When you pull up the replay, only watch the inside eye and head of the 4 horse. That is it. Just his eye that is visible. What you will see is, just before the break, the horse gets scared, or upset, jostled, whatever . At that exact time, this horse is NOT thinking about racing or breaking. He is ONLY thinking about what scared the heck out of him. Now maybe, something pinched him and it hurt and that scared him. I don't know but whatever it was, it had ALL of his attention. That does happen but it typically takes 3-4 seconds, just like it would for you, to catch your breath and get over being very startled. (Put yourself in the horses shoes). You get the crap scared out of you just before the starting pistol goes off, you are still recovering from that after only a second or two, and BANG ! There off. Would you break well and be focused?? I know I wouldn't. IMO, that is exactly what happened here.
The horse was not prepared to break after that event and needed another few seconds, but the starter sprung the latch and he was left flat footed, and not focused. So now what?
What we can hope for is that the trainer saw this and gets that horse back to the gate several times at least in the morning to just load, stand, and back out. Just give him a chance to settle. We can also hope he draws a more outside post next out so less time to be in there, and off the rail where that last experience occurred. If all that can occur, this horse will break much better next out, he will be in focus from the first stride, and if they can find a race with a little class relief, that would be enough to make this guy a winner IMO. Now maybe he cannot get that class relief. Is he good enough to win? Yeah, he might be. Off his 1st race, I felt he could improve and win. He did not get that chance with what went on in this horses world least night while in the gate.
So in my mind, this is a must follow next out.
Please let me/all of us, know when he is entered next. He might even show up with Blinkers "ON'. in his next start. Not saying he needs them but that might be the conclusion drawn from what took place.
Will be fun to follow . Someone write this horse down for an alert please.

Leave a comment: