It was a shocking occurrence for a Finger Lakes horse to win a race at the Spa.
A NY bred winning a Grade 1? NEVER
One of the all time great saves by an assistant starter that Fio even got to run that day......
Oh how the world has changed!
Now the Spa runs Finger Lakes cards every Wednesday & ThursdayðŸ'Ž
RIP Les
https://www.paulickreport.com/news/people/leslie-hulet-69-dies-finger-lakes-hall-of-fame-jockey-brought-glory-to-ny-bred-fio-rito/
I\'m at a loss to make an analogy of the experience of Finger Lakes racing to Saratoga, but a good horse is a good horse. The names in the article are not unknown to me, and in fact, I was a regular patron of the bowling alley owned by one of Fio Rito\'s owners. Their bartender is now one of the track\'s leading trainers.
Reading that Fit Rito broke through the gate makes his win even more impressive. A Hall of Fame rider told me that he always considered this a bad sign for his horse, and a serious misuse of energy.
It\'s probably a sign of how absolutely insane our world has become that the most inspiring words I\'ve read in weeks comes at the end of an obit for a jockey at a minor league track: \"We prefer that you honor Les by doing a kind act for another.\" RIP, Les.
You win the line of the day:
\"Their bartender is now one of the track\'s leading trainers.\"
I am of the minority opinion that horses that break through the gate are at no disadvantage providing they are quickly stopped and do not engage in a game of tag with the outrider before the race. The front of the gate is purposely designed to open with little force just to prevent a horse from hurting itself if it breaks through. A horse should be more hindered by hitting the side of the gate, which does not have the same give, at the start of a race and yet these horses seem to win their share of races.
A poster on another site who disagrees with me is doing a study allegedly proving that breakthroughs are at a disadvantage is including the confounding variable of horses that run off after breaking through. The result of such a flawed study cannot be valid. Is anyone aware of a fair study to determine the effect of breaking through?
Fio Rito\'s win was impressive enough without assuming he overcame a non-existent. disadvantage. I\'m sure that as the horse was full of pep, he surely would have run off if and run his race before the start if not for the great catch of the asst. starter. Lets give the rider some credit for stopping him too.
RIP, Les.
Hey bob
when a horse breaks thru the gate when my money is on them. I consider that lost money right then and there, 45 yrs of eyeballing it.
bobphilo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I am of the minority opinion that horses that
> break through the gate are at no disadvantage
> providing they are quickly stopped and do not
> engage in a game of tag with the outrider before
> the race. The front of the gate is purposely
> designed to open with little force just to prevent
> a horse from hurting itself if it breaks through.
> A horse should be more hindered by hitting the
> side of the gate, which does not have the same
> give, at the start of a race and yet these horses
> seem to win their share of races.
> A poster on another site who disagrees with me is
> doing a study allegedly proving that breakthroughs
> are at a disadvantage is including the confounding
> variable of horses that run off after breaking
> through. The result of such a flawed study cannot
> be valid. Is anyone aware of a fair study to
> determine the effect of breaking through?
>
Well, Bob, in the absence of verifiable empiricism, we really have only opinion. I\'m seeing two here: yours and an individual who won nearly five thousand races. Again, we have nothing conclusive, but there is something to be said for an experiential base for an opinion. And it\'s equally possible that you might ask another Hall of Fame rider, and he would have an entirely different opinion. However, the rationale given by one of the most articulate individuals I\'ve met in the sport lent quite a bit of credibility to the theory.
I know that is the common view but it doesn\'t seem to be supported by what the effects of this would be given how gates are constructed to open easily to prevent even minor breakthrough injuries. I understand that many people with years of experience believe that breakthroughs have a negative effect but there is such a thing as selective memory where people tend to be more likely to remember the cases that reinforce their traditional beliefs and interpret the fewer cases they remember that contradict this belief such as, Fio Rita\'s Whitney, as rare exceptions.
This is not a conscious effort to be biased but just the way the human mind works. Maybe that\'s why some very good handicapping authors like Quin, Quirin and Sartin have doctorates in Psychology and understand this effect.
Fortunately, controlled scientific Quirin-like studies do not suffer such disadvantages but unfortunately, no such studies exist on this variable to confirm this.
Guess, until then, I\'ll just go with what the laws of Physics and Physiology say about the effects of such light contact between the horse and the gate.
As breakthroughs are fairly uncommon we can\'t really say how his opinion on breakthroughs has anything to do with his success. Lots of people get to the top of their profession despite being wrong on 1 small issue.
Besides, jockeys are notoriously bad handicappers and, being human, are not immune to the effect of selective memory. In fact they are among the least educated and most dependent on tradition and superstitious beliefs, making them even more likely to have these beliefs deeply ingrained and resistant to change.
