Jerry,
The Derby is over and it is \"just one race\". But in the aftermath, we see comments from other experts in this business like Beyer, Crist and others say that this result shows that this was a slow class of three year olds, with two exceptions - Bellamy Road and Afleet Alex, and in the Derby one of those horses ran a little, the other ran very little.
All the horses except Bellamy Road came in light on the Beyer speed figures and they ran to it in the Derby, running a slow 2:02 and change.
On the other hand, on T-Graph we had FOUR horses who ran faster in their last prep than Smarty Jones ran in his last prep last year. No doubt that the big margins that all four horses won by influenced their big figures.
Just wondering Jerry, if you give any thought to the possibility that Beyer is right and this is a slow group of 3 year olds and the figures you gave out were too high because the horses that the \"big four\" ran against were slow, thus the margins and resulting figures were off.
Even the \"estimated\" figures you gave to Closing Argument and Giacomo seem out of line to me. If you give them \"0\"\'s, that makes this the 4th fastest KEntucky Derby of all time. That is tough to swallow. Beyer, with his 100, is calling it one the slowest in the last 20 years.
Are these \"0\'s\" the result of going too far down the path of giving super figures in the preps and now there is no going back, without making the whole thing a mess?
Not trying to be antagonistic, but it is troublesome to think that this is the 4th fastest derby of all time. Even in the context of your piece on \"horses getting faster\".
I gotta believe Funny Cide, Peace Rules and Empire Maker would have trounced these guys on Saturday, but the figs say different.
Thanks,
Jimbo-- Beyer\'s comments notwithstanding, he also had the Derby going a lot slower than several preps (even including the BG), so at most he can say the Derby went slow. As far as the raw time goes, keep in mind they had a pretty strong wind working against them and working behind the sprinters. My own opinion is that between drug questions, pace questions (very fast into that wind), and possible dead rail questions, it is very hard to evaluate the meaning (as opposed to the numbers) of the Derby, and we may have a better idea what went on as these horses go on throughout the year.
Alan also made an interesting point-- all else aside, the ones off the big jumps did bounce. And the ones that ran one-two, slow as they were, came in off the pair of tops pattern we talked about, and ran new tops.
I\'m going to try and keep my answers short except in certain cases, because this board is just devouring what little time I have-- just reading everything is time consuming. I\'m going to try not to get into it with CH any more, and for now I\'m going to just let him post rather than ban him. Let me make this clear-- my problem is not with his opinion that in certain cases pace can affect outcomes-- I agree, although I think it happens far less often than he does. My problem is the sheer tonnage of nonsense he is unloading here-- that stuff about Summerly (which most recently included the supposition that she looked like she could have run faster at FG so should have run faster now) was total hogwash. HP, you want him, you got him, but it\'s like trying to grab smoke.
JB,
I think it might be more complete to say the wind affected the horses during the first and last quarters. It helped them down the backside. How you adjust for BOTH is obviously difficult.
Re the first two finishers, what would they look like, figs wise, without ground. Remember they circled a \"dead\" field. I\'m sure by TG methodology the race won\'t look too slow,but in reality, JB, it was a very slow final time(wind or no wind) in light of the very fast pace.Last half in 53+ was run with the wind for one quarter.
Miff-- at 1 1/4 miles on a mile track, they run a quarter mile into the wind with no offset. The rest of the mile the wind cancells itself out-- for every stretch with it there is one against it. That was one reason the last quarter was so slow-- the other was that given the wind they were running into, the first half was REALLY fast.
JB,
Understood and agree.Again, remember, regarding the snail like \"last\"half mile,(53.16) one half of it was with the wind.I\'m just saying this was a very slow final time relative to ALL that happened during the race including pace and wind.
I\'ve watched the race 6 times and it speaks volumes, it was slow. It could have been one of the fastest derbies in history if a spring 3yr old could have run the last half in 49 seconds and that ain\'t that fast at all.
Miff-- they were into the wind the last 1/4, but the previous 1/4 was basically on the turn, where it\'s a wash with a 9:00 wind.
As for JB ignoring CH\'s posts, I am offering 8 to 5 to all takers, that JB can\'t control himself for 2 weeks. Something will be posted that will drive him to respond :)
Are these \"0\'s\" the result of going too far down the path of giving super figures in the preps and now there is no going back, without making the whole thing a mess?
absolutely, when you give northern stag a minus 5 how can you give out slow numbers to derby winners? i think all the \"sheet\" type people have trapped themselves.
the numbers are all over the place and make no sense, look at bandini he moves 8 pts in the space of 2 races, doesn\'t it make more sense that one of the numbers was wrong.
people in this business are afraid to admit a mistake. now all of a sudden jerry is getting to busy to respond, well i think its because these are tough and difficult questions and he would be well advised to think about what i said yesterday.
take some time and re-think the crazy figures that are being given out like candy.
jimbo66 wrote:
> As for JB ignoring CH\'s posts, I am offering 8 to 5 to all
> takers, that JB can\'t control himself for 2 weeks. Something
> will be posted that will drive him to respond :)
The over/under line is 2 weeks?...May 24th?
