hi jerry,
with the minus 4 1/4 that left bank got in early july, does that mean he beats every famous horse in world history on that day?
i find this absurd because how could anyone have beaten secreteriat in his belmont?
In 1927, Babe Ruth hit 60 home runs. He singlehandedly hit more home runs than any team in the American League.
Even though, Maris, McGwire, and Bonds have broken that single-season home run record, they haven\'t come close to matching the overwhelming dominance of that performance.
No horse that has ever run would have beaten Secretariat that day. Giving any horse a number within three or four points of Secretariat in a mile and a half race is simply a mistake. The horse was a freak of nature, with a heart a much bigger than anything else we have seen since. One of these days we may see another horse like that, most likely through AP Indy or Storm Cat blood, but as of yet, we have not. The numbers Left Bank have received, however, have been backed up time after time. Today\'s horses with Northern Dancer and Mr Prospector blood can run sprints and middle distance races faster than they could twenty or thirty years ago. I do not think Secretariat could have run with Left Bank in a sprint, and it would have been a battle in a middle distance race. You are 100% correct though, going a mile and a half, we have seen nothing even close to Secretariat.
More likely, whatever # you think Secretariat earned on that day is too high. Maybe he ran a -5, or a -6 ?
Based on the TG figures today, I guess Secretariat ran about a -5. I think AP Indy and Easy Goer ran below 0, and Point Given around 0,butno other Belmont winner since has deserved anything close. So the question of the day..... who is better, Md\'O or War Emblem? I thought both performances were brilliant today. Md\'O ran really fast, and WE just jogged while giving ten lbs to his rivals. I have never been a strong believer in WE, but when he gets to play his game he is a fantastic horse...... and how about the guy who took in the half a million in the Spa pk6? He is damn lucky that Robbie Davis is unable to get a horse to run even close to his optimal speed; Danielles Magic was best in the final leg.
Michael, you make a lot of comments about jockeys. Do you really believe they can significantly speed up or slow down a horse?
There are jockeys that do certain things well or certain things badly, but to some degree, the guys riding the top horses are the product of self-fulfilling prophecy. Bailey gets the best horses to choose from. If you get to ride the best horses Bill Mott trains and your choice is between that and riding a powerhouse from Coolmore, you stand a better chance of winning than the guy choosing between Wendel and Brida. At any meet, there are four or five guys everybody wants. Periodically someone emerges from the pack.
Jockeys are a side dish, not a main course. Some are better than others. In certain situations they are more of a factor. I\'ve seen Noel Wynter running away by ten lengths on an Allen Jerkens horse enough to know that the horse running a zero has very little to do with who\'s riding. The big jockeys kill your prices, period. All these comments on Bailey and Velazquez are not up to your usual high standards. HP
Thats because Jerkens knows the horse will make the lead, stay out of trouble and basically anyone can win on the horse .Jerkens is the king of using (excuse the expression ) @!#$ house jocks ,I love when he does this ,he basically knows the horse will not be beat and the guys he uses are such desparados that they won\'t try anything cute,he also has a bit of loyalty to the guys who exercise his horses .I heard an interesting story once about Dennis Cayo once ,its seems Dennis was working a decent horse regularly for Nick Zito ,Nick promised to ride Dennis on race day ,a friend of mine was with Dennis when they checked the entries for that fateful day and an astonished Dennis Cayo exclaimed \"I can\'t believe he\'s going to ride Bailey\" Good Luck T.K.
Not to stir up a hornet\'s nest (really, I\'m just asking) but Easy Goer\'s Ragozin Belmont number was, I believe, 1/4 or 1/2 point faster than Secretariat\'s. Also, Point Given\'s Belmont was faster than Secretariat on the Ragozin sheets.
What story do the TG sheets tell?
I was trying to stay out of this, especially since I wasn\'t making figures back then. I gave Easy Goer a fractional negative, PG a huge negative 2 1/2, I think. Athletes in all sports are getting better, and the Babe Ruth analogy is a good one--he was better relative to his time, but today\'s players are better athletes.
Keep in mind that the track Secretariat ran over was super-fast (several track records equaled or broken that week), and none of the horses behind him ever won another race of any kind. I would also add that knowing what I do now I certainly would not trust Ragozin\'s figure--it was probably the only 2 turn race on the card, and a short field with the only other good horse breaking down, and (probably) the others running X\'s. He may have just paired Secretariat to his Derby number, which might be what I would have been forced to do too.
