For those who don\'t think it matters, or think it shouldn\'t be built into the figures:
In all three Triple Crown races the winner did not run the best figure. In the Belmont, the 8th and 9th finishers ran less than a point worse than the winner.
This was the case almost the entire 3YO Season in all of the preps. I even pointed this out earlier in the season in a post that things seemed to be so even among this years crop the ground savers were always winning.
I\'m not upset that Tacitus probably ran 3-4 points better than the winner but still lost. If they didn\'t think they he could handle the kick back or wasn\'t nifty enough to maneuver out of pockets and holes that is one thing. But to think you can give up 65 feet of ground and win a Grade One is stupid.
I backed the horse up to place. But I had to bet way more than ever want to Win and Place. I could not get any horizontal bets going so long enough to end up with him as the single on the last leg for a big score. I deposited more $$ and bet out. You never want to do this. As I told a good handicapping friend of mine before we both slammed down on him. There are a million things that can go wrong. Don\'t assume they cant happen to you before a major wager.... I survived to fight another day!!
One question: if you liked Tacitus that much, why bet place?
You can cover with horses over him even if you don\'t like them.
Good Luck,
Joe B
Great question. The only obvious answer I can give it was purely a hedge in case he lost with a realization that there would be a sacrifice in pari mutual payouts if he did in fact win. The difference in what he paid to win - what he paid to place.
The next approach as you mentioned is if you play underneath in exactas who do play over him? ALL? Its the only way to be covered if he does run second. The exacta with the eventual winner was $48 for a $1 so this would have been the right way to go. Im not sure with WoW or Intrepid Heart how it was paying.
I\'m sure it could have been played better. Just as I am sure the trip or ride could have been better. I did bet on the horse with the fastest figure in the race (by a ton I guess) did I not? And I had been saying it for weeks
From a handicapping point of view it is fair to ask what good does it do for any Tgraph player when we learn that none of the winners of the triple crown races ran the fastest Tgraph number? I presume every single person who has posted on this board has a basic understanding as to how important ground loss is in the computation of the final figure. With respect to Tacitus- solely as an example- his numbers going into the race could certainly lead a Tgraph player to conclude that if he “ran to his number†he was a likely winner. But as TGJB has stressed on numerous occasions, the use of the Tgraph sheets does NOT eliminate the need for handicapping. While it seems like red boarding ( I did not bet) would it not be reasonable to conclude going into the Belmont that Tacitus would lose ground from the outside? No one can foresee how much ground or whether Ortiz was so confident he could go wide both runs and win, but certainly there was no basis to conclude Tacitus would save groundâ€" he might have but you could not go into the race with such a believe. Which leads to a second point- now that we are armed with a number for Tacitus- earned because of ground loss, how will that help me or any of us in future races? If he draws wide in the Jim Dandy or Travers and is bet down to favoritism, does a handicapper conclude he is “fastest†( putting developmental patterns aside) and the most likely winner. The only point I am trying to make is that as wonderful as TGJBs product is- I cannot bet $2 without it- there is always a need to “workâ€, i.e. handicap. It is up to all of us to use theâ€data†provided - the question we often hear - “ Who do the sheets like? is not the right question ( putting the TGraph analysis aside).The only question is who do you like and Why?
keep in mind , that if he wins you lose the exacta saver bets, but still cash a place bet .
depending on your actual results, there\'s some convergence to neutral.
of course, if you\'re actually worried only about a few horses, then exacta savers make sense.
Never paid attention to trips or whether a horse will be wide or not. What is a horse is only 1-2 wide and saving ground but has to reign in a little bit so not to clip heels but a horse 3-4 wide has wide open space to run and not held back. Doesn\'t that make a difference as the horse holding back can\'t run as fast as he wants at certain points around turn?
The difference is - prospectively - a rail trip in a two-turn race on a fair track (i.e a track where the only bias is the shortest way around) sets the horse up for the possibility of a perfect trip.
Whereas a horse 3W on the clubhouse turn on the same fair track (i.e. a track where the only bias is the shortest way around) does not have the possibility for a perfect trip.
There is no more perfect illustration on planet Earth than the 2019 Belmont Stakes. Reverse the trips of Sir Winston and Tacitus and Tacitus wins by five lengths - geared down.
Mstrlucky74 Wrote:
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> Never paid attention to trips or whether a horse
> will be wide or not. What is a horse is only 1-2
> wide and saving ground but has to reign in a
> little bit so not to clip heels but a horse 3-4
> wide has wide open space to run and not held back.
> Doesn\'t that make a difference as the horse
> holding back can\'t run as fast as he wants at
> certain points around turn?
When a horse is restrained -- there are two ways to look at that -- (a) he is being stopped from expending too much of his energy early with energy being conserved for later in the race or (b) the restraint itself is so hard that the horse squanders the energy it would otherwise conserve by fighting against the restraint.
Unfortunately, I think that sometimes (a) occurs and sometimes (b) occurs. I will say that by the end of the race, you can tell if energy was squandered or conserved -- not so helpful in the race in question, but helpful information when looking at a horse\'s career on the sheet. If the horse has a history of either (a) or (b) then it is a good bet it will continue with its historical practice. For horses that have shown they can rate, I would much rather be trapped inside on the turn conserving energy that being free on the outside of the turn. While it does happen, it is infrequent that a horse with conserved energy cannot find a hole or seam in the stretch through which to ply its extra energy. I will say that from my observations -- it seems that being bottled up in the stretch happens more in grass races than in dirt races. Could be that more grass horses are running at end of race than dirt horses do -- so more traffic possible?
Could a point be made that the 1 was coming into a 0-2-X Pattern in this Case?
I\'ve played with this issue using some data from the Derby and 9f Derby preps. In both cases, horses ran better relative to their tops if they were 3w in the first turn than if they were 1w. That benefit was not enough, however, to offset the cost of ground loss (taking into account that being wide on the first turn usually also means being wide on the second turn).
Your point is that if you don\'t get a perfect trip, you won\'t get a perfect trip?