The first time you start a horse, you hope that you have done your homework. Finding the proper class, distance, and surface, are all very important when finding a race for your horse to be placed. All these are hit or miss speculations, but atleast you are trying to do what is best for your horse.
Pharbomba Brother #12557 . His first race turned out to be very interesting. The only thing I could have done differently, that might have been more to his liking, was to have him on the turf. Everything else worked out very well when you think of proper placement.
The past performance line (PP) of his first race looked allright, but when you look closer you find that it really doesn't make much sense.
Pharby raced behind the leaders, something that you have to take into consideration when a point of call reads 5th / 2-lenghts. Realize that there are four other horses all within two lenghts of the leader, that are also in front of you horse. So, the leaders are tightly bunched together. When Pharby makes his bid for the lead near the third point of call he keeps the same running position, 5th, but he closes the gap to 1-lenght. This means that there is a wall of horses very tightly bunched, in this case, they are coming out of the turn and into the stretch. You have to think that Pharby is looking for a hole to squeeze through or that the jockey is taking him outside-wide to get around the wall of horses. But then, the finish; 5th / 7-lengths.
Horses don't have PP's like this unless there is a reason. This a time when having access to a viewer is necessary. So, I go to the chat room and kindly ask if someone has time to view a race for me.
As it turns out Pharby was trying to pass the wall of horses going into the stretch. The jockey decided to go to the outside to pass them, when along comes the eventual winner, also looking for racing room, slams into Pharby knocking him off-stride and putting out of the picture.
Ohh,..well.., atleast i have an explanation of what happened. Pharby reported back to the stable Sharp. Always a sucker for that condition, I decided to race him right-back. It seemed that the mis-hap in the last race had not taken much from Pharby, physically. I found a race in New York that should suit him very well. The final time of the Indiana race was fairly fast, so you have to assume that the pace of the race was fast also. A horse making a winning move off a fast pace is always a good sign. I rationalized that the class jump from a classs-B track, to a class-A track was reasonable and the shorter distance would also help his chances.
He ran alright for about 6.0 furlongs and then faded. Not characteristic of his first race at all. The Speed Figure was the same 82 . This race also didn't make much sense, he reported back to the stable Ready To Go. The only thing I could think of that Pharby might be trying to tell me was that he may prefer turf.
Why all of a sudden did Pharby break-down? He reported back to the stable Injured.
As it turns out, back in his first race when he was Bumped Soundly by the eventual winner, and thrown completely off-stride. A hidden injury occured that didn't manifest itself until two races later.
Many people on Kentucky Derby day, noticed that Charismatic, while walking to the winners circle and in the circle, was favoring his left front leg. Their fear was, that because of his stance that he might be lame. Others scoffed at this notion, but the body language of Charismatic gave many people concern that he might be in a little pain, or that he ,himself feels that there is something wrong
The Preakness; a race where the main competition for Charismatic was that of horses he had already mastered in the KY. Derby. So the physical stress of this race on his leg was not that demanding.
Then came The Belmont; in the paddock and in the Post Parade, and even when being led to the starting gate, there were timed when Charismatic had his head drooping toward the leg that eventually broke-down. Because of the more formidable competition; Silverbulletday, The Lemon Drop Kid, and Vision And Verse. Charismatic was forced to run harded to stay competitive during the race, which was too much stress for his leg to cope with. In turn, the break-down was inevetable.
Unlike Charismatic, Pharabomba Brother will race another day. But as I alluded to in an earlier post, sometimes this game gets very real, almost too real. Fortunately we don't have to deal with the permanent loss of a horse to injury, but we can't retire them to Stud duty and make SIM dollars off their breeding rights either.
