Tough Beat

Not a tough beat for me. It was another standard drubbing for me personally. But for El Caballo, the Mervyn Muniz Memorail was a tough beat.  Making his stakes debut in a Grade II, the recent Fair Grounds allowance winner led for every step of the race except for the one that counted, getting nosed out by defending race champ Proudinsky in a thriller. Julien Leparoux, who seems to have the most amazing touch with horses, went to the lead and everyone let him, making the natural assumption that on a heavy course you would have to be a superhorse to wire the field. Proudinsky came charging in the streth and even in the final strides it looked as if El Caballo wasn't going to let him by but somehow Victor Espinoza got Proudinsky up and took the lead for the first time with a bob of the head at the wire. The margin was less than a nose, even though there isn't anything officially between a nose and a dead heat. And another nose back was Nownownow, who also made up about two lengths in the final sixteenth.

You have to love a race like that, where great horses with diferent styles coming from all different parts of the pack get great rides and hit the line together.

By the way, I am officially done betting for today. Just going to sit back and enoy the big one.