As the rest of your statement is pure supposition, it's no argument at all. If they were "going too fast for him", he wouldn't be able to keep up, would he? He'd be where the majority of the field ends up - either on the deck or out the back. Otherwise, that remark insults the rider: if the field's going "too fast" you're implying that the rider would be too stupid to realise that and ride his own race. With 30 wins so far to his credit, I've no doubt that Peter Toole was not an idiot. But there was no sense at that point that the field was going "too fast for him", so why bring it up?
Would you say that DOONEYS GATE and ORNAIS, the two fatal fallers, shouldn't have been in the race, either, considering their early demise? You're saying, in fact, that the favourite should only be BD by an equal, if he's to be BD at all, which is patently daft.