Flip the Jockeys and Chrome Wins

[honneerider]

http://www.paulickreport.com/news/people/id-never-take-off-just-one-race-sherman-confirms-espinoza-remain-chrome/

Lots of flack over that ride, and sounds like Art agrees, although so diplomatic

[peeptoad]

I like that Chrome increased his lead on the turn and kept moving forward as he had done in other races. 

I also like that while his early fractions were a little quicker, his later fractions milder and more consistent.

What's done is done...Chrome ran a good race. Hopefully Victor feels confident enough to be a bit more aggressive next time out.

The fractions (and the early pace) were faster in the Classic. The reason Chrome was able to open up in the Pac Classic is that he ran moderately slower opening quarter and half mile splits.
Following the SA track maintenance prior to the BC the times were markedly slower on dirt due to the addition of sand (there were multiple articles that mentioned this prior to the BC because Baffert, among others, wanted track maintenance to "tighten up" the track, which they didn't do). With this in mind, although the split times that Chrome set were overall were slightly faster in the  Classic, the actual pace (not the raw time) was significantly faster due to the slower times as a result of the track being altered.
So, while Chrome might have been able to run yet even faster early on in the Classic than he already did ( a career best race, and faster than he ran in the Pac Classic) had he gone faster he most surely would have faltered and lost by even more.

               1/4      1/2     STR     FIN
PC:         24.09  23.93  24.47  24.44
Classic:  23.87  23.81  24.76  24.39

[CA_Chrome]

Please take a close look at this photo: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CxKn3nvVEAA9qUC.jpg

Here is the proof anyone needs that Victor did what he has been doing all along...keeping Chrome under wraps as they approach the finish line. Look at the difference in the reins and jockey position. One rider has the reins totally let out and is low down on his horse riding for all he's worth. The other jockey has his reins wrapped, is more vertical on his horse and actually appears to be holding his horse back.

Chrome was not ridden out in most of his races this year. Only in the Dubai World Cup and San Diego Hcp did Victor ride the horse all the way to the finish. In every other race Victor actually slowed Chrome down approaching the finish line. This is a seriously bad habit Victor has, and Art Sherman even commented on it in an interview BEFORE the BCC. In the meantime, in every work leading up to the BCC, Baffert trained Arrogate for exactly this scenario...closing on the outside. Jeff Siegel commented on this BEFORE the BCC during a handicapping show after the PPs were drawn. Victor didn't do his homework on the competition he would face in the BCC.

In the BCC, Victor was looking around to see if anyone was closing, because he was doing the identical thing...keeping Chrome under wraps approaching the finish. If Chrome loses Horse of the Year because of this, it would be a serious injustice. Personally, if it was me, I would have had a long talk with Victor the first time he did not ride my horse out to the finish. Secretariat was winning the Belmont by 31 lengths, but still Ron Turcotte rode the horse out to the finish. Victor is no Ron Turcotte. It's not a jockey's job to "save" a horse for a future race. It is his job to fully ride his horse from the break to the finish line, not from the break to about mid stretch.

[peeptoad]

So, you think Chrome could have won if Victor had ridden him on a loose reign?

You guys, I am sorry your favorite horse got beat, but he got beaten fair and square by a better horse on the day. You can't go back in time and erase the classic and re-run it. Chrome coasted and slowed down late as he has in all of his races, regardless of how precisely he was ridden. Did Victor hold him back in the Belmont Stakes? The 2014 Classic? The 2015 San Antonio? In the picture you posted the 2 horses are at different points in their stride, which accounts for some of the difference in jock and reign position.
He's a very good horse; I don't think he is in danger is losing HOY, however meaningless that award is. His body of work is the strongest this year.


To be clear I am not a "fan" of Arrogate... I am simply arguing that, objectively, the better horse won the race. Those that are heavily biased on the other side of the argument are going to have a hard time convincing me otherwise. 

[Man o Taz]

And I do not disagree at all that the better horse on the day won and may have won even if Victor had delivered a better ride. My only suggestion was that Chrome could have been ridden better by his jockey, and he was not.

The fractions (and the early pace) were faster in the Classic. The reason Chrome was able to open up in the Pac Classic is that he ran moderately slower opening quarter and half mile splits.
Following the SA track maintenance prior to the BC the times were markedly slower on dirt due to the addition of sand (there were multiple articles that mentioned this prior to the BC because Baffert, among others, wanted track maintenance to "tighten up" the track, which they didn't do). With this in mind, although the split times that Chrome set were overall were slightly faster in the  Classic, the actual pace (not the raw time) was significantly faster due to the slower times as a result of the track being altered.
So, while Chrome might have been able to run yet even faster early on in the Classic than he already did ( a career best race, and faster than he ran in the Pac Classic) had he gone faster he most surely would have faltered and lost by even more.

               1/4      1/2     STR     FIN
PC:         24.09  23.93  24.47  24.44
Classic:  23.87  23.81  24.76  24.39

I may not have made my point clearly - I think Chrome went too fast early in the Classic, not too slow and with a slower track and the times this may have tired him out leaving him with what he needed to close out the race in the stretch.

[peeptoad]

And I do not disagree at all that the better horse on the day won and may have won even if Victor had delivered a better ride. My only suggestion was that Chrome could have been ridden better by his jockey, and he was not.

I may not have made my point clearly - I think Chrome went too fast early in the Classic, not too slow and with a slower track and the times this may have tired him out leaving him with what he needed to close out the race in the stretch.

Okay, the below sentence I thought was referring to the Pac Classic, but I guess not:
I also like that while his early fractions were a little quicker, his later fractions milder and more consistent.

