http://sportsradiointerviews.com/2010/11/09/jockey-mike-smith-continues-to-take-some-blame-for-zenyattas-loss/#more-27862
Sounds pretty accurate to me. I posted early on that Smith took quite a while to \'set her down\'.
Whether that was by necessity or over cautiousness, is for you to decide. I\'m not going to second guess the man, he\'s the pro.
That the funny business did cost her the race is pretty much a given.
Boscar,
It is not a given. Not at all.
Her dropping 18 lengths out of it was likely not because of the kickback or because of some \"funny business\". She ran her standard first half mile.
I can\'t believe I am about to do a Class Handicapper and discuss pace figures, but I am. The pace figure that Zenyatta got for the first half mile of Saturday\'s race was in line with her last 10 pace figures. She ran her race early. It looked like she was having trouble adjusting to the kickback or the surface, because she was so far back, but this was her standard pace figure. What we saw was the difference between slow paced synthetic races versus quicker paced dirt races.
She ran her race. She got beat.
Now, if you want to argue that her connections never racing on dirt against real competition thus never giving her a chance to adjust to dirt and adjust to needing to stay closer to the pace, cost her the race. That could be a good argument.
Jim
Thank God there is some sanity on this board...thanks for this post.
Thanks for posting this. I found it really interesting.
Agreed with everything Jimbo said.
Seven lengths behind a horse the quality of Musket Man on a fast dirt track after a 1/4 is not surprising considering she was 4(?) lengths behind Satan\'s Quick Chick at first call in the last on synth.
jimbo66 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Boscar,
>
> It is not a given. Not at all.
>
> Her dropping 18 lengths out of it was likely not
> because of the kickback or because of some \"funny
> business\". She ran her standard first half mile.
>
> I can\'t believe I am about to do a Class
> Handicapper and discuss pace figures, but I am.
> The pace figure that Zenyatta got for the first
> half mile of Saturday\'s race was in line with her
> last 10 pace figures. She ran her race early. It
> looked like she was having trouble adjusting to
> the kickback or the surface, because she was so
> far back, but this was her standard pace figure.
> What we saw was the difference between slow paced
> synthetic races versus quicker paced dirt races.
>
>
> She ran her race. She got beat.
>
> Now, if you want to argue that her connections
> never racing on dirt against real competition thus
> never giving her a chance to adjust to dirt and
> adjust to needing to stay closer to the pace, cost
> her the race. That could be a good argument.
>
> Jim
I\'ll trust the opinions of a Hall Of Fame jockey over an amateur handicapper.
Listening to jockeys and trainers talk about their horses is the quickest way to a losing day, especially ones that have such emotional attachments. Look at the comments before and after the Kentucky Derby every year.
I actually think an unbiased horse player can offer a better perspective because there actually is perspective.
P-Dub,
You make it impossible to be civil to you. You can\'t be as thick as you portray yourself on the board. Nobody is.
Figures are not an opinion. I hope you get that. I don\'t make the pace figures. Moss does, so do other pace figure makers. They aren\'t opinions. They are mathematical calculations.
The pace figure makers all agree that Zenyatta\'s opening half on Saturday was par for her synthetic figures. I am the messenger. I didn\'t do the calculations.
She ran her usual opening half.
Monmouth,
The board is littered with lots of people that have tried reasoning or sharing facts with P-Dub.
it doesn\'t work.
Agree with your comments on jockey speak. And it is quite admirable of Smith to try and take the blame for the ride on Zenyatta. But how credible are his statements about her being completely unable to handle the surface throughout the race and him having to pull her and push her, with the Zenyatta we all saw in the stretch. She looked the same to me. He wants to make her more legendary than she already is by telling a story of how she couldn\'t grab the surface and persevered on heart alone to almost win. It will make for a nice Hollywood movie someday. But that is a view for her fans, not supported by visuals or facts. She ran her usual gallant and amazingly consistent race. Just fell short.
I realize that I am among giants, but consider this.
Talk now of the opening half being \'par\'.
That may actually be correct, but that wasn\'t where the race was lost.
