These are the lengths I have to go to in order to get sheet theory discussed on this board?
Funny thing is I did a search to be able to attach this using Kerrison/Brown/synthetic, and found I gave him almost the identical rant in April 2009.
BALTIMORE -- Animal Kingdom\'s shock 20-1 win in the Kentucky Derby drew a blistering response yesterday from Jerry Brown, one of America\'s most prominent horse racing experts, who called it the triumph \"of a crap shoot.\"
And if you like Animal Kingdom in Saturday\'s Preakness, beware, he added.
Brown is the proprietor of Thoro-Graph, a speed-chart service widely used by owners and trainers nationwide to evaluate horses and their breeding.
What\'s got him -- and legions of serious bettors -- riled up is that Animal Kingdom went into the Derby after running three races on synthetic surfaces and one on turf. He had never raced on dirt, the Derby surface.
\"They\'ve turned the Kentucky Derby into a guessing game,\" Brown fumed. \"The introduction of synthetic tracks has created mass confusion among handicappers. In the Derby, you\'re left to guess whether a horse can handle dirt after running on synthetics.
\"This is an absurd situation to create for people who bet the game seriously. It\'s tough enough to beat it with good information and rational thinking, but now you have situations where it turns a race into pure guesswork.\"
Animal Kingdom was not the only horse to run in the Derby off a good performance on a synthetic surface. Brilliant Speed and Twinspired, first and second in Keeneland\'s Blue Grass, Master of Hounds, second in the Dubai Derby, and Decisive Moment, second to Animal Kingdom in the Spiral at Turfway, lined up. Not one of them hit the board.
\"All this movement from tracks to tracks, surfaces to surfaces, has exponentially increased the number of variables in handicapping,\" Brown said. \"It\'s impossible. It\'s just a crap shoot.\"
So what do you do about Animal Kingdom in the Preakness, which is run on dirt and where he is likely to start as favorite?
\"I don\'t like him,\" Brown said. \"He has two histories working against him. First, a lot of horses who jump up and win on dirt after racing on synthetics do not repeat. They react badly to it. We like to say they\'re \'won and done.\' Second, his Derby race was so much better than any other race he has run, and I don\'t expect him to reproduce it, coming back on only two weeks rest. Exertion takes its toll.
\"Some horses, like Big Brown and Rachel Alexandra, were able to win the Preakness with subpar races because they were so much better than their competition,\" Brown added. \"But Animal Kingdom is not that much better than the competition. His best race will give him a shot to win, but I think he\'s almost certain to back up.\"
Brown is not sold on Dialed In either. Dialed In was the tepid 5-1 Derby favorite who flew through the stretch but could manage only eighth, beaten more than seven lengths.
\"I think he is overrated,\" Brown said. \"He won two races in Florida, the Holy Bull, where he got a perfect trip up the rail, and the Florida Derby, which collapsed for him.
\"He\'s just not that good a horse. I think it\'s unlikely he will win the Preakness.\"
Well, who will?
Without knowing the actual field or post positions, Brown said Mucho Macho Man was the most solid horse in the race.
\"He\'s improving with every race, and if he\'s not the likely Preakness winner, he is the most likely horse to run well,\" he said.
He is also looking at some long shots such as Astrology, Dance City and Sway Away.
\"There\'s a lot of room for good things to happen if you\'re betting the race,\" Brown said.
based on how brilliant speed and Ak were moving forward on their sheet patterns, respectively, prior to the derby, would it not have been a proper guess, at the huge odds they both were at, to predict, what i call for synth horses, \"the dirt bump\"...both jumped a few points to a new top, and i reference baffert horses two or three years ago that came to saratoga and first time dirt, jumped 2 or 3 pts to a new top...is this not considered a good angle by you at this point or is there not enough info regarding synth horses going to dirt...another point, you\'ve now had 3 horses considered turf/synth win the derby in the last 6 runnings of the ky derby...barbaro, brown and ak....maybe if you get the right one, they have a better chance based on conditioning and breeding to get the mile and a quarter distance than most of the pure dirt horses....i know some of the other synth horses bounced this year, but ak did not have that far to move to be right in the mix...thanks...
ps....i\'ve only been using your product for 3 years since you called the tri in big browns derby...i\'m still learning from everybody here...got a dialed in question...the horse bounced, not badly, in the derby...why can\'t he move forward now a few points, to a new top and that would put him as a contender...he\'s lightly raced, and he really should improve here as he should be fit, zito knows what he\'s doing in these races when he doesn\'t have the favorite...he knows how to rebound very well...the pace and price should be right...
