I went back and looked at all of the horses that have run 3 point or more tops in their final derby preps since 2009 (analysis only relevant since they stopped allowing steroids which allowed horses/all ahtletes to recover from big efforts alot quicker)
I was surprised by the results, much better than I thought
25 horses total
7 pair or new tops (28%)
9 off (36%)
9 X (36%)
This is very much in line with the overall distribution percentages for all Derby runners
I believe top/pair total is 30% for all runners so right in line here and there is actually a lower percentage of \"X\'s\" for this group than all runners
In other words, running a big new top doesn\'t mean you are more likely to bounce in the Derby. To the contrary, it actually means you are more likely to run a good race in the Derby (with offs categorized as \"good\" races)
I believe alot of this has to do with horses getting to run at distances that they are better suited to in the final preps and some of it is attributable to some horses getting better a little bit later than some of the precocious ones
Either way, this makes me more comfortable playing a horse like Wicked Strong who is very fast for this crop (I won\'t give out actual numbers for those that didnt\' order the derby/oaks probable TGs, you should check that out)
I saved this part for the end since we are figures oriented here and not results oriented but since 2009, horses that have run a 3 point or more new top in their final prep race have accounted for
3 out of the 5 winners (Mine that Bird, Animal Kingdom and Orb), 2 second place finishes (Bode and Ice Box) and a 3rd place finish (Dullahan)
In other words, DO NOT THROW OUT HORSES THAT RAN A # POINT OR MORE TOP IN THEIR FINAL PREP BECAUSE YOU EXPECT THEM TO BOUNCE
oh by the way, if we include Big Brown in 2008 (which isn\'t comparable because of the steroids being legal then), horses that have jumped up in their final prep have accounted for 4 out of the last 6 winners
if you want to throw them out for other reasons (i.e. overraced, training bad, can\'t get the distance, etc) that\'s fine but don\'t throw them out on bounce logic
I sent the spreadsheet to JB, he can decide if he wants to do anything with this for the seminar or not
I\'ll save my comments until the seminar.
Meanwhile, did you ask your friend about using his lists based on pedigree to break horses into groups?
well, 30% to pair or go forward vs what will probably be the second choice and odds of 5-1 give or take, doesnt seem to be a great deal of value....but still very interesting.
the data is the data, it\'s pretty clear that the big jump in the final prep doesn\'t impact their ability to run their race in the Derby
to dismiss an otherwise fast horse in the Derby because they ran a big new top in their final prep is dumb, plain and simple
there are other reasons to throw horses out but a bounce isn\'t one of them
would have cost someone 4 out of the last 6 derbies if they too that approach
in terms of my buddy, he doesn\'t want to share his list and I don\'t blame him, no reason for him to give his valuable content away
guy has a very good day job but could absolutely compete with the publicly available products and sell his content so he\'s not anxious to give it away
he and I disagree on a bunch of stuff this year so it will be interesting to see how this breaks
Jim, very insightful information. On my way over to but the sheets as soon as I finish with my office work here. Looking forward to JB\'s seminar on this as well!
I\'m not here to try and pound the table on Wicked Strong or anything or try to convince people to bet him because he\'s far from any kind of lock to win the race, I\'m just saying that he\'s the fastest horse in the race and the data tells us there\'s no reason to throw him out just because he jumped up to a big figure in the final prep
there are a bunch of legitmate reasons to throw horses out but bounce theory isn\'t one of them
I\'m not talking about this year\'s list. Talking about past years, so we can run some data.
You know I mentioned before how he was weaving in the stretch but when you take a look he definitely had a nice time for the final eighth so this is a tough horse for me to figure.
I put all the data in excel for Dosage and Center of Distribution since 1998 with TG Figures in the Derby, prior Route Top and Figure for the race prior to Derby. If you would like it let me know where to email it.
KMart
Is there a way to post it here in that format?
Link to Data (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1QCwYLxcezM1F3g2y6KioB1sMRfXeeZABKKkOAXifNx8/edit?usp=sharing)
Let me know if this works...
KMart
Just making sure-- the Dosage stuff is before they ran that year, right?
Okay guys, go to work. Rocky? Covello?
Fantastic!
I don\'t have the software (Excel) but kmart could you go to column D and sort a descending order that will put all the winners together, all the 2nd place horses together, etc.
Possible there may be some of the data that suggests all the winners shared some of the same pattern?
