In another message board I frequent, I was reading that on the Ragozin sheets, Ghostzapper is a perfect fit for the 0-2-x pattern.
An interesting chance to compare T-Graph and Ragozin. Jerry had GZ pairing up in the Woodward, while Len has a 2 point regression.
I trust the numbers, but I have to say that logically, I am not sure that Saint Liam can run a negative 6.5 (didn\'t see his figure, but it has to be close to GZ\'s).
Jerry, how confident are you in the Woodward figures? Is it one of the races \"you are monitoring\" or are you confident in it?
That figure is dead on-- it\'s not even one of the ones I need to review. The question in handicapping GZ has nothing to do with his figures or pattern, and everything to do with why St. Liam is passing a $4 million race. I go over this in the seminar in more depth, but the key to playing this year\'s BC will be watching what\'s going on as the day unfolds--just as it was a good idea to watch what Sightseek did last year.
JB - can you expound? I \"as the day unfolds\"?
Whether the Frankel horses are live that day. Was pretty obvious last year after sightseek out of the money performance what he means.
While I don\'t want to speak for TJB, I think what he is getting at is you need to pay attention to how the Frankel horses run early in the card. If Cajun Beat and Midas Eyes run poorly, and then Nothing to Lose runs poorly, there would not be a lot of reason to bet Ghostzapper with confidence.
On the other hand, I wonder what the reaction will be if Frankel wins three races, all with horses that had th top number going in?
Will it simply be Frankel\'s day with the best horses or will people say he has finally uncovered the undetectable BC potion that he has been using for years in Graded Stakes but has so far never been able to implement on BC day.
That is the real question.
Jerry,
Has the sport really degraded so much that we can\'t handicap, can\'t look at patterns and numbers, but have to watch the early action to see if Frankel\'s Vet was able to skirt around the Lone Star security and inject all the horses with performance enhancing drugs?
If so, then this sport is in real trouble.
Jim
I\'m biting my tongue. I do believe that if things aren\'t fixed soon-- and there is a lot going on in that direction, which is why it\'s so hard to predict what will happen at LS-- this game is in a LOT of trouble.
It would be really nice to be able to handicap horses again, not trainers.
Why do you bite your tongue. If you have first hand knowledge of all the cheating that is going on why are you not talking to the authorities and getting the guilty parties thrown in jail so there can be a level playing field?
Why do all the people that don\'t cheat do the same thing?
It makes no sense to me.
Why do you assume I\'m not talking to the authorities? That\'s a whole different deal than posting in public.
\"First hand knowledge\" and evidence are two entirely different things. So are evidence and proof.
JB,
Maybe I am over-reacting to your posting, but I hope that the seminar is going to be more than trainer talk. In the past, the seminar has been interesting and came up with some decent betting angles.
Heck, even the ROTW is interesting to read, even though you are in an iceberg like streak. :)
I was going to email you and ask you not to make the BC Classic the ROTW this week and if you are going to do it, please don\'t like Ghostzapper. I have a sizable futures bet at risk.....
You\'re a riot. No, we ain\'t gonna be giving a BC race away free. Probably no ROTW this week-- we\'re a little busy.
I discussed horses to the degree I could, it varied from horse to horse and race to race.
All IMHO:
I estimate the chances that St Liam ran one of the fastest races in history at approximately zero percent.
If you build the probable impact of pace into the figures, you would realize that other than GZ and SL, the horses that finished well beaten, actually ran similar overall performances to expectations even though they were slow.
The pace was too fast for most of that field, but not too fast for GZ and SL who are superior to the others. The others were used up chasing it.
Second, I believe the middle of the track was playing very well that day.
IMHO, these are things that makes a small contribution to your expanding figures.
Without the impact of pace/bias incorporated into the analysis, your assumption has to be that the others couldn\'t possibly be that slow. Therefore, GZ and SL must be incredibly fast.
The reality is that the others ran slower than expected because they were used up chasing that pace and GZ and SL ran very solid but not spectacular races.
Post Edited (10-28-04 15:44)
Briefly, because it\'s a little busy around here...
Leaving aside the other issues:
1-- That wasn\'t the only race on the day. While I am not averse to pulling races loose when necessary, it should be obvious I\'m not going to do it to give two horses the best figures in history. In this case the day was really simple, and solid as a rock, with virtually no change in speed, the winner paired his number, no one in the race other than St. Liam ran unusually fast, and the previous dirt race was another 1 1/8th race, the Gazelle, which also looked fine. If you don\'t use weight and ground you will come up otherwise (as did Beyer), but if you do, this one was simple, and rock solid. I make 20 tougher variant decisions than this a day.
2-- Remember the promos, \"this is your brain, and this is your brain on drugs\"? This is St. Liam...
TGJB,
\"this is your brain, and this is your brain on drugs\"?\"
LOL!
At first I thought you were saying I\'m so dumb I must be on drugs. Maybe you were just thinking that. :-)
I don\'t just have trouble with St. Liam running that fast (your explanation is possible).
I don\'t think Ghostzapper could have run as fast in a pressured race against a quality opponent as he did against that prior field in the mud against chumps. In other words, we probably agree that he paired his performances. I just don\'t think he could have paired his figures. If you make a compelling case that he paired figures, then I think his last race was much better than the prior one and that\'s just too freaky to contemplate. :-)
\"this is your brain, and this is your brain on drugs\"?\"
Where\'s CtC when you need him....
bdhsheets wrote:
> \"this is your brain, and this is your brain on drugs\"?\"
>
> Where\'s CtC when you need him....
>
Implying I\'m on drugs?....lol Maybe ocassional beer or wine.
I think JB thinks Ghost and Liam got a bit juiced. Perhaps. I find it interesting that Frankel gave little thought to taking Ghost long until recently. I agree that the key to the late Frankel entries are the early Frankel entries. Liam is a good horse at 9 marks. So is Ghost. The question is can they be a good horse at 10 after those recent efforts. He\'s gonna be mixed up in a somewhat hot pace. The way the track plays could be very important. The Classic is a GREAT race and I\"m not implying I have the winner. I think it has potential value.
CtC