TGJB:
I\'m sure that you realize that every horse mentioned in Kerrison\'s article has never won a race beyond a 1 1/16?
\"Clearly the horse to beat???????\"
Good Luck,
Joe B.
mr brown,
can you help me out here sir? can you give me a few notable standouts of the synth/dirt bounce? iwr went synth/dirt won the gotham w a 115 beyer then ran huge in the wood. barbaro went turf/dirt..thats all i can think of off the top of my head.
jbelfior Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> TGJB:
>
> I\'m sure that you realize that every horse
> mentioned in Kerrison\'s article has never won a
> race beyond a 1 1/16?
>
> \"Clearly the horse to beat???????\"
>
> Good Luck,
> Joe B.
You\'re not suggesting MMM is a distance-limited horse are you? Wasn\'t that him coming on at the end of Derby?
I\'ll be getting into this in my Preakness comments, which will be in with the data for the day. IWR backed up considerably in the Wood but was able to win anyway.
The questions are a) why was AK more likely than the other turf/synths to like dirt, and b) how would you know he be would be good enough even if he did? As I said to Ray, between surfaces and drugs the randomness quotient in handicapping is getting out of hand.
Donut. The two horses you cite. Barbaro had lots of rest between the FL Derby and his win in the KY Derby. When he came back in two weeks for the Preakness it was tragic. IWR also wound up being hurt and it took him a year to come back and he has never been the same since.
If AK wins the Preakness coming off a big forward move first to dirt and two weeks rest, he will be an even bigger bet against in the Belmont. That was my original post. If the connections waited for the Belmont and skipped the Preakness, he would be very playable for me in the Belmont. I am not advocating that they do that, just making the point. If he beats me in the Preakness I think I can get it back in the Belmont.
Alm:
That\'s exactly what I\'m suggesting.
Good Luck,
Joe B
Pioneer of the Nile.
First time dirt ran a .75(Derby) off of a 3 on the plastic at SA.
He was dreadful in the Preakness and was eased to finish 11th.
OK, my eyes could be deceiving me. It wouldn\'t be the first time.
Jerry,
I prefer things to be a \'guessing game\' because the tougher it is to handicap, the more \'edge\' you can find. I don\'t want every variable to be straightforward, part of this game is to know more than the other guys, if everyone has the same information,it just makes it much tougher to win.
Am i alone on this, or is there something that you\'re saying that i\'m not understanding?
Complicated is good. Random is bad.
But doesnt random make it more complicated?
Randomness certainly does make things more complicated, but there is no amount of effort which can account for random outcomes. Playing poker is complicated, playing roulette is random. Poker allows someone to sharpen their abilities to account for the small amount of randomness involved. Roulette is just pulling numbers out of your arse.
plasticman Wrote:
---------------------------------------------
> But doesnt random make it more complicated?
Complicated: tough, but possible.
Random: ?
Do you want to bet on this ---> ? <---
Rick and pony, i totally get what you guys are saying, i just wonder if one handicappers random isn\'t another handicappers gold mine. Not everyone has the same mindsets and methods, if you know that synthetic horses switching to dirt can produce \'weird\' results, that can be construed as some sort of \'edge\'. If the public is betting the race as if nothing random can happen and you are betting the race as if something random CAN happen, isnt that some sort of edge you have?
The problem with your randomness \"angle\" is that an \"anything can happen\" argument can be made for any horse in any race on any track, any day. Not a very good way to bet.
Also your suggestion that some handicappers see something as random while another might see a pattern is very true. However, if there actually IS a pattern which can be determined then the outcome is no longer random. I think you\'re just describing differing levels of complicated.
