In this case....I would think the owner has the right to instruct on how his (or her) horse will run any race. From what I've read.....Restoring Hope's owner, was upset over the way Florent Geroux ran his horse.
From the NY Post article:
Gary West, who owns Restoring Hope, was livid about the handling of his horse. "I have no earthly idea what Florent was thinking or what his race strategy was," West told the New York Post in an email. "Had I known better, the first eighth of a mile I would have thought it was a quarter-horse race, not the mile-and-a-half Belmont. Maybe the horse was completely out of control and Florent had no choice. I will never know."
MojoFilter wrote: