Bold Start/McPeek/Melancon

[JJP]

Both humans here are nominated for boneheads of the day. Bold Start ran in the Illinois Derby today, which figured to be very winnable if Cobalt Blue was a fraud, which he proved to be.

McPeek---At what point does one bother bringing in an out of town rider? Sure, if Prado, Velazquez, Gomez or other riders of that ability its one thing. But Larry Melancon? Melancon is a very solid grass rider. Maybe McPeek thought it was the Hawthorne Derby, which is on the grass. But he doesn't ride at Haw and didn't figure to bring anything to the table, which he didn't.

Race circumstances; the rail was excellent all day at Hawthorne, both before and after the Illinois Derby.
There was not much speed in the race. Cobalt Blue had tractable speed but he won setting a slow pace in SoCal. With him drawn several posts outside Bold Start, BS had an excellent chance to cut the corner and get the lead.

So the gate opens and BS seems to be in good position when Melancon decides to rate him right out of the race. On the first turn, you can see Jara on Cowtown Cat looking over his left shoulder, probably laughing at Melancon that he just handed him the race. And sure enough, Melancon had the brakes on until late in the backstretch and he had to come off the golden rail. If he had been watching the races earlier in the day, he would've ridden the horse aggressively from the gate, not timidly like he was riding on turf.

This wasn't Les Bois Downs. Maybe the Haw riders won't win an Eclipse but guys like Jesse Campbell, Chris Emigh even Israel Ocampo would've done a better job.

Moral of the story: unless you are getting a top flight NY or SoCal rider, save the money on jocks airfare and just use a decent local rider.