Oh what could have been. The Conductor is still having nightmares about the end of a great Saturday. Now that he can see straight, he’s watched the tape a few times and has a few things to recap.
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The auxiliary gate is an absolute joke and #14 Win Win Win lost all chance after getting slammed at the start. He ran very well to split the field and the Conductor hopes he runs in the Preakness.
Watch the start of the race. The 14 post is brutal and it’s all because of the auxiliary gate. CD needs to spend a few bucks and buy a custom, 20-stall, starting gate. The greatest race in the world deserves better. pic.twitter.com/Ecebm7GP1I
— Derby1592 (@derby1592) May 5, 2019
This has happened with the 14 and 15 posts most times the last few years. The two gates are angled towards each other. It’s preposterous that in the biggest race of the year you have an amateur hour gate. Build a 20-horse gate @Churchill Downs, you made enough money this weekend.
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It rains every 1st Saturday in May in Louisville and the Conductor is sick of it.
He doesn’t have a solution for this, but wants the pony gods to cut the shit. The surface was great all day and then we got a deluge that completely changed how the track was playing right before the Derby. On a day like Saturday with rain forecast for the late afternoon, you could move the post times up, or not have 1 ½ hours between the Old Forester and the Derby. Once the downpour occurred, the Conductor could feel there was trouble brewing.
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The Disqualification of Maximum Security
This is the video they should have been showing last night. Maximum Security clearly veers out 5 paths and totally impedes War of Will and Long Range Toddy. Watch it multiple times. Every time your conviction that the right call was made will increase. pic.twitter.com/0kYakwvjin
— Scott Carson (@CarsoniSoK) May 5, 2019
Upon soberly watching the replays, the Conductor is ok with the disqualification if there was any consistency in horse racing. Maximum Security does drift out on the turn multiple paths and that should not be allowed, but War of Will was already up his ass and the Conductor has seen much worse infractions not get penalized. Thankfully no horses fell after clipping heals, which would of ended in catastrophe. If you were alive to a huge score to Maximum Security, the Conductor feels sick for you and congrats to those loony bins who had Country House. He’ll put it this way, if Baffert or Mott trained Maximum Security, he wouldn’t have gotten DQ’d and that’s a problem.
Saturday took a lot out of the Conductor, but he will not lay down and quit. The Preakness is only two weeks away and the Conductor will get back on the capping train tomorrow. Lesser men like us would take a back seat after getting so close to a life changing score. But that’s why we’re passengers and he is the one we chose to drive the train. Beware Pimlico, you may think the Conductor will come coasting in nice and easy. Instead he’s blasting the train right through your gates full throttle.