That\'s related to chaos theory, I believe, and there\'s something to it. But if you have an edge you want randomness kept to a minimum. Predictable volatility (which is what things like Thoro-Pattern are all about) is a different story.
Meanwhile, there are two distinct ways of thinking demonstrated on this board right now. One is sheet theory-- horses perform differently at different times, the idea being to figure out when a good one is coming. The other is, a horse as an entity with attributes and a level of performance that\'s just who he is-- if he gets beat it\'s because he wasn\'t athletic enough (to grossly oversimplify), if he wins it\'s because he was. I\'ve had this discussion with Dana here before-- they\'re not cars. There\'s a reason we put the figures on a graph.
Whether AK wins or gets beat this weekend is extremely unlikely to depend on his athleticism. All that stuff is reflected in how fast he runs on a given day, and measurable (his figure).
Excellent point about the edge you already have and want randomness kept to a minimum. If you have a tried and true method of winning and its been working for years, you don\'t want a \'monkey wrench\' thrown into your mix. Plastic tracks have done that to a lot of players who were already winners. Those players didnt need change as they were currently winners already. I\'m starting to understand what you mean about random and maybe i\'m confusing that with chaos theory. Thanks for the education.
PP Horse (Morning Line Odds)
1. Astrology (15-1)
2. Norman Asbjornson (30-1)
3. King Congie (20-1)
4. Flashpoint (20-1)
5. Shackleford (12-1)
6. Sway Away (15-1)
7. Midnight Interlude (15-1)
8. Dance City (12-1)
9. Mucho Macho Man (6-1)
10. Dialed In (9-2)
11. Animal Kingdom (2-1)
12. Isn't He Perfect (30-1)
13. Concealed Identity (30-1)
14. Mr. Commons (20-1)
When will they draw? Tonite....like right around now?
Just watched the 1997 Preakness since the DRF was kind enough to post some Videos.
I hope we have a race as good as that one. Maybe Barry Irwins silks get up on the outside this time!
Thx! Looks like another good betting racing. Throw in 14 horses coming back on two weeks rest and more randomness.
And another rant......Ha!
Not to obscure your original point, but Taleb talks a lot about casino games such as roulette, and he says they are not the slightest bit random. The math is very well known to the casinos. The more spins, the more the players lose -- one big score would be negated over time as the player keeps playing over hours, days, months, years, and the casino is very clear on the profits in such games -- does not fit his definition of randomness in any way.
Jerry, you also seem to be agreeing with a point I made a long time ago (and you disagreed with me very strongly then), that synthetic tracks lead to imprecise numbers for a variety of reasons, not the least of which being that if horses dislike the surface and do not feel safe, they\'re often holding back, so how can you accurately give such a horse a number, and when such a horse gets on dirt and feels more confident and is able to fully extend himself, the number is obviously going to be much faster. We\'ve seen these so many times, but it never seems to sink into any sheet aficionados\' brains -- they see only the number on the page.
There are about a hundred other reasons why synthetic tracks lead to messed up numbers -- they change dramatically with the weather, much more so than dirt tracks, there simply haven\'t been synthetic tracks as long as dirt tracks, you\'re talking about a few years of data versus decades on a dirt track, and, again, most horses hate synthetic tracks and will not give a top effort over such surfaces, the pace is much slower, and on and on.
The problems with handicapping synthetic tracks are myriad. If one knows a lot about horses and what their movement and body language say, that helps some, but if you\'re using just sheet numbers, you\'ve got some major problems. It seemed not okay for you to admit that, and I don\'t know why. It\'s no knock on your data in any way.
There were some things about Animal Kingdom that stood out when compared with the other horses, most notably he is supremely well-bred on the dam side for distance, and we have a bunch of 3 years-olds this year, even more than in other years, who hinted strongly they were not going to be effective at distances longer than a mile & an 1/8. So he had an edge right away that was certainly worth taking a chance at 20-1 or so. I think his biggest problem is just the short rest going into the Preakness, there is no way to say how much the effort in the Derby took out of him, though he seems to be doing very well on the farm, you never really know, but in my mind he has an excellent chance to win the triple crown if he could walk out of Baltimore with a win, the Belmont distance will play into his hands -- I think you are down-grading him in the NY post article very severely, though again I understand you are advising gamblers on how to bet the Preakness, and I do understand why he\'s not a value play in that race. I do think he is a much better horse than you are giving him credit for though.
