Pace handicappers quickly notice that many horses have a comfort zone. If forced to fun faster-than-usual pace figures, their final figure suffers. A textbook example was Afleet Alex during the 2005 Triple Crown. Afleet Alex had established a consistent comfort zone in his prep races, and although it visually seemed he was rated far enough off the pace in the Kentucky derby, pace figures illustrated that he actually was much too close to one of the hottest paces in derby history. Afleet Alex was dramatically out of his pace-figure comfort zone, and almost won the race anyway. In the Preakness and Belmont he was allowed to run at his preferred pace and dominated the opposition. It was a difficult way to lose the Triple Crown!
