My call is he had an upset stomach. Seriously. He took a dump about 5 minutes befor *riders up*. No biggie, I've seen thousands of post parades and a horse shitting means nothing. However, as they were headed to the track, he twice raised his tail as if to take another dump and nothing came out. Same thing after the horses emerged from the tunnel. Finally, about 5 minutes before they went to the gate, the camera is on him again and he takes another dump. 4 attempts in 20 minutes looks to me like he might not have been feeling himself (I even commented on it before the race to my wife, then laughed at myself).
Couple that with the fact that he looked almost too relaxed in the post parade - alert, but definitely not on his toes, then he loses his footing on the break and is very rank running to the first turn trapped on the rail (where all his connections say he hates to be).
A lot of factors might have added up to this deafeat, but clearly he was gassed at the 1/2 pole. When I saw Desormeaux asking him to run even before they left the backstretch, I said "uh-oh."
And I told someone that the only way he could lose was if he fell down!