It was the opening 1/8.
The only reason the half came up par, was Z had to be hard used to get back in the race.
If the first 1/8 had been handled more gracefully, Smith would have had more horse left, and more options on how to ride the final 1/4.
In general , a closer benefits from not expending energy early. In this case , those *extra* 5 lengths or so lost by bobbling around were simply wasted, as if she\'d started 5 lengths behind the gate (I realize that would be actual extra ground, but I can\'t think of a better comparison at the moment.)
Come to think of it, it\'s more like her simply standing in the gate for a second after it opens. No benefit at all, just time lost.
I now return control of the board to the pros.
jimbo66 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Monmouth,
>
> The board is littered with lots of people that
> have tried reasoning or sharing facts with P-Dub.
>
>
> it doesn\'t work.
>
> Agree with your comments on jockey speak. And it
> is quite admirable of Smith to try and take the
> blame for the ride on Zenyatta. But how credible
> are his statements about her being completely
> unable to handle the surface throughout the race
> and him having to pull her and push her, with the
> Zenyatta we all saw in the stretch. She looked
> the same to me. He wants to make her more
> legendary than she already is by telling a story
> of how she couldn\'t grab the surface and
> persevered on heart alone to almost win. It will
> make for a nice Hollywood movie someday. But that
> is a view for her fans, not supported by visuals
> or facts. She ran her usual gallant and amazingly
> consistent race. Just fell short.
This is the height of arrogance. The almighty Jimbo says something, so it is so.
You saw the race, you\'re telling me she looked comfortable over that surface??
I prefer \"Mr. Almighty Jimbo\".
They aren\'t my observations Paul. Read Beyer\'s article in the Post. Read Moss\'s article. Read the postings on pacefigures.
I wish I could take credit for their work, but I can\'t. I am simply regurgitating their figures, which is not arrogance.
She was charging hard in the stretch and looked good doing it. The pace figures are on par with her standard, the beyer figure is on par with her previous best and my guess would be the TG figure is a lifetime best. Hard to take that set of facts and conclude \"couldn\'t handle the surface\".
I am on the Thoro-Graph board, right? Anybody want to wait and see her figure? If she ran a lifetime top, are people who use figures actually going to say she didn\'t get to run her best, didn\'t like the track, etc.?
By the way, I\'m not big on listening to jockeys on this kind of thing. Aside from the question of what their opinion is worth, what they SAY is not exactly free of outside influences.
She may well get a decent figure. There must be a generous allowance for doing an Irish Jig early in the race ;-)
Ok Mr Almight Jimbo. LOL, good one.
I\'m going by what I saw, and is it possible she should have run a bit faster since it was dirt and not syn??
We\'ve beaten this enough.
I just got 2 hours of sun and a couple cocktails, and I\'m still arguing with you??
Saying a horse didn\'t handle the surface doesn\'t sound that incredulous, compared to the other things they say.
The bigger question is, you\'re sitting in Hawaii, and the best thing you can think of to do is come on this site, or even on the internet? Pretty sure I could come up with something better.
Boscar Obarra Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> She may well get a decent figure. There must be a
> generous allowance for doing an Irish Jig early in
> the race ;-)
That would be the IJ right of the number.
Jimbo wrote:
\"Figures are not an opinion. I hope you get that. I don\'t make the pace figures. Moss does, so do other pace figure makers. They aren\'t opinions. They are mathematical calculations.\"
Of course they are opinions, Jimbo. They are judgments. Hell, judges even call their judgments \"opinions.\" When you buy figures, that is the heart of what you are paying for: judgment. Calling them \"mathematical calculations\" is like calling my girl-rating system mathematical calculations. Yeah, there\'s some math in there, but there\'s a lot more than that in there, too.
The idea she earned a good figure going 10 furlongs as a 6 year old against the best available dirt horses says plenty.
She had adversity in the race, just like the other 11 horses in the field. She ran good, just not good enough.
I can\'t wait for her next race.
JB ,
Good point.
Wife was getting ready, waiting to go run around.
Point taken though, lol.
