MONSTROUS
Nice effort against 4 more tomato cans without a single Graded Stakes win in the past 8 months.
Yea.. Monstrous.
P-Dub where are u now??
Not her fault Rachel ducked her.
$500,000 purse, dirt track, out of California.
Some people will bitch about anything. And you had the nerve to call me out for having a miserable little life.
\"Wow, that sounds like a miserable bitter little life you got there P-Dub. You need a vacation\".
You are a clown. A big hypocrite of a clown. You sound more ridiculous with every cynical piece of nonsense you utter.
Here is one of the greatest racehorses of all time, male or female, winning her 16th consecutive race. You come here and attempt, yet again, to throw cold water all over it.
You are so cynical and joyless, that you can\'t just appreciate her greatness.
And I\'m the one with \"a miserable bitter little life\". LOL.
You need to spend a couple bucks and buy some class.
P-Dub, myself, and several others who are Z fans spend a lot of words complimenting Rachel and her successes.
You gotta be totally clueless to not give some props to the BC Distaff champ, the BC Classic champ and now still undefeated at age 6 with 16 straight wins. It just doesn\'t compute sekrah.
I know you think Z is a bummette, but if she\'s such a bum, then why did Asmussen not bridle up Rachel and show you what a bum he thinks she is?
Z ran, she won on dirt outside of California, that should be good enough for at least at acknowledgment on your part that she\'s pretty good.
So, who you touting tonight at Penn National? A bunch of real tomato cans?
As far as my race buddy P-Dub. While he and I spent some nice time at the Breeder\'s Cup in November, when I headed home, he and his gal headed to Hawaii, and then followed that up with a trip to Mexico. Such a miserable existence. Where you been lately?
What do you want me to say? If an Allowance horse beats up 10k Claimers ten times in a row are we suppose to go over the top?
Be Fair - 1 win in last 7 races, Allowance 42k.
Taptam - 4 wins out last 7, 2 listed stakes, Allowance $42k, Optional CL $35k.
War Echo - 2 wins out last 5, 1 listed stakes, Allowance $50k
Just Jenda - The only fringe Grade 3 horse in the field.
Why are we suppose to just go overboard with superlatives everytime we watch her destroy these glorified Allowance horses?? Moss and Shirreffs are outstanding horsemen who know how to get their horses into great spots.
Then you were watching the wrong thing if you were watching the Allowance horses.
Now I understand
The greatest synthetic horse that ever lived.. in the 5 odds year of synthetic racing. I\'m very impressed. Appreciate what greatness? Dominating the bogus synthetic surface. Yea, she did that. You act like she\'s writing history as one of the greatest horses that ever lived and that\'s a joke.
Ducked her? Rachel took a break, got her training derailed by the weather and wasn\'t fit. Why race an unfit horse?
I\'m sorry you have trouble handling the facts.
Yes she buried Allowance horses.. Yippee.. Pop the champagne cork.. Greatest ever.. Undisputable... I get it.
Just because you acknowledge the facts that Rachel is brilliant, that means I must ignore the fact that Zenyatta beat 4 Listed Stakes/Allowance-calibre horses today?
Who are you kidding sekrah? This mare will go down in history as one of the all-time greats. Rachel will be more looked at as a Favorite Trick type animal. Rachel will have to come back in her 4 year old year to her prior greatness and actually beat some good horses to get in that conversation as best ever.
So you think it\'s gonna be easy this year for Rachel, or Quality Road or Summer Bird OR Zenyatta to dominate those other great horses? Any of these 4 are capable of winning any race with the other 3 runners in it. If these 4 all get fit and are on top of their game these are some real heavyweights. This looks to be a great year if they can all stay healthy.
You come across as though you think if Rachel is fit then Z offers no competition. That\'s just ignorance on your part. The biggest thing Rachel and these other great horses have going for them is Z is 6 years old and is getting older every day.
I don\'t mean to be a jerk. We both look forward to their meeting.
Sekrah, you miss the point.
All we\'ve heard for over a year is she is a synthetic, California specialist. So she runs on dirt, in Arkansas, for a half mil. They tried everything to get other horses to run. They didn\'t.
She has beaten every horse that has tried to beat her. Ginger Punch was the defending BC Distaff champ and she dusted her in this same race 2 years ago. She beat males in the BC Classic, and say what you want about surface etc.... there were some pretty nice horses in that race. She beat them all.
It takes a pretty cynical person to continually try to poke holes in the resume of an all time great. And she is every bit of that.
She is a thing of beauty to watch in the paddock, the post parade, and especially running on a race track. Her closing style only adds to the excitement, watching her run at the back of the pack, smoothly getting into contention, and rolling to the front as she lays it down at the 1/8 pole.
I\'m not going to get into another pissing contest with you, I made my point in my previous post. This may be a Thorograph board, where the main focus is using the product to find good value bets.
But sometimes this sport is about more than cashing a ticket. And when we ALL can witness one of the truly great ones perform, regardless of the competiton today, we should ALL just savor it. Just like we savor each of Rachel Alexandra\'s peformances.
She doesn\'t sneak into town and ambush the competition. She welcomes any and all horses. Just sit back and enjoy it.
One more point and then I\'m done with you on this \"discussion.\"
I acknowledge Rachel\'s PAST brilliance in 2009. If she continues to be brilliant in 2010 remains to be seen. Just so you know, where Rachel goes, Zenyatta will go. Eventually, they\'ll meet. If they don\'t, it won\'t be because Z isn\'t willing to throw down with Rachel. Two great ones....It\'s that simple....
Peace out.
sekrah Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> You act like she\'s writing history as
> one of the greatest horses that ever lived and
> that\'s a joke.
>
> Ducked her? Rachel took a break, got her training
> derailed by the weather and wasn\'t fit. Why race
> an unfit horse?
>
> I\'m sorry you have trouble handling the facts.
Whats that saying....
Better to have someone think you\'re a fool, rather than opening your mouth and removing all doubt??
Well Sekrah, thanks for removing the doubt.
Honestly, you don\'t think she is an all time great? Sad little man. My condolences.
She wasnt the only horse who beat a Ginger Punch (who was a shell of herself that day) in that race. Brownie\'s Point did too, who is she?
Because nobody ran against her today, that means she conquered dirt? Please. What a load of drivel.
She caught a soft-classic field with no real garbage (synth) runners. The main Euro, RVW was all banged up and not 100%.
I just acknowledged she is the greatest American synthetic racer in the long storied, 5 year history of synthetic tracks in America. You cite beating 4 glorified allowance horses as evidence that she owns the dirt too. Because nobody chose to run against her today, that means she conquered dirt? Please. What a load of drivel that was.
We are seeing something special. She shows up every time and runs her race. Just the consistency alone is special. Appears there are no others (male or female) who want to take her on. What now? Her name in the entries is enough to scare off all the other top femaless. Where do they go now to find something to run against? Unless Rachel returns to form, I suppose they will have to go after the top males. I hope they find some spots so we can see this spectacular mare continue to perform.
Greatest Synth runner of all time.. All 5 years of it. She\'s set the benchmark for synthetic surfaces. That clearly will never be enough for you.
I\'m done with it.
Sekrah:
For some reason I was under the impression that you were an insider of sorts...
owner? syndicate member? I don\'t know, but I guess I was wrong.
Because if you had been involved in Racing in some capacity other than as a
horseplayer, you would be able to appreciate what a feat it is... for both the
animal and all the human connections... to run up a 16 race win streak at any
level.
The fact that many of the victories in this mare\'s undefeated career include
multiple Grade I races, including the Breeders Cup Classic, makes your
protestations regarding surface and level of competition a bit shallow.
Sekrah I seem to recall that you like to make selections on this board at Penn
National in the dead of winter. This is a different kinda hoss, partner.
RIP Personal Ensign. Thankfully we have TWO great female runners to carry the
torch.
richiebee.. Is it really so wrong to not be impressed by her dirt credentials?
\"Thankfully we have TWO great female runners to carry the
torch\".
Hear! Hear!
As a Horseracing fan and player it\'s good to see Z on her game.I hope it\'s a shared sentiment when I say,I hope Rachel gets on her game as well.Holding my breath with fingers crossed that our racing babes hook and are at their best.One
curious thought though,why would Smith have Z lose ground in turn one?
mjs
\"why would Smith have Z lose ground in turn one?\"
That was just part of the spot. Z is quite the sport.
Its not so much going wide on the turn as it is giving Z a reminder of what its like to have some real dirt kicked in her face. Off the pace synthetic horses sometimes tend to shy away from dirt flying in their faces.
Z continues to work on her game.... lol Actually, she has some smart people that handle her, they pay close attention to detail.
Last thing on the topic of Z. I think you\'ll see Shireffs and Moss announce Zenyatta\'s next expected start. I know Z is going to Churchill, we\'ll see if she and Rachel get matched up there.
Anyone care to guess what her TG figure will be for today\'s 3w4w effort?
The time was horrific, 1:50 something. Will be her slowest race in quite some time.
sekrah,
Don\'t know if horrific is the adj I\'d use(considering she was in gallop/2 min lick mode),but my guess on her fig is between a 1/2 to 1 range.
good luck,
mjs
reminds me of all the bashers of the stock market , up 80% off the lows. No matter how it climbs, they find something not to like, the volume, the this, the other thing.
Hey you were 100% right about 1 thing. She was 1 to 9.
Speaking of 1/9, someone has to explain this net pricing thing to me. Huge minus place pool, 5 horse field, the one that ran second pays 6.40 to place. ??????
I\'m not 100% up to speed, but it\'s something about the hub that creates the minus pool eating the loss. You no longer see the 2.10\'s all the way down like you used too.
TGJB Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Speaking of 1/9, someone has to explain this net
> pricing thing to me. Huge minus place pool, 5
> horse field, the one that ran second pays 6.40 to
> place. ??????
I don\'t have the exact numbers from the Apple Blossom, but I was monitoring them right up to post time, and what I remember is that Zenyatta had about $555K of the ~ $600K place pool, and Taptam had about $10000. This is close enough for illustration.
