I mentioned the fact that many races are fixed so that a horse can win or cannot win. In a book about Man O War many old times methods of trying to fix a race are discussed and frankly are quite shocking. There is little doubt that many winning horses were in danger of losing their lives back in the 30's and 40's since there were unscrupulous characters who would try anything to prevent them from winning. Phar Lap appears to be a horse that fell victim to someone's efforts to keep him from becoming an American phenomena as he had been in Australia where even there many objected to his long winning streak.
So today there are two examples of horses that one must question whether it was fixed for them to win or to lose when one learns the results. One owner had three horses entered, and the least likely won while the heavily favored did not win. In this case, the owner did not get hurt at all, only the simple minded trusting bettor who truly believed that a "best" horse could win again against a minor leaguer...sorry but it turned out not to be true.
Everyone will come away from that race believing what they want about it, that money talked and won! It looks that way when one can only shake one's head in wonder.
That's all on this subject for now.
The favorite, a horse by the name of Twelve Hundred did not win but was trained and owned by the same owner as the horse that did win...so neither trainer or owner lost a thing...just the dumb stiff who bet on Twelve Hundred instead of Real Power.
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