The Babe Ruth analogy is decent but limited. Your oft-repeated conclusion that today\'s horses are \'better athletes\' is a little oversimplified and deserves more discussion.
A more accurate extension of the analogy might be that today\'s horses, like Mark McGwire, may be \'pumped up\' on a more regular basis for better performances, but these performance levels cannot be sustained and often result in injury. They run faster and jump higher. This does not make them \'better athletes\', especially if they only run faster and jump higher once or twice. Call them what they are, chemically aided freaks who couldn\'t surpass past greats on natural talent if their lives depended on it. I\'m sure training has something to do with it, but how much? Ask Ken Caminiti. After all, the weights work better with the drugs and I don\'t know how different it is for horses.
Baseball is a useful comparison. The benefits of these increased levels of performance to the respective sports are minimal. The horses run a few big races and then they\'re finished. McGwire\'s real legacy will be steroid testing in major league baseball, which will be going on long after the last flashbulb pops in his heartfelt Hall of Fame speech (where he will not mention steroids and be heralded, sickeningly, as a \'nice guy\').
MLB attendance is down, which means that people are already saying \'70 homers, big effin\' deal.\' I don\'t have to tell you that, with a few notable annual exceptions, compared to 30 years ago nobody goes to the track, any recent superhorse notwithstanding. If Mark McGwire is taking this stuff by choice, God only knows what they\'re giving horses. MLB and horse racing have two things in common, (1) drug issues and (2) long term and potentially irreversible troubles.
Do you really believe Mark McGwire was a \'better athlete\' than Babe Ruth? After the \'inflated\' years where he hit 150 homers in two years, McGwire had to hang it up because he couldn\'t hold a bat or walk around the bases. Some athlete. Great role model too. Take this stuff and hit home runs, kids, it\'s worth it. Take those two years out of his stats and you see a very good first baseman, but not MARK McGWIRE! Mantle, Mays, Williams and DiMaggio were easily as good if not better than anyone playing today. Compared to these guys, \'McGwire\' and \'athlete\' do not belong in the same sentence. And before you say Barry Bonds, add in five lost seasons for Ted Williams. Nobody today is \'better\'.
Same goes for horses. Point Given ran four or five big races. He had his 70 home run season (six months, tops). You can\'t really believe this makes him a \'better athlete\' than Secretariat.
There may be more horses today that can run at the Secretariat-level, but in these tainted times, I don\'t think the word \'better\' will be accurately applied to any of them. TG figures reflect the \'new reality\' but not the quality of today\'s athletic talent in comparison to yesterday\'s athletic talent. Such comparisons are unfortunately impossible. HP
\"Today\'s horses are better athletes\" is a shortened form of a longer statement I originally made where I also mentioned selective breeding, nutrition, advances in shoeing, and \"sports medicine\". We may not be producing better NATURAL athletes in any sport, but the net result is bigger, stronger, faster--and in the limited context of measuring performance, that\'s all that matters. I offer no opinion of how fast Secretariat would run if trained by Cole Norman.
But I have to say, I recently saw a clip of Mantle\'s 500th, and was struck by how skinny he looked. This guy hit the facade of the roof, and no-one has done it since.
I\'ve just been struck lately by how generational comparisons are just totally whacked out in sports now for good, and for horse racing it\'s got to amount to the same thing to compare horses 20 years apart. It seems really awful to me in baseball. It\'s a shame because when I was a kid 30 years ago it was different and you had more of a legitimate basis for comparison, and that was a lot of fun. It was a good way to give your parents a hard time, and it\'s a shame to lose it. A lot of people are just going to look at the numbers and not factor in all the variables. Watching these big goons bums me out. HP
HP,
I guess it\'s all just a matter of personal opinion. Some handicappers put a lot of emphasis on sheet patterns, others look very closely at breeding, and some concentrate on the jockeys and trainers. I guess there is no way to quantify which factor is most important, but I definitely put more emphasis on the jockeys than most handicappers. I think Bailey and Velazquez have a unique quality that enables their mounts to reach their optimal cruising speed.
