The discussion about dead rails and their effects on horses/patterns has come up a few times the last couple of weeks, and finally there's a test.

The theory goes that if a horse runs decent in spite of being on a dead rail, he might have overextended due to herd dynamics or something else and the race could've taken a real toll on him, i.e producing a bounce for at least the next race. That test is Beach Patrol, whom was very game in defeat in his last race at Churchill. He backed off only 0.75 points doing that, running the 3rd fastest race in his career. What make this a particular good test, is that one can see from his form that this is a horse that fires every single time.

It will be very interesting to see what he will do, now. I don't know.

As for betting the race, it's hard to look past Time Test but chaos and traffic problems is not impossible either and the price is not too tempting, I'll have a SMALL bet on the German invador; Potemkin at 8/1.