Wouldn’t be so quick to write off speed horses as a lot of the furlong times clocked were in the high 14s almost 15s, so they went a even gallop on the front to the point where they were able to quicken off the front. Despite that the overall time was only slow by 1.36s
You have to be a bit special to be able to quicken past quickening horses off just an even gallop and those hold up horse weren’t good enough to win from back there.