Thanks
What we\'re looking for here is how horses ran in the Derby relative to their previous route best, whether there\'s correlation with their (supposed or real) genetic propensity to go further than they previously have. I haven\'t got time to do this myself, if you guys don\'t over the next couple of days I\'ll see whether Al wants to.
Another thing someone could look at is whether horses who ran their previous top at 1 1/8th were more likely to run well in the Derby vs. those who ran it at shorter distances, but that gets complicated simply because the most recent prep is usually the longest.
Small Timer
You can download the data as an excel spreadsheet and then sort on any column you like.
What quickly appears to me is the top 5 fastest TG figs each year account for 10 of those 16 winners or roughly 63%, another 12 finished second or 3rd so that\'s 28 of 48 or 58% ITM.
Interesting to me is the center of distribution in the pedigree only 11 of those 48 where 1.0 or higher. There are always exceptions to any rule but lower CD tend to win a higher percentage of distance races. Dr. Roman has some charts on his web site.
This isn\'t a pedigree issue, and I\'m not sure if it is worth noting. But it appears you shouldn\'t play a horse for a big jump up relative to his peers. By the data, it looks like a horse that had a last out route figure that ranked outside the top ten was unlikely make it into the Derby super.
19/64 did it, which actually seems okay. But 9 of those 19 were on wet tracks. Two others were jump ups from poly races. Since 1998, when the Derby was run on a fast track, at least three of the four superfecta horses had a last out top ten route fig - with the exception of Barbaro\'s year, when it was 2/4 (including Barbaro).
Edit: it was 2/4 in Giacomo\'s year.
I emailed Steve Roman to confirm and below is his response in regards to the data I used.
The archival Derby data is unchanged. The figures are those on the day of each year\'s race.
Regards,
Steve
Good, thanks.
Only problem with that table is Real Quiet is still ahead of Victory Gallop.
Thanks wrongly, I would have never figured that out on my own. I was trying to get someone else to do the work for me since I bought a new computer yesterday and have installed lots of software thus far, excel/word notwithstanding.
Not to waste your time, but I\'ve done a spreadsheet or two since I was doing reel to reel computers in the Air Force in 1971.
I think sorting the winners into one group is the fast to finding any pertinent similarities.
Have a great one fellas!
Jim, I don\'t post often here but always enjoy you thoughtful analysis. Have been a long time user and fervent derby fan. Saw my first live derby in 1972 and got hooked. made 30 years without a miss till age, work and time caught up with me to settle on living room downs. anyway, I was prepared to drop WS on bounce theory looking for more value. I\'m sitting on a major three fig futures bet on CC at 31-1 so I have value there. I\'m also live to GAR, VIT and Sam for smaller plays. Don\'t usually play so many but in Feb all of them looked pretty live. I still think that CC is going to take something special to be beaten this year. they have not yet asked him to run. Good luck, bring them home safely.
I am really starting to think those future wagers on General A Rod are looking better and better every day!
Ok, I used the Difference between their Derby fig and their Previous Route Best AND their Dosage. I broke it down by two groups: Dosages < 3 (which is what that Romans guy claims means they are more likely to be routers, vs Dosages >= 3 (more likely to be sprinter types.
For Dosage <3 (sample size 171)
Tops: 9%
Pair: 21%
Off: 21 %
X: 49%
For Dosage >=3 (sample size 127)
Tops: 11%
Pair: 24%
Off: 19%
X: 46%
I just used a couple of simple COUNTIF statements to breakout the numbers from the columns in excel. Someone maybe can check my numbers to ensure I didn\'t screw up?
Less than 3 might seem a random dividing point to pick but (apparently) by definition, that is the dividing line for routers and sprinters, so, that\'s what used. The fact that VG, BODI, POINT GIVEN, TAKE CHARGE INDY, ORB all fall into the sprinter category seems...insane?...but what are you gonna do.
Anyway, based on this quick look at it, 30% of the horses supposedly predisposed to ROUTE Pair or Top, vs 35% of the horses supposedly predisposed to sprint. In other words using dosage to divide them, the sprinters actually did better...which does not exactly give one great hope that this (dosage index) is a great way to identify horses who will perform better than average at 10f in the derby.
Interesting. Basically, based only on that criteria, there\'s random correlation, which is information (though clearly not conclusive). That\'s at least a start towards a meaningful conversation about distance ability.