You guys sure bought it when Velasquez said QR doesn\'t handle the slop. Pletcher said after the JGC that QR handled the track just fine. I guess if it is QR and his jockey it\'s the truth.
If you believe that the first 1/8th or 1/4 of a mile cost her the race then you must believe Blame got a perfect trip. I say Blame wins by 2 lengths if he doesn\'t run the first half of the race on a dead rail and then get pinched between horses in the stretch. Where does it end?
what about bob Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> If you believe that the first 1/8th or 1/4 of a
> mile cost her the race then you must believe Blame
> got a perfect trip. I say Blame wins by 2 lengths
> if he doesn\'t run the first half of the race on a
> dead rail and then get pinched between horses in
> the stretch. Where does it end?
Some moron on another board actually said that Blame staggered home the last 1/16th.
As long as people either don\'t know how to watch a race -- or more likely, just see what they want to see...that which fits their pre-conceived notions of what *must* have happened in order to explain a result they can\'t or won\'t accept -- I\'m sorry, it won\'t ever end.
Rich
That is a philosophical debate. I have made my own figures, didn\'t like doing it, but it is certainly not pure judgment. Part science, part art/judgment.
But do you really disagree that Zenyatta\'s pace figure for this race was not her standard or are you just cherrypicking my post for the portion of it you don\'t agree with?
I have seen 3 sets of pace figures for the race. They are roughly the same. That makes me feel they are pretty solid. The same way I feel when I see multiple sets of standard figs in total agreement.
Jimbo,
I did not say it was pure judgment. But judgment is very much involved. In the case of Randy Moss, he makes his pace figures in large part off of Andy Beyer\'s final-time variant, and Beyer gets his final-time variant by using the projection method, which is judgment galore. What is more, Moss cuts some of his pace variants loose from Beyer\'s final-time variant--and this involves another judgment. Indeed, his entire system is based on an overarching judgment about when to do one or the other. And his scale, a supposed \"pure speed\" scale, is based on yet another judgment. Calling these things \"not an opinion,\" but rather \"a mathematical calculation,\" as you did, is flat-out false. Opinions come into play constantly when making these things, and I believed that this deserved to be pointed out. In addition, you mentioned pacefigures. You mean the CJ Milkowski website? CJ uses judgment all over the place. And Thoro-Graph? JB made a whole post talking about how when you buy Thoro-Graph, the most important thing you are buying is his judgment about what figures to give. Ragozin? Same thing. Judgments all over the place.
You wrote:
\"But do you really disagree that Zenyatta\'s pace figure for this race was not her standard or are you just cherrypicking my post for the portion of it you don\'t agree with?\"
I think the idea of using Moss Pace Figures to compare fractions earned on different circuits is comical. Moss is OK at some things, but this ain\'t one of them. His numbers across circuits can be so ludicrous that I have been known to burst out laughing as I read them. But to your larger point, I wouldn\'t be at all surprised if Zenyatta\'s pace figure from Saturday fits with her others. However, I do not believe that is the key issue. The key issue is what her pace figure would have been without \"kickback\" or \"funny business\" or whatever you want to call it. And on this question I have no opinion whatsoever. I just wanted to clear up the opinion/judgment thing.
I have a question from a non-pace figure person. After Zenyatta\'s opening quarter, she fired off a 23.60 and a 23.80 for her next two quarters. Then, the quarter where QR backed into her and then she had to wait for LAL to clear her, was a 24.40. Her final quarter was 24 flat. The loss of momentum seems evident. She isn\'t a grinder so there is no problem with her accelerating once clear, but it does seem that something held her up more this year than last, where I believe she negative split her quarters. I know that that is the hazard of her running style. But she had a better trip last year even though it looked similar. I guess what I am wondering is how this would impact her figure? Does something like this impact it or is it path and dead rail and such that impacts it more.
