After some review, it occurs to me that Byern does his best running late. Since in both of his previous races he went (sorta kinda) gate to wire and we're conditioned to view Baffert runners on the lead we assume that for Byern.

My principal point is if the other early runners choose to track Byern (or lead in soft fractions) and those early runners choose to track with confidence expecting to out kick him in the stretch just could be that strategy plays to his strength.

So now I expect (the usual suspects) in a repeat of the Rebel with Baffert 1st again.