I always thought that the dosage for distance was <4, would that make a difference?
http://chef-de-race.com/dosage/drf_series/original_drf_pt2.htm
He says at the bottom of the page that <3 is where \"stamina is significant.\"
Also, if you run it >=4 there\'s only about 30 samples in that one.
Can you run 3 groups, one in the middle range and one on each end?
For Dosage <2.00 (80 sample size)
Top 11%
Pr 21%
Off 18%
X 50%
For Dosage >=2.00 and <3.50 (149 sample size)
Top 8%
Pr 21%
Off 26%
X 46%
For Dosage >=3.50 (68 sample size)
Top 12%
Pr 25%
Off 12%
X 51%
Romans won\'t like it.
I ran the same with slightly different groups and below are my results.
For Dosage <=2.1 (96 sample size)
Top 11%
Pr 20%
Off 19%
X 50%
For Dosage >2.1 and <=3 (110 sample size)
Top 6%
Pr 24%
Off 22%
X 48%
For Dosage >3 (91 sample size)
Top 12%
Pr 25%
Off 20%
X 43%
I tried using CD (centre of distribution). Apparently it is supposed to be: the lower the more route orientated. So i just chopped it (kind of like Kmart did above for DI) to get about three equal groups:
CD < 0.64 (sample size 98)
Top 11
Pr 22
Off 16
X 50
CD >= 0.64 & <0.87
Top 5
Pr 22
Off 28
X 46
CD >=0.87
Top 14
Pr 21
Off 17
X 49
Looks like we still need a better way of differentiating routers/sprinters.
Jim - Maybe we could all take up a collection and bribe your friend for his list? :)
That\'s one possible conclusion, and I would certainly like to see any large sample of pre race distance analysis. But there are other possible conclusions, at least so far...
...and the study uses all tops, regardless of distance. If you just used those that ran their top at 1 1/8th (maybe half?) I\'m guessing you would get completely flat results based on \"sprint/route pedigree\". Which from this you pretty much do already.
Hmm...ok, well the one thing that does kind of stand out from both mine and Kmart\'s on DI or CD is that it appears the middle group pedigrees are a fair bit less likely to run a new top.
So...does that mean that extreme pedigrees one way or the other are, for some reason, more likely to produce new tops in the Derby. But does that even make sense? (If) we buy into the Romans groupings, why would extreme sprint orientated pedigrees be more likely to run tops than middle ground ones.
They wouldn\'t. If anything screams \"it\'s random\", it\'s that.
To be clear, the results (and I) are not saying some horses (and pedigrees) aren\'t better going short or long. We\'re saying that once they run a top going two turns (which almost all of these have), they are roughly equally likely to be able handle 1 1/4.
How about the idea that, since trainers know the pedigrees, horses with a sprint heritage start their career with sprint training. And then when it becomes obvious by the race day performance that they may be able to carry their speed farther, the training becomes more route-oriented (as do their races).
So, the sprint-pedigreed horses just reach their route tops later - like right around derby time.
There are 3 possible horses in this race with jump ups by at least 6 points over their previous top in their last prep race, including likely steam horse Wicked Strong. So instead of 3.0, I used 4.0, which is a lot closer to the 3 jump ups going back to 1997 where all horses are available to review. In some years there were no big jumps, while some years yielded multiple leaps.
Overall there have been 22 horses that jumped up 4 pts or better in their final prep. 2 won, but one, Big Brown, jumped from a 1 to a -3.5, so he was fast before the jump. That is unlike this year\'s jumpers who were topping over 6 before their last big races. The other was Charismatic in 1999. As for the rest, Ice Box ran 2nd but regressed a point. None of the other 19 hit the board and only 1 other made it to 4th to be in the super. Here are the results year by year, the 1st # is the horse\'s Derby finish, followed by the points he jumped up in his last prep, followed by the number of points he regressed in the Derby. Overall 20 of 22 regressed, the 4 over 6.00 regressed at least 1.50 points & the worst of the 4, who progressed 7.0 points regressed 21 points. I won\'t be betting any of these 3 to become the next Charismatic :
2010 (none the last 3 years)
2nd,4.50,1.00
8th,4.50,3.25
10th,4.00,5.50
11th,5.00,8.00
18th,4.25,25.25
2009
4th,6.0,1.50
6th,7.50,1.75
14th,4.75,6.50
2008-Big Brown won
1st,4.50,improved 1.25
11th,4.00,7.50
2005
7th,4.75,9.25
11th,6.75,5.75
19th,7.0,21.00
2004
14th,4.75,7.25
2003
14th,6.00,9.75
2002
14th,4.00,7.00
2001
6th,5.00,4.50
11th,5.75,8.75
1999 Charismatic won
1st,4.50, paired
15th,5.00,6.00
16th,4.00,8.50
1998
11th,5.25,14.00
are there any in this years derby that meet this 4.0 new top criteria in their last race?