I agree that with the changes made to the SA track it's possible he didn't handle the surface as well as the older, tighter strip. He may have gone too fast too early in the Classic, although he was only ahead by 1-1/2 lengths at most throughout, so maybe Victor rode him harder than it looks to the visible eye in order to maintain the lead. This would be at odds with what everyone is saying about him under-riding Chrome though.

[stark]

Did you happen to catch Nick Hines on TVG this morning?
He was rehashing the whole thing and I could have been listening closer than I was.

But along with all the points about the ride that have already been mentioned, he did introduce me to one new angle...

Workouts before big races for CHROME have been like clockwork, consistently 7 days prior to raceday.  Well what happened this time, the threat of rain moved the final work up two days, 9 days prior to the Classic.

So maybe the horse wasn't fully cranked and Victor did the best he could with a short horse not quite readied by Sherman

It's all like picking flyshoot out of pepper, time to turn the page.

[peeptoad]

It's all like picking flyshoot out of pepper, time to turn the page.

[curtis]

I dunno.  With that photo CA Chrome posted, I'm thinking of writing a screenplay and turning it over to Oliver Stone.  Foreign born baseball players are always fibbing about their age.  Maybe Victor is really a lot older than we have been lead to believe and instead of preening for cameras the last 70 yards or so, he's really catching his breath.  I gotta figure Victor may have been on the grassy knoll in Dallas.  Stone's gonna love this.

[stark]

More conflicting opinions from around the world....

Japan racing officials have said they'd give Victor a 6 month suspension, while Kent D. compared it to drinking a light beer at Octoberfest in Germany.

[CA_Chrome]

So, you think Chrome could have won if Victor had ridden him on a loose reign?

I pointed out exactly what Victor, himself, has said several times this year. Both after the Pacific Classic and the Awesome Again, for example, Victor said he geared Chrome down in the stretch to save the horse for the next race. When asked about this BEFORE the BCC, Art said it worried him that Chrome had won under wraps the last two races (PC and AA), and he wondered what would happen if Chrome had to run the last part of a race. Art wondered if Chrome would re-break. If you don't believe me about these interviews, I can go find the clips and post them here.

So you have Chrome, who was not ridden out in several of his races this year (and yes, you can see it in that photo), and you have Arrogate, who was specifically trained by Baffert after the Travers to close fast on the outside of a workmate. You have one jockey who is in the habit of slowing his horse down in late stretch against a jockey who rode the heck out of his horse in the BCC. Would the result have been any different if both jockeys rode their horses hard toward the wire? Who knows. I'm only pointing out the truth that Victor has had a habit of wrapping up and slowing Chrome to "save" him instead of riding the horse out to the wire.

I don't know when it became a thing for jockeys to wrap a horse up if the horse was winning by daylight, but it must be a relatively new phenomenon. Here is a link to Secretariat's official past performances. Note his Belmont (and other races where he won by daylight). Note that it says he won ridden out. http://www.secretariat.com/past-performances/ Victor has not been riding Chrome out in late stretch. He has been slowing the horse down. That is a form of training, but training the horse to slow down coming to the wire. That is what I believe happened in the BCC. Again, it's possible the outcome would have been the same, but we'll never know. My real point is that people who criticize Victor's ride have a valid point.

[stark]

1-I don't know when it became a thing for jockeys to wrap a horse up if the horse was winning by daylight,

2-My real point is that people who criticize Victor's ride have a valid point.

1) I personally watched the late great Willie Shoemaker do it 117 times on Whittingham mounts alone in the 70's.

2) So?  Is the point worth something, anything?  Can I make money wagering next time because of it?  Can I take it Starbucks and get a discount?

[curtis]

1) I personally watched the late great Willie Shoemaker do it 117 times on Whittingham mounts alone in the 70's.

2) So?  Is the point worth something, anything?  Can I make money wagering next time because of it?  Can I take it Starbucks and get a discount?

1) You must of only went on Wednesdays and Fridays.   In the '50's Shoe did it on Swaps.  The point was then, to keep the racing sec. from loading too much weight on one of Tenney's or Charlie's horses.  Now too much weight equates to 122 which is right around what most jocks tack.  Oh the humanity!

2) I'm guessing the point is Chrome needs a better trainer?  A lot of those Whittingham horses you saw Shoe stiff, er I mean ease up on late, were over achievers.  Charlie got every ounce out of them.  Except for Linda's Chief, who I think may have been cooked when Aaron Jones bought him, I don't ever remember wondering what if when one of Whittingham's trainees retired.  There's a lot to be said for good training.  Without it it's all just potential and speculation.

[CA_Chrome]

I'm guessing the point is Chrome needs a better trainer?

I don't mean to be disagreeable, Curtis, but that's just silly. The overall point is clear. (1) Victor, himself, said he was wrapping Chrome up late in races. (2) Art, himself, said he was concerned about that. (3) Baffert was very smartly training Arrogate to close fast from the outside. (4) In the Classic, Victor appeared to think he had the race won until Arrogate rushed up in late stretch. Victor had Chrome wrapped up and the horse began to slow down. Just as Art feared, Chrome did not "re-break" (as Art put it). None of this is an excuse, or a knock on the winner, or even negative. It is a simple collection of facts. Again, if none of that had happened, the race result might still have been the same -- or not. We can never know.

[CA_Chrome]

1) I personally watched the late great Willie Shoemaker do it 117 times on Whittingham mounts alone in the 70's.

Nice number and that's a great memory you have. You remember exactly 117 times you saw a particular jockey riding for a particular trainer ease a horse in late stretch approximately 40-45 years ago. I bow down to your amazing memory, or your amazing ability to take notes that you could whip out nearly half a century later.