Journalism is a serious horse.

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General Jim wears Fort Bragg down... to get it!

Horse and Jockey were incredible, he powered thru those horses.

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2018
#ExtendLafleur
10 More Wins

That really was amazing.

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"I honestly don't see a good bet on the board here."

Watching that race again, what a fucking stud. Looked like Derrick Henry carrying the football.

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2018
#ExtendLafleur
10 More Wins

What a beautiful example of herd dynamics. Journalism dominated Goal Oriented and Goal Oriented deferred. You could see Journalism turn his head. He was telling Goal Oriented to get the fuck out of his way. Goal Oriented shied away from him. He didn't want any part of the herd boss.

There's a lot of talk about the riders, but from my view it looked like they were insignificant for the most part. The animals were doing what they wanted to do. Prat did his best with Goal Oriented to hold ground but Journalism just wasn't having it. I don't think he was responding to Rispoli. I think Rispoli was just hanging on at that point.

Sure, the horses banged and Goal Oriented lost his action. That was something for the stewards to make a call on. I think they made the right call by doing nothing. Journalism moved Goal Oriented with his presence as much as he did with his body.

And after all of that, Journalism knew he wasn't done. He immediately targeted Gosger and ran him down from what appeared to be an impossible disadvantage.

From Kerry Thomas's Derby Scouting Report on Journalism:

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General Jim wears Fort Bragg down... to get it!

I honestly thought the horse came down way more on him than anything, as you know, so many time horses check out. He said fuck that and tore right thru their asses.

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2018
#ExtendLafleur
10 More Wins

There's a lot of talk about the jockeys and how the race was ridden on HRX. @SwiftHitter who is a notable agitator on the platform makes an interesting observation about Baffert and McCarthy competing for clients in SoCal. But I don't really think Prat was out there with instructions to purposely fuck Journalism up.

Rispoli made the choice to stay down low rather than going around. In retrospect, after Journalism flew the final furlong, it's easy to say he could have gone wide and won easily. There are decisions that have to be made in a split second.

I've watched the race multiple times now and I would say that Rispoli put the horse in a position where he didn't have room and Prat simply rode a straight line attempting to keep the hole closed. But once Journalism was in that spot, the horse took over. I don't know that Rispoli could have stopped him from doing what he did short of just pulling him up, which would have been dangerous in its own right. It's funny how much people think a 100 pound jock can control a 1200 pound animal if that animal decides he doesn't want to be controlled.

Rispoli does have a reputation for finding trouble. I think that's because he's really a European turf rider who was taught to save ground and stay inside. I mean, that's how you win turf races.* You don't really see Chad Brown horses four wide on the turns, do you? I'm pretty sure if a rider had a Klaravich horse three deep on two turns of a turf route, that guy wouldn't be riding the next time.


*Look for Giocoso next time out. Maybe on Belmont Day. If he gets a reasonable trip without having to be wide the whole way, he has a great chance to pop at a huge price.

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General Jim wears Fort Bragg down... to get it!

I don't know if I agree with this. Goal Oriented was bumped, and that's what threw him off as a lightly raced horse. Once momentum is killed with these horses, that's it.

If Goal Oriented doesn't get bumped, he finishes 1st or 2nd.

The field should never have let that rat, Gosger, go to the lead in the first place.

Miraculously, the races all seem to go the way where the betters are totally screwed. All exotics betters were screwed in this race, and you got nothing for Journalism winning by himself.

I don't think that's right. I'm pretty sure Goal Oriented was done. If not, why wasn't he flipping wide around Gosger? It's kind of hard to say who did the bumping. I think Prat was trying to maintain his path but the horse did lean in. And Journalism really had nowhere to go. He may have been DQ'ed in a less important race. I'm not sure. Finally, I don't think Gosger is a rat. He's lightly raced and he took a good step forward. He almost won that race and did so in a powerful manner. He got beat by and exceptional colt.

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General Jim wears Fort Bragg down... to get it!