What happens if you eliminate horses who had their last prep on a synthetic surface? One might think that such horses are less likely to bounce because (a) the synthetic surface is kinder and (b) synthetic surfaces cause fields to be less spread out, making it harder to to earn a big fig, and thus hiding some of a top horse\'s physical improvement.
Great point.. I can\'t wait until synthetic is gone for good.
Three of them and they all jumped up 6 points or more. The obvious one is Wicked Strong, I won\'t mention the less obvious 2 because Jerry wants you to buy the sheets to find out & it\'s his board.
Thank you. But if it\'s more than 4 points I count 4.
I\'m still getting 3. One jumped up 5.25 points from his previous race but only 3.75 from his 2yo top. Is that the 4th one you saw?
You\'re right.
No Problem. I understand and I will be purchasing.
phil23 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hmm...ok, well the one thing that does kind of
> stand out from both mine and Kmart\'s on DI or CD
> is that it appears the middle group pedigrees are
> a fair bit less likely to run a new top.
>
> So...does that mean that extreme pedigrees one way
> or the other are, for some reason, more likely to
> produce new tops in the Derby. But does that even
> make sense? (If) we buy into the Romans groupings,
> why would extreme sprint orientated pedigrees be
> more likely to run tops than middle ground ones.
with 20 horses running around the little 1m oval, trip is huge. horses with speed have a better chance of getting a good trip. and horses with no speed whatsoever sometimes get better trips than the stalker types, as they\'re in back away from trouble for part of the race.
pedigree matters, but trip is crucial.
With the numbers out, here\'s the update. I learned my lesson back in 2005 when I bet Bandini, who went in the gate a washed out mess and finished 19th. So next year, when a horse jumps up around 6.0 points in his final prep and becomes a steam horse, I\'ll refer to this and toss him with no fear, just as I did with the 3 horses this year. I guess you can keep them in for supers based on Wicked Strong becoming the 2nd one to finish 4th, but that\'s still only 20% in the top 4. With an 80% chance of not hitting the super, I\'ll take my chances.
toppled Wrote:
>
> Overall there have been 25 horses that jumped up 4
> pts or better in their final prep. 2 won, but
> one, Big Brown, jumped from a 1 to a -3.5, so he
> was fast before the jump. That is unlike this
> year\'s jumpers who were topping over 6 before
> their last big races. The other was Charismatic in
> 1999. As for the rest, Ice Box ran 2nd but
> regressed a point. None of the other 22 hit the
> board and only 2 other made it to 4th to be in the
> super. Here are the results year by year, the 1st
> # is the horse\'s Derby finish, followed by the
> points he jumped up in his last prep, followed by
> the number of points he regressed in the Derby.
> Overall 23 of 25 regressed, the eight 6.00 or over
> regressed at least 1.50 points & the worst of the
> 8, who progressed 7.0 points regressed 21 points.
> I won\'t be betting any horse to become the
> next Charismatic next year either:
2014 ADDED
4th,7.75,2.50
6th,6.00,1.75
8th,6.75,4.25
>
> 2010 (none the last 3 years)
> 2nd,4.50,1.00
> 8th,4.50,3.25
> 10th,4.00,5.50
> 11th,5.00,8.00
> 18th,4.25,25.25
>
> 2009
> 4th,6.0,1.50
> 6th,7.50,1.75
> 14th,4.75,6.50
>
> 2008-Big Brown won
> 1st,4.50,improved 1.25
> 11th,4.00,7.50
>
> 2005
> 7th,4.75,9.25
> 11th,6.75,5.75
> 19th,7.0,21.00
>
> 2004
> 14th,4.75,7.25
>
> 2003
> 14th,6.00,9.75
>
> 2002
> 14th,4.00,7.00
>
> 2001
> 6th,5.00,4.50
> 11th,5.75,8.75
>
> 1999 Charismatic won
> 1st,4.50, paired
> 15th,5.00,6.00
> 16th,4.00,8.50
>
> 1998
> 11th,5.25,14.00