Obviously since Bailey has been doing it for so many years, there is no value in having this info, but with JR, you still get the most money back for your buck, so I would argue that moving up his horses is a winning strategy. Other jockeys that have the similar talent are Desormeaux, Espinosa, and Carrero, and their ROI\'s prove it. I find it interesting that the jockeys that concentrate on rating their horses, as opposed to getting them into a fast, comfortable cruising speed, always have the lowest ROI\'s. Good examples are Robbie Davis, Edgar Prado, Jose Santos, and Alex Solis. Again, with Bailey the info is out there, so he does not present the players with many great wagering oportunities, but when you get a rider change from Solis to Desormeaux, or Santos to Velazquez, great wagering opportunities arise. This does not mean I do not bet Prado or Santos ever; they often come up with brilliant rides in longer distance races, especially on the turf. More often than not, however, I find that their horses must be at least a few lengths faster than JD\'s or JR\'s for them to win the race ........... just one guys opinion .... As for the ROTW analysis, I thought it was brilliant. Unfortunately, I did not think GM would fire his best race going a mile and a sixteenth, so I went with the Frankel horse. Tough loss since my only bet was a big double with the horse who won the race before
I wouldn\'t say you\'re wrong, but you\'re \'adding it in\' to the numbers and I find when I do this it hurts more than it helps.
I put the jockeys way below the trainers. You would have to remind me of the last horse Velasquez rode that paid more than $20. When I started using figures it helped to beat the guys that were betting Cordero and whoever else was hot, which they did regardless of who they were riding. The names have changed and not much else.
As far as rating goes, you can\'t believe that the jockeys make these decisions. Of your examples, Prado has made a real dent in NY, which is no small feat; Santos, despite the rips he\'s gotten on these boards is enjoying a big comeback; and Davis is about what he always is, 12% and I\'ll bet him every time he\'s got the horse I like. Solis I don\'t know enough.
If it works, more power to you. Cheers. HP
Voodoo, this w/e....
Prado\'s dent in NY includes an ROI of about 1.6, the Santos comeback gets you about the same, and Robbie Davis might get you 1.65. JR\'s ROI is always close to 1.9, which in % terms, is a huge difference. Trust me, you are better off betting JR than the other three. (or trust Tabor, Godolphin, Phipps, and the other top outfits in the world that are in the process of making JR their number one US rider). In fact, I actually use the opposite strategy as the one you mentioned; I often use the jockeys to beat the die hard sheet users.
I notice you left out Bailey\'s ROI, which I\'m sure is lower than JR\'s. This is not a function of Bailey\'s skill, but rather a function of how the public bets and the quality of the horses they ride (other examples would be Day at Churchill and Baze in No. Cal.). You wouldn\'t say Bailey\'s lower ROI means he\'s not as good as JR, would you? As a stat, this leaves something to be desired. They bet everything Bailey rides. They don\'t play JR quite like that yet. It\'s not a direct skill-to-ROI correlation. HP
I think I mentioned three times that the fantastic Bailey wagering opportunities ended years ago. He is the best, and everybody knows it. I also mentioned that the public has not yet noticed the brilliance of JR, and therefore the betting opportunities are still there. Funny you mention Day, one of the jockeys who sees fit to rate every horse he rides. His ROI is lower than everybodies except Mike Luzzi. Hey, I have no problem with sheet players relying solely on the numbers, and not moving up horses that JR, Desormeaux, and V Espinoza ride..... more money for me.
Nice discussion though, really shows some of the differences between die hard sheets players and the players who put more focus on other factors. I think we agree on one thing though, the new TG sheets give info that everybody can use.
You\'re patting yourself on the back a little bit there cowboy. I think you can assume that people who use the figs take a look at who\'s riding and factor it in a bit, even if they put the numbers first. They may even look at some crazy things like pace, trainers and breeding.
