Since 2001, horses that ran a negative number in their final prep races are almost three times more likely to win the Derby than those who didn\'t.
The negatives are 24-3-2-3: 13% win, 33% ITM.
All others are 241-11-12-11: 4.6% win, 14% ITM.
Winners: Orb, Big Brown, Smarty Jones.
Second: Bodemeister, Lion Heart.
Third: Musket Man, Curlin, Afleet Alex.
Theory here will be two preps, pair of tops and 5 weeks rest best pattern. Preferably fast enough to win already. Not a rule of course. But fair amount of data behind all of that.
Would think that fits Mat, Star, Firing Line and Dubai horse to a tee. With only two of those being fast enough to win already though.
Funny how the rest angle doesn\'t seem to help Pletcher at all. In fact, seven of his eight top-4 finishes came of three weeks rest.
With three weeks off, he\'s 21-1-2-2-2.
With 4+ weeks, he\'s 17-0-0-1-0.
He babies his horses into the Derby too much, imo. The three-week crew is tougher, tighter and clearly perform better -- no matter what their odds.Three of those 7 were 30-1 or higher. It\'d probably be 4 of 7 if Impeachment hadn\'t been coupled in 2001.
Ah, we\'ve arrived back on Planet Thorough-Graph.
One of the toughest thins things this time of year is picking through the noise and figure out what\'s relevant and what\'s not.
Isn\'t that mostly a factor of being the fastest horse? Even with the last couple years, a negative number in a prep seems pretty rare. With large samples, we should expect the fastest horses going in to win, a lot.