I don't think Stewy blew it. Smarty didn't have anyone to chase. Elliot was fighting the horse to ratchet him down. I think being on the lead freaked him out. If ANYONE else would have led the way for the first three quarters of a mile or so, I think Smarty would have held on and won. I think he would have relaxed more with someone to follow early. The way things went, Elliot would have had to strangle him to get him to rate, and he obviously didn't have to do that chasing Lion Heart. I think it's more a function of the horse in this case than the jockey.

I really hated Rock Hard Ten in this race because Solis has no brain and figured to have no way of timing the race to take advantage of anything. Also a horse that has consistent trouble loading in the gate like that is never going to win a damn thing. I keyed Eddington. In my opinion, Bailey screwed up more because Solis would have done a lot of the dirty work anyway and Bailey could have waited more. I heard him (Bailey) say he would ride this way on the radio on Friday but I thought maybe it was a little smoke to get the other guys thinking. I don't think you can blame Hennig for this.

HP