Mike, you are totally missing the point with ground loss. Those late pace figure you refer to do not take ground loss into effect, and yes, the late pace figure would include most of the last turn (race length minus 6f at races over 1 mile), so the last 3f in the case of the SA derby.

For the sake of argument, lets say that if a horse runs the last 3f (1980 feet) in 35 seconds (I know they went slower than this in the SA derby) he will receive a late pace figure of 100. The actual feet per second traveled is 56.57 ft/sec. Since DD finished 5 lengths back, they compute that it took him 36 seconds to cover (1/5 sec per length) and came up with his late pace number that way.

By their calcualations he ran 55 ft/sec. But actually, since he was in the 3 path he traveled 2010 feet during that time for a result of 55.83 ft/sec. A big difference there if you look at the numbers. So I take those pace numbers with a grain of salt.

The other point is that when racing wide, a horse is trying harder to keep pace with the horses inside him, leaving less in the tank for the stretch.

Mo, prove to me that he "wont run inside other horses". When it was the last time it was attempted, back as a 2yr old when he ran an 8? He has never went backwards, so if he ever did race inside horses, it certainly didnt affect him much on paper. He is much more mature now, he may be able to handle it and it certainly is worth a shot. Yes, he is not good enough to win any grade 1 right now, when you are spotting the field at least 2 points to begin with, you'd have to be a freak to overcome that.