Bless You George Washington...

[Pedigree Ann]

Originally Posted by brockguy

i should be there though

if its marketed properly to Aussie and Asian horses, next years BC could be the best yet..

THe best Aussie and NZed horses are never going to come for the BC in late Oct/early Nov. That is when the Spring Festival is taking place in Melbourne - do you think they will choose to fly thousands of miles, put up with the time and season change to gamble on the BC when they could be running in some of the most important and remunerative races on their calendar? We're talking Melbourne Cup, Cox Plate, Epsom H, not to mention the Victoria Derby and Oaks. (Their 3yos won't come anyway because they are just barely 3 - official birthday 1 August.) Would a US owner skip the Met Mile to go run in the Doncaster H in the Sydney Autumn Carnival?

The BC is a 'World Championship" in name only. It's PR, plain and simple. It's not even a North American championship, since horses can be excluded for not being nominated or having a non-nominated sire. Real championships take everybody who qualify on equal terms.

I was paying attention when the BC idea was being kicked around and the original idea was to put up a big enough purse that top horses, especially 3yos, would have an incentive to stay in training into the fall, or come back for another year. The insane inflation of stallion values was driving earlier and earlier retirements and this was designed to be a solution. But some framers feared that stallion owners who knew their stallion's foals were never going to be 10f dirt runners wouldn't nominate, so lowering the pot. Thus, the additional races were devised, which ended up rewarding owners for buying 2yos who won't train on at 3 and horses who run out of gas after 6f.

[Cannon Shell]

Originally Posted by Danzig

really?

almost afraid to ask, but is that good or bad??

Not good or bad but eerie...

[Danzig]

Originally Posted by Cannon Shell

Not good or bad but eerie...

sometimes when i type tho, my fingers can't keep up with the thoughts in my head, so i have disjointed or run on sentences at times.

i think i have a.d.d. too, so that doesn't help!

[Uncle Daddy]

I join the many who are sad to see a champion go down in less than ideal circumstances. He was special last year and watching his replays as a miler had me hoping he could come back and maybe regain his form after 3 races.

Plenty of blame and second guessing to go around

[philcski]

Just watched the replay, the jockey on GW did a terrible job. He was riding him hard halfway through the race and even though he was hopelessly out of it he continued to push him. I'm not advocating pulling a horse up unnecessarily but that was ridiculous. The horse was obviously spinning his wheels, not handling the track.

[ArlJim78]

Originally Posted by philcski

Just watched the replay, the jockey on GW did a terrible job. He was riding him hard halfway through the race and even though he was hopelessly out of it he continued to push him. I'm not advocating pulling a horse up unnecessarily but that was ridiculous. The horse was obviously spinning his wheels, not handling the track.

this is exactly my thinking, and I don't hear many people or commentators talking about it. When you watch the replay, as soon as they show the field on the backstretch you see Kinane urgently scrubbing on the neck of GW, agressively pushing him on, seemingly with no reaction. in fact, shortly after that Curlin and Street Sense go by him like he was standing still.
Then on through the final turn every horse had passed him save for one, Diamond Stripes who was also hopelessly out of it at that point. As they enter the turn Denman days "George Washington is done, and so is Diamond Stripes". However even though it looked to Denmans eye that he was done, when GW comes to the top of the stretch at least 20 lengths behind the leaders, you can see he is STILL being ridden hard while it looks like like Diamond Stripes is not being pushed anymore since his day was essentially over. For what reason was GW still being hard ridden at that point when he was hopelessly out of it? why wasn't he wrapped up early on after it was clear that he wasn't going to be competitive in any sense of the word. wouldn't it have made sense just to wrap him up and let him gallop home?
don't horses continue to try to follow the riders commands even when they may have nothing left?

it just really irritates me to read all of the euro criticism of the US, drugs, dirt racing, etc, all of it because of the tragic demise of GW, when in my view this horse was not spotted well, mishandled, and apparently ridden to exhaustion on a surface he had never raced on before and at a distance that looked to be beyond what he was comfortable with.

imo at the point when he had no reaction on the backstretch and was being passed after asking him for run, he should have been shut down and as someone else put it "allowed to gallop home to retirement".

[Cajungator26]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDTB2vehFa4

RIP champ.

[Zaf]

Thanks Cajun. That was a awesome tribute. Ditto : RIP Champ.