[tfm]

As luck would have it, I bet Oliver's Strike in that race. Hard to comprehend what Beckon had in mind with his ride. The horse didn't break particularly well and was never a threat for the lead early. Rather than letting him settle, Beckon guns him 6 wide on the 1st turn and continues widest, without cover, on the backstretch. This was in a 1st quarter run in 22 and change. I've never quite understood this type of ride. A horse probably loses 99.9999999% of the time with trips like this as it is covering a significantly more distance of ground. By the time they got to the 2nd turn, Oliver's Strike just flat out fell --- from the pressure I would imagine. I blame this incident on Beckon and his ride. I don't know what happened to the horses but I would imagine one or all were put down. And Beckon and Husbands were hospitalized. (Which cost me a win later in the card on a horse that Husbands would've won on.)

When Beckon recovers, perhaps he'd like to try an experiment. Get on his biek and head over to the local park and ride with the other cyclists there. While they're drafting and trying to save ground, I want Beckon to ride wide of them, without cover, and experience what it feels like to be doing all that extra work. Maybe then he (and other jocks who continually ride the same way) will get a sense of how abusive their rides are to horses.