vanridge said:
You know a canadian horse won when every news channel shows the race. I don't know who the second place horse was but when my hubby and I were watching we both commented on the size of that horse. It looks like a tank compared to the rest of them. ( the one that lost the lead in the last stretch) Are we just making it up or did more people think that he just had a lot more width to him???
Bodemeister was the horse that led the entire race until he got passed by I'll have another in the stretch. In Thoroughbred Racing you have 2 types of horses. The sprinters/short distance horses and the distance horses often refered to as the milers. Bodemeister was trained by Bob Baffert and is named after his young son Bodie. Bodemeister comes from pretty good stock and a pedigree that has produced both great sprinters and milers. Just like in human track the sprinters tend to be stouter with more propulsion while the milers tend to me longer and sleeker in their muscle design. The mixed pedigree helped Bodemeister be a little stouter, but he probably also gained more stoutness from the fact that he was completely unraced as a 2 yr old, unlike most Derby horses, so he had another year to develop before being put to work. Bodemeister had the pedigree and has had a pretty good 3 yr old yr, but many questioned whether his inexperience(he has only raced a handful of times) and hisbuild would allow him to be competitive at the Derby. People and handicappers really got on his bandwagon after he had a rather exciting workout at Churchill the week leading to the Derby when he kind of got swarmed by other horses on the track and just kept on going, proved to people that he wasnt gonna break down in the pack. I thought it was one of the most evenly stacked Derbies in history. There were of course a couple of standouts, but none that had just blown the socks off the competition up to that point, and several horses that had pedigrees that could win it. As they said before the race, it really was wide open and there was a large number of possible scenarios that could win it. I was a little dissapointed that Union Rags didnt get it. He was my pick and an awesome story behind him. But I dont think he can be blamed he has always been a closer and come from behind kinda horse, but when it came time for him to make his move in the turn he was just boxed in with nowhere to go. I dont hold hopes for a Triple Crown Victory this year though, and I think that the fields at the Belmont and Preakness this year as well. Several horses ran really good races that day and I think if you rematched them you could have a completely different turn out.