Bob. That is absolutely ridiculous to say blame would have won by 2. Hell he had a perfect trip. Sat mild fractions and still was all out to hold on a nose. If that race is ran 10 more times I dare say he wouldn\'t beat her once. She was so visably superior to every animal in there it\'s pointless to even discuss a pace figure, a beyer, etc. If you guys don\'t watch enough races to know that mare was by far the best horse in the race maybe you should take up another hobby. Lord have mercy
Badride Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> That is absolutely ridiculous to say blame
> would have won by 2. Hell he had a perfect trip.
Where was your commentary when Zenyatta was getting all of her perfect trips in all of her prior races?
> Sat mild fractions and still was all out to hold on a nose.
I think you mean: Zenyatta was all out to pass Blame, and couldn\'t do it. Right?
>If that race is ran 10 more times I dare say he wouldn\'t beat her once.
You can dare say whatever you want, because it won\'t happen. The race was only run once. Zenyatta lost. Get over it.
> She was so visably superior to every animal in there it\'s pointless to even
> discuss a pace figure, a beyer, etc.
If you don\'t sit down with a stopwatch and do the math, I\'ll bet you get fooled regularly by this \"visably superior\" stuff. Horses that \"look\" like they are making huge moves late in the race are usually slowing down already, just less so than the horses that have already put in their run and expended most of their energy.
>If you guys don\'t watch enough races to know that mare was by far the best horse
>in the race maybe you should take up another hobby. Lord have mercy
\"By far\"? Are you sure Zenyatta was even the best in the race by a little bit?
There are some serious handicappers here, people that are far sharper than me, and you are way out of line to make such a statement here. Tone down the rhetoric, and pay attention -- you just might learn something about the game on this forum. Won\'t cost you a thing, either, except maybe some old, tired handicapping attitudes and precepts that might be keeping you from winning.
Speak for yourself. There may be a lot sharper than you. I doubt any are sharper than me. I\'m really could careless what you think
about her race. If you don\'t think she\'s the best horse I\'m glad you\'re in the paramutual pools against me.
Badride Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I doubt any are sharper than me.
Ah, well, then congratulations. I always wondered who was the sharpest guy around. I thought it might be TGJB, or TGAB, or one of the other TG guys, but they lack the chutzpah to come out here and declare themselves the sharpest around. Probably a lack of confidence thing,
(And we all know that the sharpest handicappers in the world have nothing better to do than hang out on an Internet forum at 3 in the morning.)
> If you don\'t think she\'s the best horse I\'m glad you\'re in the paramutual pools
> against me.
Well, \"Sharpie\", I think you mean \"parimutuel\" pools, but that\'s OK -- who has time to learn how to spell when they are the smartest horseplayer around?
What I want to know is -- since you and I are doing battle, parimutuelly speaking -- and since your opinion was that Zenyatta was the best horse in the race...did you bet her to run 2nd in the exacta, tri, and super, like I did last Saturday?
Glad I have you here to spell check for me. I think the smartphone spelled that out for me after I typed p-a-r and I just never proofreader it.
Listen we have our first set of monsters undertack so I\'ll chime
back in around 11 before I go back to the track.
I didn\'t bet zenyatta\'s race. I knew she was the best horse and wasn\'t willing to take a short number w/ all the variables. The surface switch, the lights, etc.
What if they were equal weights? Do you think she still would have run fast enough to \"win\"? Or would Blame have won by 3?
Too bad you left all that money on the table.
Did you similarly miss the Ladies Classic because you were afraid of the lights, sharpie?
This is absolutely the point...it would be nice if the commentary was oriented to the core value of this board...I wonder if some of these bloggers even used the TG figures? Had they, an uneducated reading of them would have told you IN ADVANCE that Zenyatta was \'in the mix\' with several other horses, based upon their recent efforts. Horses that were at a higher level further back in time did not run back to their best efforts. She likely ran to her best effort. Horses at the level of her recent figures (including Blame) ran as well as she did.
The dilemma for handicapping this race was the judgment one had to make as to what value to assign to recency. For example, would Quality Road run back to his better figures, from some time back? I looked at him a little differently....this was just a judgment, but he seemed to me to offer a variation on the 0-2-X factor. I called him an X and he seemed to perform that way, possibly further influenced by the problem on the rail and being inside.