I\'m not going to get into any discussions of varying takeouts here, because while that was one of the problems net pool pricing was designed to address (the other being currency translations), it just muddies up the answer to the question at hand: how the heck did that (non-heavy favorite) horse pay so much? So I\'ll just use 20% as the takeout, and be done with it.
Finally, let me stress that this is MY understanding of how it works. Plenty of horse racing web sites mention net pool pricing, and try to explain how it works, but I could not find any definitive source for the EXACT calculations; what follows is what I have cobbled together from 2 years of on-again, off-again farting around with the calculations. I think I finally have it very close, if not completely correct, but if anybody out there wants to chime in with corrections, etc., PLEASE DO SO! I promise to not be offended -- I just want the damn thing solved.
***
Under the old pricing model, the place calculation would be over pretty quick:
Total place pool: $600,000
1. Subtract takeout from gross pool: $480,000 remains.
Well, the rest of the calculation (remove money bet on Z and Taptam, divide remainder by 2, allocate winnings back on a per dollar basis, calculate raw price and round down for breakage) is moot at this point -- there isn\'t enough money left to give the winners back their *bets*, let alone the mandated 5% minimum return. There are $565,000 in winning place wagers to be paid at 5 cents on the dollar, and calculation shows a minus pool of $113,250 is needed to pay the place bettors, all of whom receive $2.10.
***
Under the new pricing model, the order of calculations are tinkered with, yielding obviously different results,
The total place pool is still $600,000, and the amounts bet on all the horse remain the same, but the first step is different -- the \"net\" winnings are derived first:
1. Total pool $600,000 minus $555,000 bet on Z, minus $10,000 bet on Taptam = $35,000
2. Remove 20% takeout from $35,000. $28,000 remains.
3. Split the $28,000 amongst the winning place bettors by horse -- $14,000 to the Z place bettors, and $14,000 to the Taptam place bettors.
4. Calculate raw price for each place price:
Taptam: $10,000 wagered minus 20% takeout = $8000. Add the $8000 to the $14,000 from step 3, for a total of $22,000 available to be paid back to the Taptam place bettors. Allocate this amount per dollar wagered, which is $2.20 to $1, for a payout of $6.40.
Z: $555,000 wagered minus 20% takeout = $444,000. Add this to the $14,000 from step 3 for a total of $458,000, and...you still have a minus pool situation, to the tune of $124,750.
So, the takeout is the same, but the dollar amount of the minus pool goes up under my net pricing example.
I\'ve been told that the agreement under this model is that the host track is no longer stuck with the whole minus pool, that it is allocated back to each entity based on the percentage of bets each entity has booked to that pool. True? Again, chime in if you know.
This is from The Red Mile web site.
Net Pool Pricing
An Explanation of Net-Pool Pricing:
Historically, prices on pari-mutuel races have been calculated by dividing the GROSS amount of winning bets by the net pool. The net pool is the total amount of wagers reduced by the commission rate, or take-out. This process returns a fair price provided all wagers were made using the same take out. Not all international jurisdictions, however, are allowed by local law to wager into U.S. pools using the local take-out rates, and must use the standard take-out rate for their locality. They have, therefore, been forbidden from wagering into our pools.
To accommodate multiple take-out rates, the Net-Pool pricing model was established in approximately 1995. Under the Net-Pool pricing model, the payouts are calculated by dividing NET amount of winning bets, (rather than the GROSS amount as in Standard Pricing) by the net pool. Each locality then multiplies the payout by the compliment of the commission rate (1-commission rate) to arrive at the local payout.
This process weights each wager according to the local commission rate, as the higher the local commission rate (take-out), the lower the local price. For example, $100 bet at 17-percent commission is worth $83, and $100 bet at 18-percent commission is worth $82. The payout at the locality with a 17-percent commission rate will therefore be slightly higher than the payout at the locality with an 18-percent commission rate.
Place and Show Pools:
For most pools and payouts, if all localities were using the same take-out rate, the prices would be identical under both the Standard and Net-Pool pricing models. But in any multiple winning runner pool (Place and Show and any other pool in which a dead-heat creates two or more different payouts), the Net-Pool model distributes the same amount of winnings based on their NET winnings rather than their GROSS winnings. The total amount of monies paid out will not change, but the net effect, in these cases, is that the favorites will pay a little less, while long shots will pay a little more.
$2.10 Payouts and Minus Pools
Fans will notice that show pools with a heavy favorite that you would expect to return $2.10 for all three runners, now may pay significantly higher on the two non-favorite horses. This is because that even though the payout on the favorite is reduced to a number even farther below the minimum $2.10 payout, it still must return $2.10. But the other horses are not participating in the minus pool as they were under the Standard Pricing model.
Calculating Projected Payouts using Tote Board Information
One of the results of Net Pool pricing model is that one can no longer accurately calculate the payouts using only the information available on the tote board. This is true for all pools, including the Win pool. The reason for this is one needs to know the commission rate of the wagers on each runner in each pool to determine the true NET pool and NET winning wagers. (The tote odds continue to be accurate, as tote has all of the necessary information to properly calculate and display the current odds/payouts.)