Originally Posted by
Danno
Chaps, I'm getting a little tired of all the riders in the stand bagging Bart Cockburn's drive, he was clearly driving the horse to his strengths....the horse is "one paced" in this grade and if left in the one one would have finished out of a place, in my opinion, his drive was as good as it could be under the circumstances, obviously the perfect drive is lead and set your own pace, but that was never an option with MB in the race and drawn to lead. And before you all go off half cocked, check out Avonnova's record, in particular his best runs, pay some attention to the sectionals and where he was placed in the field in those races. When you are driving horses in races against opposition that is better than you ( eg IMTQ) you do not have the luxury of using tactical speed, you have to drive your horse to it's strengths, which is exactly what Bart did.
BTW also check out the fact that the horse ran a PB, how could he do that if it was a crook drive?
Cheers,
Dan