The main message of Banjo's poem for me Brenno, is the " benefit of hindsight" thing. I actually thought Ian Dornauf was a victim of circumstances the other night and erred on the side of caution, after all the horse was first up in a basic race and Royal Verdict has shown before he is not the same horse up facing the breeze as he is when held up for a run.
The leaders ran the middle half in 64, nobody could/would cart him up into the race, trying to make ground down the back when the leaders carved the second last quarter in about 28 would have busted his horse.......the list adds up to Royal Verdict had no hope from about 1,000 metres out. And Ian owns the horse, why would he risk busting him first up? The horse is looking for better races than that one this preparation.

Cheers
Dan