It's hard when you're running for your life, and all you see is black jerseys coming from everywhere. You can be open all day long, but when you try to stop and throw, you might get your head taken off.

It's hard when you're running for your life, and all you see is black jerseys coming from everywhere, ... You can be open all day long, but when you try to stop and throw, you might get your head taken off.

I inherited the lead about the middle of the first turn, and he was running real easy. Then on the backside I don't know if he lost interest, but I really thought I was out of horse. About the half-mile pole I had to pull the stick out and go to work on him, and he responded.

I was a little concerned about that coming in and he might have been wondering what he was running on, but he liked it. Frankie [Brothers] did a great job getting him ready. The track can be tiring but he was fit today and ready for it.

Our game plan was to come out running, make them commit, and that's what happened. It almost turned out like we drew it up. We wanted to make them run, make them commit to go by you, get to the outside and then put in a very nice run and that's exactly what happened.

Just because we're 0-2 doesn't mean we're out of it. That just means we have to get our act together.