12 of the last 14 Preakness winners won on 2 weeks rest and all except Rachel/Bernardini ran in the derby. Put a fork in that inane \"only 2 weeks rest theory\", off tops or otherwise.
Mike
Just want to make a point Jerry. I think you know that I am a believer in form cycles. But for me it is only a piece of the puzzle. There are sometimes when this is the dominant handicapping factor for me and my whole bet will based on it. And it works because the crowd is usually betting based on how a horse just ran. Where by looking at form cycles, rest, & developement, we are betting on how we project a horse is going to run today. But there are other factors for me such as suitability to distance, likely pace or race shape, post position, workouts, etc. that I think can really help in projecting how a horse is likely to run.
So when I look at Animal Kingdom, I see a horse coming into the Preakness off a new lifetime top, 3pt plus move, first time dirt. Historically, more often than not these horses don\'t usually repeat their effort unless they get a lot of rest. With two weeks, that is a strike against AK IMO. Also, I don\'t think he is very athletic, which means if he gets trouble, blocked, or if someone else gets the jump on him he may not be able to get by them (he couldn\'t get by the winner in his last turf race for this same reason). So that\'s another strike. I also think the Churchill strip was playing awefully funny on Derby Day, which makes sense given that they had RECORD rainfall leading up to the start of the Churchill meet. The Pimlico strip is likely to play completely different than the Churchill strip, and AK may not even like it. At 2-1, 3-1, or even 7/2 I think you have to play devil\'s advocate with AK given all of the above, not simply because I don\'t feel he is athletic.
He\'s not likely to get any type of work from now till race day unless they blow him out 3F or something silly after a gallop, so it\'s a little tricky to evaluate his condition. Word I am hearing though is that he looks awesome at Fair Hill and acts as if the Derby took nothing out of him. He\'s held his weight, great looking coat, is playfull, and hardly took a deep breath the last three days after some pretty energetic gallops with strong finishes on the end of them. So that would seem to be a positive for him.
Point I\'m trying to make is that I believe more in looking at the whole picture rather than just the numbers by themselves. If the sheet says bounce but the horse is training like a monster, I think it\'s tough to take that approach with any degree of confidence.
But in any case, if AK wins in Maryland, my initial assumption would be he is a huge bet against for me in the Belmont because I just don\'t see him stringing together 3 top efforts on the dirt in 5 weeks.
I think Sway Away is the horse for AK to fear here. At least that is how I would play it if they were going in the gate right now. Fresh, fit as a fiddle, bred to love the distance, drew well, has a big number to run back to and has room for development. He seems to have really matured in his last few works. His last race he was bounced all over the place early, was rank, never relaxed, went extremely wide on both turns, took the lead and drew away from the field at the top the stretch before fading right in the end after a very tough trip where he wasted a lot of energy. If Gomez can get him to relax at Pimlico I think he is the most likely winner at a very good price.
To be clear, I absolutely disagree with you about the accuracy of synthetic track figures. The randomness comes in from not knowing how those horses will handle a completely different surface, and no amount of accuracy in their previous races will help you with that question.
And seriously, you can\'t distinguish between the idea that an individual spin of the wheel is random (as is a coin flip), and that the results over an infinite sampling will even out?
Really. That seals it then.
Read my comments with the Preakness data.
MJ-- things like the horse doing great can be part of (or a function of) the whole form cycle thing. And certainly it can be argued that changes in conditions (surface, possibly trip) can affect performance and/or outcomes (two different things). But that\'s different than assigning a horse attributes (scrappy, athletic etc.) and viewing them as independent from his measurable performance.
Don\'t have to, it\'s the same all the time. Whether AK wins or runs last in the Preakness has zero to do with spacing or new tops. There are many other reasons for horses losing(which they do most of the time) strictly related to racing stuff, not theory.
