10-year old maiden wins at Mountaineer
 

Did anyone else see that a 10-year-old maiden coming in from a 5-year layoff won at Mountaineer? Hero's Wager won race 2. Entered 17 0-1-1. Last ran at Keeneland in 2013.

Missed that. I remember 40 odd years ago there was a rule (at least on the OJC) that horses could not start as maidens after a certain age. I don't remember exactly what age it was, thinking 10? At the end of the racing year in frigid November at Greenwood you always saw a few of these types put over so the owners wouldn't have to retire them.

At least it paid an appropriate win price of $57.40.

Had some help in winning the race.

The #7 was home free when his saddle including the jock literally fell off the horse in deep stretch. Still was good seeing the old timer win the race.

Amazingly the jock on the 7 got to his feet after the race but was off all remaining mounts.

If you can get replays, take a look. It was a racing oddity in two ways
1. 10yr maiden winner off 6 year layoff
2. Saddle and jock falling off an easy winner. Haven't seen that since Great Barrington Fair, but I think that was intentional.

You had to be a Hero to Wager on him.

Unfortunately I didn't BUT, if one looked at the race and saw his last two starts were at Keeneland and they weren't half bad, he would have been a huge favorite. I wish my printer would have left the first column of the PPs out so I would not have seen last start !0-20-13

It's funny how the Tom Amoss dropping a $30K claimer shipping into Saratoga to $20K was the greatest offense in racing history, but making a 10-year-old maiden run---after a 5-year layoff---was cool with you. :lol:

Why should it be a problem? The horse raced and won. I love minor league racing. and that is where the majority of by betting dollars go Slow horse or laid off horses are not the issue.

You're kidding right? You think he set up the saddle to slip while on the lead in deep stretch? He had many ways to lose that race without risking being run over.

The mountain jock gonzalez did not fall of on purpose and I did not allude to that.

Read this article from Bill Finley. One of the great fair stories is of a jock who is now deceased jumping off his mount to lose. His "punishment" would have been much more severe had he won the race.

"There were legendary tales of chicanery, of jockeys jumping off horses who weren't supposed to win, of horses being bet down from 10-1 to 3-5 in the closing minutes before a race and then winning by dozens of lengths, of exactas combining a 6-1 shot and a 9-2 shot that paid $9.40. They're all true."

http://www.espn.com/sports/horse/col...bill&id=226770

My apologies, I read the sentence as saying that the MNR situation was intentional.

Beyer mentioned the same chicanery in his book. When I started attending the fairs regularly, the incentive for that sort of thing was decreasing as the betting pools were going down while purses were edging up.

Jockeys have fallen off their mounts in deep stretch more than once in England when the horses were heavily laid on the exchanges.

I love stories like this. Horses will always find a way to surprise us.

No show favorite investigation @Mnr
 

Interesting, T.D. Thornton wrote that article. Not sure if he is still the announcer at Suffolk, but his book "Not By a Long Shot", published while Suffolk still had regular racing, recounts an incident where he overheard a jockey planning to fix a race. That jockey was still riding there while he was the announcer and the book was published, took some guts to write that.