When you’ve got a bet on a horse that’s leading by five lengths with half a furlong left in any race, you have to feel supremely confident about your wager.
The only thing preventing a jubilant trip to the ticket window to cash your bet is if your horse pulls up lame right before the wire — or just pulls up, minus the “lame” part, which is what transpired at Keeneland in Lexington, Kentucky, on Wednesday in a 1 1/8-mile maiden claiming race.
Before we get into how this happened, it’s worth noting that Keeneland is one of a handful of tracks — Oaklawn and Laurel among them — that employs two different finish lines depending on the length of the race. At Keeneland, 1 1/8-mile races use the “regular” finish line, while 1 1/16-mile races come to a halt at the 16th pole, or alternate finish line.
Ridden by Luan Machado, the 13-1 shot Ultimate Strike held a commanding 5 1/2-length lead with a furlong to go in Wednesday’s maiden claimer. But then, at the 16th pole, Machado eased the horse as though he had just finished, allowing Gotta Have Dreams (19-1) to nip him at the wire.
(7) Gotta Have Dreams wins the final race of the day for @James_D_Graham. (9) Ultimate Strike is second, (10) Rocket Night takes third. pic.twitter.com/uYVXbIXTqP
— Keeneland Racing (@keenelandracing) October 16, 2024
Stating the obvious, Machado’s agent, Cory Prewitt, told the Thoroughbred Daily News, “They have two wires at Keeneland, and I think he just made an honest mistake.”
While bettors backing Ultimate Strike were undoubtedly bummed, the same mood surely applied to the horse’s trainer, Carlos Santamaria, who entered the race with an abysmal record of one win in 60 starts on the year.
Machado is an accomplished jockey and the regular rider of top marathoner Next, who’s expected to make his next start in November’s Breeders’ Cup at Del Mar.
