Desormeaux's Ride

"Oh shame, Oh curse, upon such bumpkins" (Goethe)

The blog has to date defended the gentleman at left, and so continue giving every benefit of the doubt, and ignore (for the moment) that perhaps such "honesty" as we got from Dutrow yesterday may be taking sportsmanship to a new low. What about the ride?

Let's begin pre-race and take a look at the relationship between trainer and jock. At one of Dutrow's pre-race press conferences he stated that he would decline any conversation with Desormeaux in terms of riding instructions before the race, noting "what could I tell him--how they ride is between him and the horse"--or something to that effect, which qualifies as slight revision of Mandella's jock instructions to "take two lefts".

Confide first that a trainer failing to talk to his jock or sit down with his jock or study film and the Form with his jock before a race of this magnitude qualifies as stupendously mind boggling. My reaction on seeing this video was "what the heck" and concluded two possibilities:
1. That Dutrow acknowledging his own bumbling ways avoids ride discussions with his jocks, or
2. That the relationship between trainer and jock were other than good.

Note further that Dutrow both kept KD off of the horse pre-race and also announced publicly that his exercise rider breezed the horse more skillfully than KD, which though I like Nevin's recent riding, is about as absurd a statement in the situation as one might imagine. Suffice to say that pre-race KD never had in any of these races the great advantage of riding the horse in the mornings and understanding BB's habits.

So, with this background we may view KD planning the race on his own, without benefit of either riding the horse or discussing problems with the trainer. May we assume that KD was smart enough to take account of BB light training, and that KD going into the race was concerned already with both performance and possible break down and his own safety as well as the horse.

Then there's the actual ride. It looked like a clean break to me, then this:

Is BB reacting to the crowd OR soreness where equilox presses the twisted wire lacings into his left hoof laminae (in my opinion the most probable cause of the BB behavior)? In any event may we acknowledge that the trainer never prepared his horse for an inside post position, nor to my knowledge in the past two months ever bothered to gallop the horse in company. Desormeaux was put in postion of leaving the gate and immediately having his attention distracted. Would Prado have handled it better?

In the first round straight away then we see KD attempting to get BB to the outside of D'Tara, but at the exact moment another horse comes in from the outside immediately shutting off the move and causing BB to swivel his head to the left. Bad racing riding, or unlucky circumstances? I thought KD handles this as good as it could be handled. The criticism--BB should have been gunned ahead of D'tara to avoid this. Nice 20-20 hindsight that would have required KD in a milisec to abandon strategy and put the TC in jeopardy. KD made exactly the right move.

The rest of the ride to the moment of pulling up is uneventful and much as one might expect. But, note that both KD and Dutrow noted they understand the horse had problems even when first entering the back stretch. KD must have felt being on the horse the marked difference in the horse's stride compared to the prior races. What might one expect was going through KD's mind in terms of soundness of the horse given the light training? These thoughts: "something's wrong, unknown to me what, Eight Belles. I feel positive a variation of these thoughts were going through KD's mind in the final turn.

It might then be argued that KD became too quickly discouraged when Dennis Of Cork pulled ahead of BB at the quarter pole. I am of this view, and if the horse was to be eased it should have been done a few strides later. I can only surmise that prior to Dennis putting his head in front of BB that KD's concern was already overwhelming him and that Dennis was the final straw in what KD had been considering for a furlong or two.

Put yourself in the same situation in such a short time frame. All I can think of is the muddle of thoughts that resulted in the pull up decision. In my opinion it was the absolutely correct decision. The horse was behaving badly, striding badly and reacting differently then this prior races. Only an ignorant numbskull would have failed to consider the possiblity of a developing fracture and a need to pull up the horse.

I've witnessed in countless athletic contests the puzzled looks of great athletes that unfortunately for them are stuck with questionable coaching and coaches. As the contest proceeds with the athlete giving it their all, a subconscious thought begins to develop that "something is wrong". What's wrong is bad coaching, which we witness on the athlete's face first as puzzlement, then as anger. The photo below shows KD--look at his face--where the anger stage had been reached.

Training:
Tues 6/10: on still muddy ground both horses were galloped riderless slow for 10 minutes. Art trotted on muddy turf for .8 mile under tack, and Rod walked under tack for 8 min.