I tend to be skeptical of beliefs lacking the support of controlled studies, Physics and Physiology tend to make a negative effect of an easily opened gate unlikely. Also since one is betting against the crowd, better results can be obtained by thinking outside the box and betting against the majority with even slightly better info which the science and common sense imply.
bobphilo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> As breakthroughs are fairly uncommon we can\'t
> really say how his opinion on breakthroughs has
> anything to do with his success. Lots of people
> get to the top of their profession despite being
> wrong on 1 small issue.
> Besides, jockeys are notoriously bad handicappers
> and, being human, are not immune to the effect of
> selective memory. In fact they are among the least
> educated and most dependent on tradition and
> superstitious beliefs, making them even more
> likely to have these beliefs deeply ingrained and
> resistant to change.
> I tend to be skeptical of beliefs lacking the
> support of controlled studies, Physics and
> Physiology tend to make a negative effect of an
> easily opened gate unlikely. Also since one is
> betting against the crowd, better results can be
> obtained by thinking outside the box and betting
> against the majority with even slightly better
> info which the science and common sense imply.
Let\'s take this point by point:
- \"There is no correlation between breakthroughs and his success.\" I have no idea how you made that connection. His success is simply suggestive of a knowledge base formed through experience, and breakthroughs are just one of hundreds or thousands of facets of the game that are part of that experience.
- You wrote \"lots of people get to the top of their profession despite being wrong on one issue.\" That has no relevance here. Nothing was being offered about his being right or wrong. It was offered as an opinion with specific experience and feel for horses, and energy expended. It\'s fine if you choose to disregard it, but you do so without comparable experience of handling horses, and you\'ve made a generalization of the possibility of being wrong that is applicable to exactly everything known by anyone at the top of his/her profession, so what could that possibly prove?
- Then you wrote, \"jockeys are notoriously bad handicappers ... and are not immune to the effect of selective memory.\" Again, this has no relevance. He was not handicapping, nor predicting an outcome. He was speaking to direct experience with a substantial knowledge base of horses who broke through the gate, who got loose in a post parade, and the majority, who did neither. Could his memory have been selective? Sure. You could have easily said he could have been partially intoxicated when he made the statement. In fact, you could say just about anything that would apply to just about anything anyone says at any time, but it is utter speculation.
- You then basically insult not just this individual, but the better part of an entire profession. I suspect their education level is below the norm because they enter the profession at a young age. Are we to assume that this lack of education absolutely presumes a lack of intelligence, specifically the lack of cognitive ability to establish causal relationships of different facets of an activity done over twenty thousand times? And this is supposed to be superstition-based?
I have not identified this individual, nor will I, but as I said before, he was one of the most articulate and impressive people I have met in this game, inclusive of owners, trainers, and, God help us, racing executives. That doesn\'t make him right, because as I\'ve said repeatedly, he was simply offering an opinion. But it does make him 180 degrees different from how you\'ve characterized those in his profession.
You have an opinion, and that\'s fine. Bet it, flaunt it, do whatever you like with it, but understand that you haven\'t offered a shred of empirical or experiential evidence to support it. That doesn\'t make you wrong, but it does make your opinion far less qualified than someone with a career\'s worth of experience specific to the subject matter of the opinion..
Ill never forget the breakthrough in the 2006 Preakness.
\"In fact they are among the least educated\"
This is a door that you, of all people, should never open, Bobphilo.
Ol\' Winters Tale had his ailments. Obviously he was not the same WT that buried the Marlboro Cup field the year before. Doubt Fio Rito could warm him up when he was right.
Ah, the good ol\' days. Mack Miller. Now that was a horse trainer.
Good Luck,
Joe B.
What exactly is that supposed to mean? You know nothing of my education level. I have a Bachelors degree and completed most of my Masters. In addition I completed 3 years of medical school. I only mention this since you imply that I am in no position to cite someones lack of education.
In any case my statement about most jockey\'s limited education would be just as true if I were a high school drop out.
\"What exactly is that supposed to mean?\"
What it means, Bobphilo, is that you are a fact-botching machine who constantly writes things that would embarrass a kindergartner. It has reached the point where I now read something from you and immediately think: \"This was written by Bobphilo. Therefore, it is probably false.\"
\"You know nothing of my education level.\"
This is false. You have forgotten your own posts and your own board name.
\"I only mention this since you imply that I am in no position to cite someones lack of education.\"
This is priceless.
\"my statement about most jockey\'s limited education\"
And this is even better. Have you considered renting yourself out as a sitting duck?
Enough.
Neither will I and neither will thousands of racing fans. Unfortunately, Barbaro\'s tragic breakdown will be recalled with his unrelated breaking through the gate earlier, linking breakthroughs with bad consequences in people\'s minds for a long time or forever. Similar to how Ruffians breakdown was linked to match races and basically put an end to them, at least for a long time. An important difference is that in Ruffian\'s case there is a more plausible connection to the stress and pace of match races to breakdowns.