You must hit a pretty high percentage of the bets you make because the JohnnyV horses at Saratoga aren\'t exactly flying under the radar on the toteboard. He\'s not in Bailey-ville yet, but he\'s on his way. HP
Sorry, I thought you said that adding in the jockey performance actually hurts your handicapping. Wait................ you did say that. I would argue that adding in the jockey performance to the figures helps me make money at the track....... The facts are simple; Bailey and Velazquez have had a major impact on about 80% of the stakes races in NY over the last few months. I simply can not understand how one could discuss some of these stakes races without mentioning the impact they had on the outcome, and the tote board.(positive or negative)
Discussion of the impact on the toteboard? Okay. The impact of Bailey on the toteboard is negative for his mount and only serves to increase value elsewhere. Velazquez, same thing to a lesser degree. Figure if Velazquez is riding a horse that should be 6-1 he\'ll be 4-1. With Bailey it\'s the difference between 2-1 and 6/5. If this is your main angle and you\'ve figured out how to make money on it I\'m happy for you. I guess if you hit enough of JohnnyV\'s $12 winners you\'ll do alright. HP
What about the original point of disagreement; do you think it is important to add in the performance of the jockeys to the numbers when handicapping a horse race? In the end, the answer is of course no, as supply and demand always puts the proper value on everything. But in the end, we will all be dead. As for now, with all of the figures and info out there, you better be able to determine the CURRENT value of the different jockeys. You need to be aware of the breeding angles, the trainer angles, and different track conditions. These factors are constantly changing, and the handicappers who are able to judge the value of each at their current levels will make money. Who knows, maybe Bailey right now is the best bet in all of sports? The average guy will look at his 1.6 ROI and say he is a human money grinding machine. But how about tomorrow? Will he get up tomorrow and be so focused, so much more intense than the rest, that he actually adds value? Maybe. Will Prado gain so much confidence in his rail skimming turf rides that he starts to dominate many of the turf races? Maybe. Is JJerkens training his horses better than anybody right now? Maybe. Is Henning? Maybe. Will the Sar track favor speed tomorrow? Maybe. I do not pretend to have the anwsers to all of these questions, but I guarantee you one thing; the guy who has the most answers to these types of questions will make the most money, because he will have the sheets AND all of this info. So I will end my commentary by saying this: try to factor everything in as you see it today, because we will all be long gone by the time everything averages out.
Many a ruined day trader (and horseplayer) has followed this method, Michael. God bless all of you.
yes, good point. but if you think about it, many were also ruined by NOT following this method..................... off to the Spa, good luck everybody!
There are infinitely more ruined INVESTORS than ruined daytraders.
Frankly, how can anyone argue that a Chavez or JV when they are on their game, do not actually move horses up?
Are they winning 4 and 5 races in a day because the agent\'s dart was extra sharp that card?
Been watching races for over 30 years, and while it\'s not the key to the kingdom, selective jockycapping will move up your game.
If all the jockeys mounts are overbet, then no, you can\'t make any money there, but that is a fairly rare occurance.
In fact, Iv\'e seen many a time where a HOT jock wins his 3rd or 4th race on the card and it pays MORE than is warranted. Maybe all the wise guys betting against?
Since this exchange began I\'ve been following the results. I saw a grand total of one horse that Velazquez rode that finished in the money where it looked like the horse was a square price (about 5 or 6-1, as it should have been). I would say the category of \'jockeycapping\' would include figuring out who the top jocks are that aren\'t getting bet like crazy. I would definitely include Chavez, Day and Prado in this category at the Spa. There\'s a bunch of others that won\'t affect my wagers and there are a few who are real negatives, but if the horse fits I might still use them. One look through the prices this week and I can\'t imagine how anyone is making money on this \'great jockey\' or JV angle, even if he rides 4 winners a day. The hot guy kills your price. HP
Actually, I believe JD Bailey has a positive ROI at the Spa this meet. In other words, don\'t just assume every Bailey nag is an underlay.
HP,
Yesterday you mentioned that Prado and Day are among the jockeys that you think can provide value at this Spa meet. Nice call, if you paid some attention to your own instincts on jockeys, you could have made some good money today. Use all of your knowledge, the game is too tough to leave some of it out when you handicap.
DD would hav taken it to WE, MD is on the upswing while WE looks to still be a nice horse but not as good as MD right now.
Nunzio
MD, Unfotunately I\'m working while others enjoy the parade. I did notice those results. Good luck to you! HP
I think you have to see how the race sets up before giving weight to which jockeys to use or which to toss . I like to stay open minded with most jocks ,I will use Davis or Luzzi if I feel I get good value on them ,hell if the situation warrants I\'d use Clive Beech .I think trainers more critical because they know what their horses are up for and they know what level of jock can get it done for them .Some trainers are gamblers themselves and are trying to get value for their hard work .One example I have seen is when Mott has a horse that JD dosen\'t ride ,he\'ll use Day or Castellano or whomever you get good prices on these horses because the public thinks if JD\'s in the race and he\'s not on Mott\'s horse then the horse is a second stringer .Cordero used to say that he was the worst handicapper in the world .I would love to have insight to stable intent more than any info there is .By the way does anyone know what # Left Bank ran in the Whitney ?