No rebreaking by super trainer horses.
True only in that Eric Reed is not a super trainer. Otherwise, watch the replay again. Leaving the far turn the horse gets pinched in tight and checks before squeezing through and rebreaking. I actually allow for the possibility that this horse is just mean and getting sandwiched between horses just pissed him off and he ran rank crazy from then on.
Interesting point you make regarding super trainers not being able to ply their trade, a.k.a. doping, and that in turn leveled the playing field for clean trainers. If that is true, then it would be sheer madness to risk any wager on the derby simply because none of the data going into the race would be reliable because most of the horses would be “off dope” and who knows how they’ll perform.
The only surprising thing about the Three Techniques race was his price. Of the 12 horses entered in the race, 6 had run within 1/2 point of a 1. He was one of them. If the result of this race was due to more stringent oversight and therefore a more level playing field, why didn’t that show itself in any of the other races where chalk ruled?
The Lukas reference is irrelevant. Secret Oath was the second fastest horse coming into the race. He figured, regardless of his trainers graded stakes drought.
Yes, there was a fast pace that gassed any of them that ran close to it but there were plenty of better horses on paper that didn’t. Poly/dirt? Maybe but it’s not as though this was his first try on dirt.
The bottom line is on paper he was by far the slowest horse coming into the race and, as noted by our host, didn’t deserve the slightest consideration because he was so hopelessly overmatched (has anybody figured out how he was 21st on the AE list with just over $74,000 in winnings?), and yet he won. Huh. Let’s ask the experts.