Mike
Miff
Since 1986 there\'s only been 3 horses that won the Preakness and didn\'t run in the Derby. Rachel also won the Oaks, so that means there\'s only been two horses (Bernardini and Red Bullet) that won the Preakness and had more then a two week turn around. 18 of the past 25 winners have been 1st or 2nd choice and 31 of those 50 horses finished ITM.
Chalk on Top, I\'m looking for who\'s going to run 2nd or 3rd. Need to see the numbers but I\'m looking at Dance City, King Congie and Mr. Commons.
Lost,
Think it\'s obviously a conditioning thing.Last thing I would want is a fresh horse, with no route bottom, going farther than he ever raced with 126 in a crowded field.
Mike
\"They\'ve turned the Kentucky Derby into a guessing game,\" Brown fumed. \"The introduction of synthetic tracks has created mass confusion among handicappers. In the Derby, you\'re left to guess whether a horse can handle dirt after running on synthetics.
\"This is an absurd situation to create for people who bet the game seriously. It\'s tough enough to beat it with good information and rational thinking, but now you have situations where it turns a race into pure guesswork.\"
Jerry-your comment of not knowing how well AK would HANDLE dirt was certainly answered by our friend Steve Byk and Mike Welsh and Steve Haskin and others on his morning ATR show each morning live from CD. EVERY morning, all the live guests all commented on not only how great AK worked over the CD strip, but how he STOOD OUT in morning works in the CD dirt...so how are we guessing? Not that I\'m saying how well he might RACE over CD, but he sure did great each morning. To the many TG users who listened to Steve\'s show, and others who use other products...AK was a definite play IMO. We did get good and useful information on his and others like or dislike of dirt, especially the querky CD dirt surface. People all week have been calling Steve\'s show for more info this week regarding workouts, especially on the new shooters who are grass/synthetic runners but as of today, none have worked out over it because of their desire to arrive later in the week prior to race day.
Thanks again for all your hard work and expertise and I look forward to seeing you again this summer at Carolina BBQ.
The fact that AK worked well on dirt was no sure indication that he would race well on dirt. Many horses that go on dirt the first time can work 4 or 5 furlongs fine, but fall apart after 6 or 8 furlongs. And just doing a workout does not tell how they will do when clumps of dirt get kicked in their face. Now I was a backer of AK in the Derby, and I accept the fact that the Derby is complicated. On all these posts, I see very little about the trainer factor. I had Giacomo simply because I had followed Shirreffs and Moss for years, just as I have followed Team Valor and Motion for years. Quality owners and trainers need to get extra consideration in the Classic races. Admittedly,lots of luck involved with Giacomo, but he was well prepared by a top notch outfit, just like AK.
I would love to go back through the Mike Welsch DRF Derby clocker reports from years past and see how many of the horses who \"loved\" the track during workouts ran like garbage. My guess is a high percentage. There was no way at all to truly know how AK would handle dirt kickback, how he would handle the track while accelerating, etc. He won, rather easily, and defied the logic of using speed figures - for this one rce. It\'s not the first time this has happened and it wont be the last, it\'s just magnified 10000x because it\'s the Derby.
As folks who look for mega-value, we should all want him to win the Preakness, so that he\'s a 1-5 underlay in the Belmont and we can wait for another flop, a la Big Brown, Smarty, War Emblem, et al.
SJU5 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> Jerry-your comment of not knowing how well AK
> would HANDLE dirt was certainly answered by our
> friend Steve Byk and Mike Welsh and Steve Haskin
> and others on his morning ATR show each morning
> live from CD. EVERY morning, all the live guests
> all commented on not only how great AK worked over
> the CD strip, but how he STOOD OUT in morning
> works in the CD dirt...so how are we guessing? Not
> that I\'m saying how well he might RACE over CD,
> but he sure did great each morning. To the many TG
> users who listened to Steve\'s show, and others who
> use other products...AK was a definite play IMO.