To my eye, the horse who turned around and is reapproaching his best form is Fly Down. I wish I understood why his form is so \'in and out\' because that would help make a better guess on what he does next...if there is a next.
Bottom line to me: the Classic was one of the most formful races of the 2 days and Zenyatta got beat by a horse who figured to beat her.
I doubt Blame would ever beat Zenyatta by three. I posted her internal fractions earlier. She went from a 23.80 to a 24.40 when QR backed into her and she had to wait for LAL to clear. She then rebroke with a 24 flat final. She wasn\'t slowing down in the last furlong. Three pounds wouldn\'t have made the difference. Trips make the difference. She got a trip she couldn\'t overcome. She lost momentum at a crucial point. There are the risks with her running style. I like looking at figures and listening to the analysis and listening to the guys who post who use them consistently. But I don\'t ever compare a dirt figure with a synthetic or turf because there seems to be a disparity whether anybody admits it or not. Zenyatta was a horse who, in one European handicappers words, \"is a speed figure bettors nightmare\". I just think there are horses who can transcend figures and are better than the figures they posted. People say QR can\'t handle the slop. But didn\'t he run a neg 3 or something like that in the slop? And TG has Summer Bird running a neg 4. I could never rate him that fast personally. QR has been the darling of the figure makers. And all of that is fine. I\'m here to understand why that is so and why synthetic and turf numbers are lower than dirt numbers. This is not a knock on figures. I\'m just mystified why when somebody says she was the best horse, and the internal fractions seem to support that, that person gets attacked. Sorry about going on and on
Gallant of Smith to take the fall for Z, he rode perfect, her style finally got her but no other horse in there could come close to losing a head from that far back.Her best performance ever and probably her best fig.
Sheriffs may have underestimated or did not know the early gas and the long run to the first turn. I knew she would probably be 15-20 out after a quarter(did Sheriffs?)Maybe he got caught in the total over hyping by the not so sharp talking heads on TVG/HRTV/West Coast press. Might have worked her at CD and gave her a little zip given what she was facing early.Zero blame for Smith, Sheriffs,maybe.
Blame never had anything but a perfect trip(sandwiched for one stride deep stretch) and was NOT on the rail at any time(2+ path most of the way, near the fence approaching the quarter pole). Z had one little momentum changer top stretch, not splitting hairs, mayyyyybe she wins without it.
In the end, the naysayers were totally wrong,the glorifiers less wrong.Somewhere in the middle of this Z debate, unbiased,she was arguably the greatest/most consistent MARE of all time but not with DR.Fager,Secretariat and a few others that demolished their opponents and ran holes in the wind,something Z never did.
Mike
Footlick,
I read your point about the internal fractions, but I am not sure I share the conclusion. I have watched the replay a lot and I see a very very minor loss of momentum when QR stopped. But this is part of the game when you drop back to last and then circle the field in every one of your races. Happens at every track every day in just about every race, a deep closer having to navigate traffic. We don\'t re-adjust internal splits and declare them the best horse because they had to negotiate traffic. This is the \"tradeoff\" in strategy when you have a horse that won\'t fight on the lead/expend energy early in the race and therefore is susceptible to pace duels. No pace duels = sometimes traffic.
She got quite a few clean trips and great rides by Mike Smith, including last year\'s BC Classic. This time the red sea didn\'t part and she got beat by a very good horse. Great mare, maybe best ever, but probably not all-time great horse. Probably most beloved horse in the last 30 years, at least from what we can see but not measure.
Foot-- the short answer is we don\'t make adjustments for energy distribution. Also, the second to last quarter is around a turn, which slows horses down by about a second.
Thanks for the response. I agree that this is the risk a deep closer takes. And thanks for clearing up about the trip. It makes me understand figures a little better because I always wondered about that and why the figure wasn\'t faster.
Thanks again
Thanks Mr Brown. I knew it was around the turn. And I knew horses lose momentum around the turn, just didn\'t realize that about 1 second was the standard. Thanks again.
