Today’s race was a bit confusing and frustrating. Sassy broke much worse than normal, and on looking at the replay, the jockey wasn’t ready for her jump and he pulled back on her for her first two strides. This is extremely frustrating because Sassy wears a grab strap just for this reason, so the jockey can hang onto that rather than Sassy’s mouth. After the jock recovered his balance, Sassy quickly powered her way up to 3rd place in a huge field of 13 horses. She ran 3rd for a while, and then made a move for the lead on the far turn. As she came into the stretch, she was in a great spot, and the other horses came on. She looked game, and she got bumped or squeezed a bit, and then the jockey looked right and left behind him, and pulled her up. He said that she wasn’t handling the soft turf well the entire race, but it appeared to me that he pulled her up for no reason without asking her to push on when she was clearly in contention.
On watching the replay, it does look like the rider was bobbing around on her during the race, perhaps she was bobbling as he said, but it is still unclear why he’d stop her when she was in contention. I only saw him hit her once with the whip, and she seemed to steady with it. After she was squeezed, he didn’t go to the whip, he started pulling back.
I don’t like it when people blame the rider for everything, especially since I’m not a professional and I’m watching from the sidelines, but from what I’m seeing in the replay, there was no good reason for the jockey to pull Sassy up at that point in time.
Here are some pics from the day.
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Sassy Little Cat 
Seems like she got a terrible ride … Do you need to change jockeys? E.
Until I read this email, I thought the jockey did an excellent job of getting her in an opportune place to WIN the race. I still have it live and will look at it again but from my line of sight it looked like she tired and could not do it – that is win the race. I saw no obstruction and thought she made it to SECOND PLACE with the WIN in sight.
This email does not make any sense to me but I am also not a professional and from what I remember (an again, my memory is not the best) Sassy was in place to win and then she just dropped back further and further.
Do you want me to save the recording this time? Maybe you will have a chance to see it from what was televised or are you looking at the same information? I did not bet and this is the first time I did not bet at all. I thought Sassy did not have a chance due to the post position and the heavy load of horses on the track. I thought it was impossible for her to get out of that “hole” and also because she did not run well in the last race, which was short, so how could she survive the longer race. I also have problems placing bets on her because Dave’s friend is doing it for me and it is an imposition it seems so I did not feel right asking him again. So I can only bet when Dave is at OTB and Sassy races that day.
Will look at the race again. I was amazed at how close she came to winning and thought the jockey did a fine job of getting her there. Hard to believe he would deliberately pull her up… not sure what the explanation of his reasoning was. ?? When I talk to you again, please explain that to me. Unable to display the pictures; will go to her site.