1) Any plan to adjust the scale at all?
2) Has anybody ever done a study comparing figures run in historical races? For example, one would expect figures for the Strub of year X+1 to always be better than figures for the Santa Anita Derby of year X because even though in theory the exact same set of horses are running, they are 11 months older in the Strub and should give better efforts. Then the question is how much better and is there a predictable margin or relation between the two races or has the relation changed over time. If you start thinking about the same question but comparing things like the BC juvenile and the Derby (or some famous Derby Preps and the Derby), some interesting thoughts come to mind.
3) Has TGJB revealed what bets he made in Pool 1? Will he?
The three blind mice struck again at the Big A yesterday in the third race. A clear case of \"insufficient cause\" and these stewards still managed to take down a horse that was NOT getting beat.
I had no decision in the race but it does concern me that a bad call can cause someone to blow a serious score due to the sometimes inconsistency/incompetency of the NY Stewards.
SoCal-- I have been lulled to sleep on the question of changing the scale by the lack of big minus figures recently. We\'ll see.
The only future book bet I made was Barbican @50-1, and it wasn\'t in the parimutuel pool.
Miff:
Of course it is not supposed to factor into the stewards\' decisions, but no rider has been treated more harshly over the last couple of years than Norberto Arroyo, who has the reputation now of not being able to keep a straight course in the lane. When Cordero was doing the same thing, it was called \"race riding\".
...and things won\'t get better for Arroyo anytime soon as I see that he called a press conference and called for an investigation into the stewards...
So Cal,
I think the question you ask about the improvement of 3YO\'s with age might be answered by a study I once did. I found that from Jan-April, the avrage 3YO stakes winner\'s figure is about 3 points slower than for older horses.
From May-Aug the difference is 2 points and from Sept-Dec it drops to 1.
I\'m sure Jerry has a formula for expected improvement with maturity and hopefully he\'ll be kind enough to post it. I\'d be curious to see how it compares with mine, which was done several years ago.
Bob
Rich,
Arroyo has the rep as a \"bad boy\". He\'s a good rider but a troubled kid.I agree that he may be over scrutinized. I just heard that a whale is contacting the state steward on this, as he had a $1500.00 exacta box, was taken down and collected the \"short\" payout.Obviously he\'s not going to get anywhere.