If you are going to account for every difficult aspect of Zenyatta\'s trip to make a case that she was the best horse, you need to account for every aspect of each horse\'s trip to balance out what you\'ve determined. Which is a total waste of time, given it doesn\'t inform anything but the emotional investment you have made. I am sure Sam Riddle would have loved to have had a better trip against Upset, but he was a big man who wore grownup britches and simply went on with his life.
Long live Personal Ensign, the East Coast Zenyatta.
That\'s why you can\'t throw Zenyatta out of the exacta. She is a testament to sticking with a consistent running style her whole career. One thing for sure about this race was you knew she was going to start last and be coming at the end win or lose. That\'s very hard to predict with other horses who keep getting their styles changed up from front running, pressing, stalking etc...
I understand and wasn\'t complaining. I\'m not getting into a debate about how good she was. Just a question
Thanks. I didn\'t understand some not using her in exotics.
Footlick.. For a deep closer in 12 horse field, Zenyatta got an above average trip. Plain and simple truth. Pace was quick enough up front and encountered very little, if any, resistance in her closing run. If the pace comes up a second slower up front, she\'s staring at the rears of 3 or 4 other horses at the finish line.
You are trying to defend one of the luckiest race horses of all time, you guys should be the last ones to complain about bad luck.
I asked a question about figures and internal fractions. You have voiced your dislike over and over. I don\'t care what anybody thinks of her. I just asked a question. Period.
And I haven\'t complained about anything. Sorry again
\"one of the luckiest race horses of all time.\" Sekrah, that is a comment made by a true Zenyatta hater.
It\'s the 100% truth. Zenyatta has had overwhelmingly more than her fair share of good luck over the past 3 years.
I\'m sure your opinion is shared by all
Either of you guys really think a) this can be settled by argument, or b) the rest of us should be subjected to this?
It\'s not an opinion.. it\'s a fact. Do you seriously think if you reset her career to her 3 year old season and she re-runs all her races again, that she would win 19 in a row again? Seriously?
If she were 80% likely to win every race she\'s ever entered, she wins her first 19 at 1.44%. She was at the minimum at 75-1 shot to complete such a feat (likely much longer because there were many of them races where she was no better than 50-60%, and a couple she was 25-40%). If you have enough good horses racing, by sheer numbers someone is going to accomplish the feat.
I\'d like a $50 double no with no.
Believe it or not, there are 19 chances to test these and other handicapping
theories at Aqueduct and Churchill Downs on Thursday.
In news of trainers other than John Shirreffs (sp?), Al Stall, trainer of Blame,
is 5 for 7 at the current Churchill meet. On the other hand, Rudy \"Ben Jones\"
Rodriquez was shut out the first week at the current AQ meet.
The late Pick 4 at CD looks playable, despite the fact that neither Zenyatta nor
Skip Trial appears to be entered.
That\'s what the delete button is for bossman.
This is a forum for serious players, like how much ink it takes to print.
Sekrah wrote:
\"It\'s not an opinion.. it\'s a fact. Do you seriously think if you reset her career to her 3 year old season and she re-runs all her races again, that she would win 19 in a row again? Seriously?
If she were 80% likely to win every race she\'s ever entered, she wins her first 19 at 1.44%. She was at the minimum at 75-1 shot to complete such a feat (likely much longer because there were many of them races where she was no better than 50-60%, and a couple she was 25-40%).\"
Priceless. So the difference between Sekrah\'s personal pre-race odds line and Zenyatta\'s performance on the racetrack equals Zenyatta\'s \"luck factor,\" and this is \"a fact\"? Sekrah: I believe you have finally managed to top your performance on the Paceadvantage website--where you posted a bad pre-race opinion and then used the \"edit post\" function to erase your post immediately after the race, and then got caught.
It is amazing to me how a horse as great as Z could never \'pop\' a negative 4 or 5 even one time in her career in 20 tries. I\'ve seen some supertrainer 30k claimers run -1 and -2s, so for Z to not be able to drill a high negative number at least once in her career is very fascinating and hard to explain. Or, maybe its easy to explain and i just haven\'t heard anyone come up with the answer yet.