> We did get good and useful information on his and
> others like or dislike of dirt, especially the
> querky CD dirt surface. People all week have been
> calling Steve\'s show for more info this week
> regarding workouts, especially on the new shooters
> who are grass/synthetic runners but as of today,
> none have worked out over it because of their
> desire to arrive later in the week prior to race
> day.
I agree, it was not a SURE indication, but it sure beats seeing him spin his wheels and not like the CD dirt! How many of us would drop any scratch on a colt that trained like crap the week leading up to the Derby and had negative trackside reports each AM? It was a positive indication...not a guarantee that he would race well like I stated. And we won\'t know how many times AK trained on the dirt surface at the \"farm\" getting dirt thrown down his face either. BUT I highly doubt CD was the first time AK ran on dirt surfaces with all the amenities at the farm and with an outstanding trainer in Motion!!
I like your forum better than your horse picks/race breakdown. There\'s a gd chance ak could gallop on saturday. Ny post discretting the derby winner who rolled? Crazy move.! I\'m tryin to beat ak..not hope for him to bouncey bounce 3-4 pts..wrong angle sir:)
Random vs Chaos ?
Plastic,
No pun intended but plastic surfaces have created chaos in the game. I quite simply do not play them except for a few of the major stakes. They contradict everything I\'ve learned in 38 years of watching races, pace scenarios and by the wagering figures across the land I\'m not alone.
However we all exercises a degree of random on a daily basis, be it sheet interpolation, how we view a pace scenario or a bias ? There is no sure thing or total given in our world and we\'ve all seen many mathematical geniuses go broke !
I can accept and deal with random when I\'m getting 500 /1, 1000/1 or more on a vertical or horizontal wager. That\'s why we have to applaud MJ\'s plunge and the structure of his derby ticket. The same reason when jimbo, richiebee or myself post another one of our losing pick 4 tickets on big days we spreading 3-6 deep on some legs taking into account the randomness of several most likely winners.
Random with a bit of edge and proper odds is not a bad thing. Complete chaos in a 20 horse field on an non level playing field is roulette ?
Good luck,
Frank D.
Ron-- the problem is, even if you KNEW he would like dirt (and Doc is right, lots of horses work just fine over surfaces they don\'t handle as well in a race), you still had to guess how fast he would be on it. Did \"like\" or even \"love\" mean pair his last, run a 2 point new top, or almost 4? To do the last he had to be able to run a figure only a tiny percentage of 3yos can run-- and a 2 point new top wouldn\'t have done it.
FrankD. Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Random vs Chaos ?
>
> Plastic,
>
> No pun intended but plastic surfaces have created
> chaos in the game. I quite simply do not play them
> except for a few of the major stakes. They
> contradict everything I\'ve learned in 38 years of
> watching races, pace scenarios and by the wagering
> figures across the land I\'m not alone.
>
> However we all exercises a degree of random on a
> daily basis, be it sheet interpolation, how we
> view a pace scenario or a bias ? There is no sure
> thing or total given in our world and we\'ve all
> seen many mathematical geniuses go broke !
>
> I can accept and deal with random when I\'m getting
> 500 /1, 1000/1 or more on a vertical or horizontal
> wager. That\'s why we have to applaud MJ\'s plunge
> and the structure of his derby ticket. The same
> reason when jimbo, richiebee or myself post
> another one of our losing pick 4 tickets on big
> days we spreading 3-6 deep on some legs taking
> into account the randomness of several most likely
> winners.
>
Frank: Actually I think going 3-6 deep in races is a function of 2 things:
(a) My fear of commitment and (b) the advent of the $.50 wager. I am fairly
certain in Saturday\'s P-4 which ends with the Preakness I will NOT be com-
mitting to Shared Account carrying 125 pounds.
> Random with a bit of edge and proper odds is not a
> bad thing. Complete chaos in a 20 horse field on
> an non level playing field is roulette ?
I was alive with seven (7) in P4s, P3s and Oaks/Derby doubles two weeks ago.
At no point did I think that any of the 7 had a chance of winning. I am begin-
ning to think that betting a 20 runner field where most of the runners are
nowhere near ready to run 10 furlongs is an overrated betting opportunity.
>
> Good luck,
>
> Frank D.