He didn't just lose. He came in dead last, and this was the horse everyone was sure would be the first triple crown winner in thirty years. Instead, a filly by the name Ka Tara won the race, and everybody is wondering what the hell happened.
Was his hoof a problem, or was it the fact that he had not been able to train due to the hoof, which had a slight crack? Was it the heat, the humidity, the fact that the Belmont is the longest of the three triple crown races? Was it a combination of some or even all of these factors?
For that matter, is it possible that the horse has a recently developing yet heretofore unknown health problem? Possibly, he might have just had a bad day.
I personally think I know what went wrong. The horse had the misfortune of drawing the number one starting position, which put him on the inside track, against the rails, which he is not used to running. Remember, he has not been in that many races, and what few he has run, he is used to being surrounded, and running pretty much in the post position he has drawn, adjusting his position gradually throughout his races.
This was new to him, and then the jockey compounded the horses confusion by jockeying for a better position in mid-race-something else the horse was not used to. Chances are he could have adapted and won the race at his inside position if the jockey had kept him there, or at least had not tried to move him out so early. He should have at least placed or showed.
This is noted as an intelligent horse, which sounds good, but in horse terms, it can be a problem. When he caught on to the jockey trying to put him in a different place, it confused him. He wondered, "what the hell is going on here?" He interpreted the attempted jockeying for a different position as a problem, and it disoriented him even worse than he might have ordinarily been. To the jockey's credit, once he saw the horse was disoriented and might be having a problem, he didn't push him, fearing there might have been a health reason for the lackluster performance.
I feel bad for the horse more than anything. This is one hell of a horse, and I still think he is the best of this field, and the best of this season. I fully expect him to win the Breeder's Cup, and another race he will run before that one. Afterwards he will be put out to stud, and will still make a lot of money for his owner, based on the Kentucky Derby and Preakness wins.
Triple Crown champions don't come along every day, in fact, they are a rarity. It's just too bad that the most promising aspirant for the honor in a long time may have lost out due to the bad luck of drawing a shitty post position.