No I took all your money off the table that race. The whole 30 bucks you put in.
Bravo about the luck. Two or three potential foes don\'t run anywhere near their races and she walked into a pretty heavy track, too. What was the variant? --20? 24?
If CD had been running closer to 10 that day--a more normal variant, I don\'t think she hits the board at all. Lucky wasn\'t well, and QR flaked for some reason. I don\'t know what the hell those two jocks on the front were thinking either, because they had no chance at those splits.
Leamas
Zenyatta is indeed very lucky that she gets to run on racetracks rather than on message boards--where someone can punch a letter here and a letter there, invent some puerile variant cause and effect, and knock her right out of the trifecta.
Rich Curtis Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Zenyatta is indeed very lucky that she gets to run
> on racetracks rather than on message boards--where
> someone can punch a letter here and a letter
> there, invent some puerile variant cause and
> effect, and knock her right out of the trifecta.
Just be glad these guys wager.
To borrow a word from Miff, these ridiculous scenarios are \"BRILLIANT\"!!
Perhaps they followed me to the islands, and have gotten too much sun or something. Next time bring a hat fellas.
Speaking of....time for some beach.
Rich Curtis Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Zenyatta is indeed very lucky that she gets to run
> on racetracks rather than on message boards--where
> someone can punch a letter here and a letter
> there, invent some puerile variant cause and
> effect, and knock her right out of the trifecta.
You think a slower racetrack (higher variant) is puerile? Why did Giacomo, Mine that Bird, and a host of others win one race at Churchhill then do nothing? Those races were a perfect storm of pace and or variant. The horse is fast, broadly speaking, but two major potential rivals were not right, and the speed that might have held at Monmouth or Saratoga died that did. Don\'t give me the ad hominem stuff like P-Dub--that\'s puerile.
Leamas57 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Rich Curtis Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Zenyatta is indeed very lucky that she gets to
> run
> > on racetracks rather than on message
> boards--where
> > someone can punch a letter here and a letter
> > there, invent some puerile variant cause and
> > effect, and knock her right out of the
> trifecta.
>
> You think a slower racetrack (higher variant) is
> puerile? Why did Giacomo, Mine that Bird, and a
> host of others win one race at Churchhill then do
> nothing? Those races were a perfect storm of pace
> and or variant. The horse is fast, broadly
> speaking, but two major potential rivals were not
> right, and the speed that might have held at
> Monmouth or Saratoga died that did. Don\'t give me
> the ad hominem stuff like P-Dub--that\'s puerile.
She didn\'t like the track, unlike the track loving winner of the race. Interesting how you conveniently leave that out of the discussion.
Now you\'re comparing her to Giacomo and Mine That Bird. Right.
Then you say that speed would have held at 2 other tracks. So if she loses over a speed favoring track, that somehow proves that she is lucky and unworthy. Uh, right.
As opposed to being able to close from 20+ lengths back. That is conveniently discounted, because apparently only speed favoring tracks are a fair way of judging her performance.
Just how many horses won closing over that track on those 2 days??
So to sum this up:
- It doesn\'t matter that the winner was a track lover, basically a house horse.
- It doesn\'t matter that the runner-up, who didn\'t like the track, at one point was 20+ lengths behind, outrunning every other horse in the race (of course this is discounted because 2 horses \"weren\'t right\") closed to lose by a head.
- If the race was over a speed favoring track, that would have proved she was a bum and would obviously not have impacted the trifecta.
- Its completed dismissed and not even mentioned that perhaps, over these so called speed favoring tracks, she may have handled those tracks better and run down the so-called speed horses anyway. We know this wouldn\'t have happened because Leamas said so, thus it must be true. Despite the fact she has run down every horse she has ever run against.
BRILLIANT!!
Speaking of variants, so much of this has been a variant of \"Spy vs. Spy,\" with my extrapolation of facts and data can beat up your extrapolation. Well, once you set up your context, you can reconfigure your facts and data any way you want within that context to make a compelling case, but it\'s still limited to that context. With all the back and forth over months and years, I don\'t know that the ball\'s been advanced very far on either side.
On the subject of Blame being a \"house horse,\" I question whether that\'s a fair label given 1) his TG tops as a 4-year old are similar at CD and the Spa, and as a 3-year old, they matched at Keeneland, CD and LaD; and 2) his overall record (operating from memory here) is something like 10 wins out of 14 starts, and 4 out of 6 at Churchill.
Leamas wrote:
\"You think a slower racetrack (higher variant) is puerile? Why did Giacomo, Mine that Bird, and a host of others win one race at Churchhill then do nothing? Those races were a perfect storm of pace and or variant.\"
Do I think a slower racetrack is puerile? Of course not. I think your wild-guess link, free of even an ounce of evidence, between variant and performance is puerile. You can\'t even cherrypick two examples without having Mine that Bird blow up in your face (no pun intended, but look at his sheet and tell me he did \"nothing\" after the Derby). If I start cherrypicking evidence for my side, we are going to be here for 5000 years.
Also:
William Quirin did a study of track condition and running style in his book \"Winning at the Races.\" You should look it up.
It is an easy matter to study the early races on a card, make a good estimate of the variant, and then start adjusting the figures of the horses who will run later in the card, adding lengths here and subtracting lengths there. If you think this works, then you ought to be doing it, and you ought to be rich. But of course it doesn\'t work.
If your theory is correct, then the Thoro-Graph methodology is a complete mess, and the figures that it produces are a joke--because they are not made according to your re-writing of race results.
I was only making a simple point, namely that Z benefitted (and most serious rivals were hurt) by a slow track and a fast pace. That post only concerned one race worth of performance. She\'s a deep closer and the pace helped even more. Why is that so hard to swallow? The best bets I make are when I start with performance (ability) and then look at pace and at how the track is playing.
Anybody else ever do that?
Geez!
Leamas
Actually, what you were doing was taking a 19/20 horse who had never missed the exacta and who had won the BC Classic the year before, and you were calling her lucky and saying she would have missed the trifecta had the variant been \"more normal,\" and then you were bringing in Mine That Bird to try to help your case, and now you are, um, narrowing your scope a little bit. But that\'s fine. You assert, with no evidence, that Zenyatta would have missed the board had the variant been smaller, thus granting me a license to assert, without evidence, that had the variant been smaller, Zenyatta would have won by 25 lengths. See where this sort of thing leads?
I said before the race that the distance and a slower track, and the absence of a top race by key competitors would help her. I was right. And on an even heavier (slower) track with the same pace pressure, assuming Blame didn\'t caught in said pace, she might have won. You can go there, though it seems that her big run was about maxed out while Blame might have had enough in the tank to hold her off over a slower track.
Leamas
Leamas wrote:
\"I said before the race that the distance and a slower track, and the absence of a top race by key competitors would help her. I was right.\"
Do you have any evidence that you were right? I mean, you\'re not exactly out on a limb with your belief that having one\'s competition fail to show up has its advantages. So I\'m disinclined to shower credit on you for that observation. And where is your evidence that the slower track helped her?
Also, you wrote:
\"Why did Giacomo, Mine that Bird, and a host of others win one race at Churchhill then do nothing?\"
Have you looked at these sheets yet? They are in the \"Archives\" section of this website. Look in the BC section of the archives. I\'m interested in what you think of the figures Mine That Bird ran in his first couple of races after the Derby, and in the figure Giacomo ran two weeks after the Derby. These are the two examples you chose. I think they are worth a look, and I\'d love your thoughts.
As TGJB suggested to sekrah and myself:
(A) Either of you think this can be settled with an argument )B) Should the rest of us be subjected to this?
TGJB, does it make a difference which parties are engaged in the argument?
Just wonderin\'
Smalltimer wrote:
\"Either of you think this can be settled with an argument\"
That depends on Leamas\'s propensity for coming to his senses.
\"Should the rest of us be subjected to this?\"
Given what the rest of you have subjected me to? Yes.
\"TGJB, does it make a difference which parties are engaged in the argument?\"
No way JB is in the office. That\'s why I chose the timing that I did.
Enough.