I\'ll take the under.
Mike Brown, that was a fast Bluegrass. If Bandini gets back 100% hes gonna show it. Don\'t you think its a little unfair to state anyone would compare different days in assigning numbers? Thats just not worthy of debate. Anyone thats ever attempted to make their own numbers knows thats nonsense. They also know how hard it can be to assign a figure on a one or maybe 2 race sample for the day. Nothing in horseracing is an exact science. Thats the intrigue of it. Not everyone can figure it out. But here they labor to get ground and weight and wind accurately incorporated into the number. You\'re gonna have the occasional tough race. This year the tough races have come consecutively and thats tough for EVERYONE>
That was a mistatement...not weight...weight is adjusted for the next one
Post Edited (05-10-05 16:53)
High Roller,
You are not the only sheet player who feels that way.I would caution that over the years I have seen many wet track super fast figs that were never repeated by the runner again.
To me, it seems that all fig makers do NOT fully comprehend the Cement like base created by wet tracks and miss the true variant by quite a bit.
Jimbo-- pretty funny. I\'m trying to figure out if there\'s some way I can use that line to hedge...
High Roller-- yeah, that\'s me, dodging the tough questions. Don\'t know how much you know about figure making, but just for starters, we use all the horses in the race-- not just the winners. The only ones who focus just on the winners are the ones who use pars.
well I tell you what, beyer is praying Giacomo or say Buzzards Bay does not run a huge figure in baltimore cause he wont be able to explain it at all, he said its the worst horse ever to win the race. I suppose if Buzzards Bay wins he can blame it on the drugs.
high roller wrote:
> Are these \"0\'s\" the result of going too far down the path of
> giving super figures in the preps and now there is no going
> back, without making the whole thing a mess?
>
> absolutely, when you give northern stag a minus 5 how can you
> give out slow numbers to derby winners? i think all the \"sheet\"
> type people have trapped themselves.
>
> the numbers are all over the place and make no sense, look at
> bandini he moves 8 pts in the space of 2 races, doesn\'t it make
> more sense that one of the numbers was wrong.
>
> people in this business are afraid to admit a mistake. now all
> of a sudden jerry is getting to busy to respond, well i think
> its because these are tough and difficult questions and he
> would be well advised to think about what i said yesterday.
>
> take some time and re-think the crazy figures that are being
> given out like candy.
>
>
JB - I\'ll add one thought. If you\'re not using pars what TG figs really are is a sophisticated type of Timeform rating. Who beat who by how much. Timeform doesn\'t figure in ground loss (many races don\'t have turns) but they are very much into weight.
Every year at the end of the year Timeform must recalulate their ratings in their weekly \"blackbook\" to determine year end ratings for the annual edition. They do that because the numbers tend to rise throughout the course of the year. The top horses end up the year at say 140 and come out at the annual at 130. I suspect that may be happening here but also suspect you would not agree.
Blood-- Two points-- one can use time and not use pars. I do cut races loose, but not nearly so much as TimeForm has to due to pace issues. Also, by adjusting the numbers at the end of the year (which I knew), they are in effect using pars-- they are starting from the assumption that horses as a group are not improving, and bringing the numbers back to par. I brought up a similar point a couple of months ago when I asked CH to find out whether Beyer was using pars at any point in the process-- if you are using them even as an overall modifier you will artificially create a situation where you don\'t ALLOW horses to be getting better. This was a point I made to Friedman in an exchange a few years ago on their board-- he said they were using pars and that made the figures comparable from year to year, I pointed out it did the opposite. Whether it was because of that or not, he said last year at the DRF Expo that they no longer used pars.
I think it\'s hard to have a useful discussion about this until the Derby figs are up, but one race you obviously have to throw into the mix is the SA Derby. Based on what\'s been posted so far, Giacomo\'s jump seems likely to be huge by Derby standards (I think he\'d be near the top of the archive pack among US-raced horses, perhaps surpassing Proud Citizen) and the other SA Derby horses also did better than you would normally expect.
TGJB,
\"that stuff about Summerly (which most recently included the supposition that she looked like she could have run faster at FG so should have run faster now) was total hogwash. \"
You mean the one where she got the well deserved comment \"easily\" from the trackman that more or less is the same as the \"H\" comment you give to horses when it\'s possible they won with speed in reserve?
Summerly got a 90 from Beyer for this performance. I think he has it approximately right.
By the way, not \"should have\", but it would not be an unreasonable expectation for a lightly raced developing 3 YO filly in the spring.
Post Edited (05-10-05 19:11)
Jimbo, I like your side of the bet.
8 to 5 was a steal......
I just spit out my dinner laughing at your post......