole race, very much like Barbaro was in the Kentucky Derby, and they both won easily opening up by 10 lengths.
But in the Kentucky Derby, jockass, i mean jockey, Kent, had Sweetnorthernsaint pinned down on the rail
Here is a very interesting fact about horses, that i learned from being around them
Horses get spooked easy, and they are scared of tight quarters, so if you urge them to go through narrow openings, they will resist…it’s very different when a horse has nobody on his outside, he will go without hesitation…the biggest difference is that the horse down on the rail was expending more energy, nervous energy, while the horse on the outside was running relaxed…as a result, you saw Sweetnorthernsaint come up completely flat in the stretch, which was not at all like him from looking at his previous races, while Barbaro with the perfect trip just took off down the lane.
Thats not to say he was gonna beat the winner that day, that’s just me pointing my dissatisfaction with the way the jockey chose to run the horse, he should’ve known his horse better
I haven’t said this for a while, but “i think we have a serious triple crown contender on our hands” this year, there is just no way i will bet against Barbaro in the Preakness…if i can get odds higher than 5-2 i will be very happy, the field won’t be nearly as big as the Derby…as for Sweetnorthernsaint, he is hardly what i would call a write off, he might just show up with a big run in the Preakness…considering the fact that he was caught on the rail behind the dying speed runners and forced to check multiple times and alter his path about half a dozen times throughout the race, i thought he ran pretty good…shoot the jockey, not the horse, in this case
Time to put it out of mind and look ahead to the next one
Barbaro goes in the triactas obviously, and for a longshot, the local horse coming out of the Tesio Stakes usually fares well in the Preakness, and 2 more to fill my triacta box, normally a Derby board hitter, like Bluegrass Cat, and a Derby also ran who had a bad Derby trip, like Sweetnorthernsaint, who was also the well regarded favourite…hopefully that combination will be the cure, of course i might change my mind, but i am leaning that way for now