Playing Arrogate. Pattern setting up for a huge top. I rate his last effort a hair better than what TG has it due to slow pace and poor start. Maybe closer to a 3, setting up a big move forward here. Runs a 0 today, 1w1w. Love the stride, kind of reminds me of Pharoah.
Can\'t play Exaggerator off the 2 pt top on slop. Destin and American Freedom would be my backup/saver plans. Connect and Gun Runner are going to run a negative number one of these days too, hope it\'s not today, I\'ll play against the posts.
Good luck.
Sounds like you should have gotten all the money, good picking!
Yes indeed. Well done. I\'m impressed
Nice call.
Thanks guys. Needed that one.
Sekrah,
Great pick and I hope you cashed well.
No one can ever doubt a lightly raced 3 yr old running a jump up number and your target of a 0 was my projected number to take the heat. On a personal note I was all in on the wrong Baffert horse!
Arrogate\'s last a 3 horse NW of 2 optional claimer was a tough race to evaluate. Baffy pulled no punches as the Travers was this horses target via the Jim Dandy but missing a couple days of training forced a switch to the Del Mar race.
A big new top may be the understatement of the year!!! He caught the perfect storm on a souped up speedway running a sub 24 last 1/4 after fast early fractions.
Frank D.
Some might call me a redboarder - but what the hell. Thank You.
That\'s awesome handicapping but very much reading between the lines; just doesn\'t really have ANYTHING to do with the sheets. He was one of the slowest horses in the race, only the 5 & 6 were slower, and so he breaks the track record! Yeah that makes sense. So he went from a 4 to like a negative 4. Not exactly predictable. The only idea I had is I think all these 3 year olds stink, and I was looking for a new face. Unfortunately, I got suckered in the direction of the Chad Brown runners and Pletcher\'s giant rat Destin (hardly a new face but one I thought would stay the distance for sure) who looked like he sweat 100 gallons of water before the race but I used him anyway. And Mike Smith deserves praise for a heads up ride. Everybody grabbed so he took the initiative. You wouldn\'t be touting the sheets for that one though--just your good old fashioned skills and intuition which I checked with my pork pie hat at the door.
A string of 4s was never going to point you to this horse. Sekrah\'s \"adjustment\" to a 3 in the last would have been a significant move to me but it wasn\'t there. The fact that he was 11-1 tells me someone new something we didn\'t. I thought his price was short based on his numbers.
I\'ve discussed this before but if you\'re playing TGs without pace and trip adjustments(beyond ground loss), you\'re playing with one hand tied behind your back. I find way more explainable jumps and bounces when I adjust the figs than if I just swallow them at face value.
I would be lying if I said I wasn\'t shocked yesterday. No way on earth is anyone going to predict 8 pt tops and track records. But adjusting his last to a 3 made him a powerful pattern and a serious contender with an inside trip when it didn\'t look particulary likely that anyone else was going to run faster than a 0.
Jerry,
Arrogate was trained by Baffert and had a 103 beyer which was 2nd fastest I think.
There was no \"somebody knew something\" about the horse. It was there for everybody to see.
He looked bad on TG. For sure.
What percentage of the betting pool is looking at TG sheets? (don\'t know, perhaps TGJB has a guess, but best case is single digit percentage)
What percentage of the betting pool sees the PP from the DRF? (maybe 75 to 80 percent?)
I said somebody knew something we didn\'t. I should have said somebody knew something I didn\'t since I stopped looking at the Form and BSF a long time ago. They\'re junk, remember?
Nobody is right all the time and I hope, none of us are wrong all the time..
jerry Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I said somebody knew something we didn\'t. I should
> have said somebody knew something I didn\'t since I
> stopped looking at the Form and BSF a long time
> ago. They\'re junk, remember?
You\'re getting awfully worked up over one race.
There are countless times TG figs trump any other figure. You want perfection? It ain\'t gonna happen.
When its BC day try handicapping those races using the DRF and Beyers. Let me know how that turns out compared to those using TG figures.
For every one race like this, someone could probably find 10 that go the other way.
I\'m just having a hard time getting my arms around the idea that a horse improved 40 lengths in a little over 3 weeks. If you\'re suggesting I\'m dwelling on one race, remember, all of these races are interrelated. The figures assigned are relative to the figures assigned to other horses racing on other days at other tracks. If there\'s a flaw in the code there\'s a flaw in all of the data.
The horse freaked. Caught a surface and distance he really liked, at minimum. I didnt have him, but he wasn\'t impossible to come up with. His last race he only had to beat 2 horses and ran fast enough to beat them after breaking slow and rallying into a slow early pace. Been well regarded and odds on all 4 of his races vs short, over matched fields. He\'s also a 3 year old and elligible to improve. Everything Baffert put out there on Sat at Saratoga ran well.
I\'ll be waiting for Arrogate to run again as the chances of him repeating that type of number are probably less than 5%. We\'ll see if he runs between now and Breeders Cup or just trains up to race, if he makes it that far.
Where did you get 40 lengths?
Baffert said he plans to train up to BC. Guess he\'s trying to avoid a massive bounce.
1 point = 2 lengths at 10f
4 to a -6 = 10 pts
10 points = 20 lengths?
that is hard to fathom
20 lengths is what I came up with. I agree with mjellish that it was a perfect storm, although he neglected to mention the Mike-Smith-on effect. I am reminded of Dreaming of Julia\'s 11-point jump in the 2013 Gulfstream Park Oaks, her last victory.
The Travers was also an odd race from a pace perspective. Who would have guessed that the half would go in 46-4/5 and the horses running 1, 2, and 4 at the half-mile pole would make up the trifecta.
I don\'t buy the freak theory. Not an 8pt. jump up assuming he gets a -4. Everything else you say is just red boarding. He wasn\'t a TG sheets play. This race was a miss.
Assuming a -4.
My bad. I thought a point was 5 lengths. So it\'s really only 16 lengths with a -4. That\'s easier to swallow.
Pace isn\'t highly regarded around here although I personally disagree with that position. The track was playing fast but it was fast for everyone else. Some part of the winning margin could be due to Arrogate being the only horse wanting 10 panels. None of the others have impressed me as true 1 1/4M horses.
Yet someone who uses TG sheets religously had him as their key.
Only if you adjust his last figure down to a 3 and that\'s not TG textbook practice. BTW, how did you come up with that number? Calculated or guestimate?
MJ,
He was a tough horse to have for a TG user. He just was.
I don\'t want to start on the TG California routes issue, other than to say that the routes in California generally get different translations between TGJB and Beyer. TGJB has discussed the reasoning here and people can make their own adjustments or not when they handicap.
But even if you didn\'t believe the TG numbers for Arrogate (which I didn\'t), I still couldn\'t use him. if you thought he ran 1\'s or 2\'s, you still had to look at HOW he ran those numbers. To me, running a good figure in a 3 horse field, a 5 horse field and a 5 horse field, with not a single runner in the three races has to be looked at skeptically (unless you are \"old school\" and \"a number is a number\".
And whether you thought that TGJB and his 4\'s were right, or Beyer and his 97 to 103\'s were right, you couldn\'t have predicted a Beyer 122 (TG negative 6?), no matter how you graded his earlier races.
As for the comments about waiting to bet against Arrogate again, \"if he runs\". Think you are doing a major disservice to Baffert. Baffert has proven time and time again that he is in a different league than Pletcher with his top horses. He runs them and he gets them to run their numbers on short rest and on long rest. And his horses don\'t disappear like Pletcher\'s after a big number at Gulfstream.
The horse will run again.
sure, the 5% chance of running back to the Travers sounds right. But he won\'t need to, no matter where he runs. And he won\'t be overwhelmingly bet either, if he runs back in the Breeders Cup Classic. If he runs against California Chrome and Frosted, amongst others, he will be a price again. And not sure there will be much value in betting against him.
Jim
How the hell do you come up with calling me a red boarder when I said I didn\'t have the horse? I really didn\'t even share my pre-race opinion on the horse.
For the record here\'s what it was. As a lightly raced, highly regarded, well-bred Baffert runner that was shipping in - of course I looked hard at him. He looked a little slow though. But like Sek, I was willing to give him extra credit for his last effort because he broke slow and rallied into a slow early pace in a 3 horse field. I\'ve posted many times on this board about how I view slow early race shapes and the effect they have on figures because a horse can\'t close his last 1/4 in 21 and change to make up for the slow early race shape. It\'s something called looking at how a figure is earned, and its often practiced by very good players who aren\'t dogmatic about the numbers. So based on all of that I knew Arrogate could be ready to run a new top. But to do that, after drawing the rail, he would probably have to break well which is something he hasn\'t done in 50% of his starts, then send and try to wire the toughest, largest field he\'d ever faced at a new longer distance of 1 1/4 that he\'s never tried (he\'d never even been a 1 1/8th), and he had to handle the ship from west coast to east. I didn\'t view that as likely. In fact, I figured he would be done at the 1/4 pole. So he was a toss for me.
Jimbo, fair points about Baffert and I agree 100% with regards to him. But I would seriously doubt Arrogate could run with Frosted and Chrome early and still fire in the stretch in the BC Classic. This is getting way ahead of myself, but as of right now I would very much like to see him make that race as not only would I make him a strong bet against, on a fair track he could also help compromise the chances of the other two I just mentioned.
Their is no piece of paper that could of predicted that horse to freak like he did.
Silver Fox came to town with 4 horses, scratched 1, got two first (both won for fun) and a second not a bad road trip.
2015 Run Happy
2016 Arrogate
2017 ???
Again congrats to Sekrah
It\'s an art, not a science. Watch the race, look at splits. TG is based on final times and ground loss. You can\'t quantify the details of every circumstance. Hence the T, op-, slw, etc indicators. It wasn\'t hard to give the the horse extra credit for his last performance.
You\'re a better artist than I am and that\'s not saying much. I just not any good at this.
I haven\'t finished your post yet but to answer your first question about red boarding, what I meant was the points you made were all post race analysis.
Well it\'s unfortunate you tossed him because you put a lot more effort into analizing his number than I did. As it turned out, you were on to something. You must be madder than I am?
We\'re all mad Jerry. We\'re all trying to beat an unbeatable game. It\'s the girl you\'re madly in love with----but she\'s all wrong for you.
Good Luck,
Joe B
I\'m gonna leave that girl someday. Just not today.
Just a suggestion, but i would try to bang her before I left her.
You should have seen Art Sherman\'s face right after the race...
I love the game as an owner and gambler. I have been a more successful owner than gambler. I go back a time in racing. The first horse I admired was Judge Angelucci winning The Californian and trained by Charlie. I was fortunate to win that race a few years later and a some other important races. I love and respect racing.
This is not a handicapping comment but we are in what I believe will be a brief \"golden age\" of racing when people look back say 10 years from now. Chrome, Frosted, Arrogate, Songbird, Beholder, Flintshire, Masochistic, and a few others. All I can say is -- wow -- and enjoy -- I will.