Chris wrote:
'If you ignored (or did not hear) the rumors about Orientate and downplayed the layoff and lack of works (both unusual for Lukas) and the history of the trainer, and assumed that Orientate was 100 percent healthy, then he was clearly the most likely winner.'

I usually pay attention to rumors only if I think they're coming from a very reliable source. I had no way of knowing in this case. It was all just unsubstantiated stuff to me. Leading up to a major event like the BC there is always a bunch of wild rumors flying. And while the absence of listed works is a red flag, I don't usually discard a horse on that basis unless I know something (injury, etc.) Too many trainers hide (some intentionally and some by chance)their workouts in various ways, that I just don't put much stock in that any more. And Orientate did show three decent works since his last race. More would have been encouraging to me, but I couldn't discard him on that basis. And I actually considered the layoff to be positive coming into the race. My fear back in September was that Lukas was going to keep running the horse every three weeks and burn him out before the BC. So when he backed him off for a breather, I was positively impressed. Maybe I got lucky in reading the pattern this way. Maybe the horse really is lame and will never run again. Maybe we'll never see another horse put together 4 sprint numbers like these with that kind of spacing. I guess I'll be watching for that down the road and see what happens. I don't have access to any historical data that I can check the premise against.