High Anxiety?

While I was watching the Jockey Club Gold Cup I noticed that Lawyer Ron seemed to be fighting his rider the entire backside. He was too close to the early pace and his rider, John Velazquez tried to get him to relax a little further off the early pace. However as you can clearly see Lawyer Ron kept fighting him and when it was finally go-time he just had to let go and hope he had enough energy left.

Curlin wasn't too far off the early pace himself but he was able to rate and relax and I feel this made all the difference. Of course I take nothing away from Curlin. He is a great competitor and seemingly is becoming even tougher to beat with every passing race.

After the race Lawyer Ron's trainer, Todd Pletcher stated that he wasn't surprised by the outcome of the race because he saw Ron was too anxious and too fresh and also stated that with this race under his belt perhaps Ron won't be so overly aggressive in the early going of the BC Classic.