Bob,

Despite Sekrah's over the top assertions in his response, truth be told it is hard to say.

There are some pretty smart and astute observers that made the comment BEFORE the Belmont, that Exaggerator wasn't going to like the track:

1. Brad Thomas - to my mind easily the sharpest of the public "track handicappers". He talked about Exaggerator's stride, running action and running style before the race and how he thought he wouldn't handle Belmont.

2. Multiple workout people didn't like the workout. Yes, it wasn't unanimous and some said he looked fine, but Welsch and others had their doubts.

Like you, I hate when trainers talk about excuses after the fact, and the bad performance by Exaggerator certainly looked like "bounce" and "too many good figures in a short period of time". And perhaps it was just that, but I would not bet Exaggerator back on that surface from what I saw.

As for wet track vs dry track, while more of Exaggerators wins were on a wet track, he had fine figures on a dry track as well. And the performance WAS SO AWFUL and unlike anything he has done before, can't say it was because the track wasn't wet IMO.

Jim