Yup - he's back!
War Pass always had distance questions (although he came back to handle the Wood pretty good finishing 2nd), and when he finished last he had a horrible start and got knocked around. Trust me, they thought they were going to walk away with race. Zito didn't go there to see his prized colt get throttled.
Pyro today got caught on a surface switch from dirt to poly - that's like going dirt to turf, and I thought he might have some trouble. Actually, none of the good dirt runners in the race (Pyro, Visionaire, Big Truck, Cool Coal Man) did anything - and turf/poly specialists ran 1-2 (Monba and Cowboy Cal). I thought Monba might be sitting on a big one. I also thought "someone on the lead might stick around at a big price" - that turned out to be pacesetter Cowboy Cal. It just felt like one of those races. Bridgmohan was asking Pyro - he just couldn't respond on the synthetic track. They say he trained well on it, but there's a big difference between workouts and races.