Re: Bloodhorse Belmont Preview. (796 Views)
Posted by:
ajkreider (IP Logged)
Date: May 28, 2016 01:14PM
Everything you say is completely fair. But my main point (and maybe it was more to sek) was that even for what seems like a slow pace, these top flight horses still can't keep it up at this distance.
At the 12.5 clip, all the way around - a final time of 2:30 wins 4 of the last 6 Belmonts - a career making score for the vast majority of horses and trainers. The 2:26.4 is not only pretty strong, it's the 3rd quickest time going back to Secretariat.
Union Rags and Tonalist both came home in :26 with opening fractions above :48.5. The danger isn't that the front runners get away with an easy early pace that allows them to cruise to the finish. It's that at this distance, the horses just aren't good enough to run that final 1/4 in under :25, regardless of the opening pace. Which means that for most horses, if they're behind at 10f, they probably aren't getting to the winner.
Unless you're the kind of horse who can negative split the race, like last year (hashtag #betterthannyqyuist).