Hi drbillym,

You\'re welcome, hope they all pay as well.

Hi Rick B.,
 
You\'re right, 30-1 morning line made this horse attractive; however, what keyed me to this horse was its pattern.  I don\'t look at odds until after I identify the contenders.  Five Star Thief was one of two contenders in the race.  He has the best number based on recent form.  Getting back to the 2.5 in July and then returning to that number quickly made this a new horse in my thinking.  The bounce was reasonable; I often play this pattern to bounce back to its previous number, or at least within a point or two.  Again, note that I was looking for the horse to win the race, based on recent form.  5-1 worked in an acceptable overlay since I considered 2-1 a fair bet in this case.  Other than City Number, the rest of the field looked to me to be too slow, off form, or ready to bounce off tops.

Hi SoCalMan2,

The race itself, workouts and breeding.  
With low-level maidens, I was looking for 1st timers to bet.
Both Top Leese and Garmir (the main pick) had worked well for this.  
Sires Old Topper and Swiss Yodeler have been successful on poly per
my informal tracking of results. (Swiss Yodeler, especially, last
winter with the Mike Harrington connection was spectacular.)

Mike,
It\'s true there are no wins for 2yo MSW\'s, but I treat state-bred MSW\'s as
glorified maiden claimers.  In that category, the trainer showed a good win %
and a positive ROI (granted for a small sample.)   In addition, the horse showed
steady (no hiccoughs), solid works, and at the price was worth a shot.  
\"Horse\" rather than \"stable\" would have been a better characterization, but I\'ld keep
an eye on his 1st timers in the future.  
Good luck in the new year,

Hi Mall,
Happy New Year to you, I stayed sober.  
The race had virtually all firsters.  In cases like that, I use the \"Sire Profile, 1st time out, TGI\" stat heavily,
provided the sire has a reasonable number of outs (at least a hundred, preferably over two hundred.)  
Austie had a better TGI stat (ran third), but the trainer stats for 1st-outs suggested Orman has a stable
that\'s ready.  
Brahms Fashion ran well 1st out. Trainer stats pointed to a possible improvement 2nd out, so I felt it
was a must-use.  
Hope that explains it.

I use the Trainer and Sire Profiles when dealing with first-timers.  Notice that the \"1st time out\" TGI for sire General Meeting is the best in this group.  While Mullins does better second out, there\'s not much to worry about in this race.  In general, with a field this weak, I look for first-timers to bet.  
The co-pick, Laceyontop, a one-number filly, had the best number going in.  I was warned about one-number fillies many years ago, but I still get drawn in to that sucker bet.  

In situations like this--first-time route, first-time turf, etc.--I rely heavily on the sire profile, and to a lesser extent on the trainer profile (it depends on the trainer.)  For Rolling Sea\'s sire Sefapiano, you\'ll notice his TGI improves slightly between \"Less than 1M\" and \"1M and over\"--not the case for Lovely Love and Lampoon.  Also, note that trainer Hazelton is 40% to get a pair up or better after a new top.  I used Lovely Love (same trainer) in the play for that reason.  Since Rolling Sea was likely to go off at longer odds, she was the pick.  
Regarding bounces:  It\'s been my experience that a young horse that wakes up suddenly after a couple of races is more likely to maintain that wake-up number as a level.  In this particular race, the best any horse had run at a mile or more was a 13, so even a bouncing 4 points would give Rolling Sea a shot here.  
Finally, the inevitable footnote:  I didn\'t bet the race.  I put in my bets early in the day and I\'m working on the next day\'s analyses when the races are being run.  You correctly saw the horse would be overlooked.  Prior to the race, I believed one would be lucky to get between 3 and 4 to 1--what Lovely Love went off at.  Such is racing.  

Actually, Monday\'s.  Thanks.  
The \"trick\" in the race was taking a position against High Limit.  I was suspicious of the surface change in this case (note Reel Legend from the same race in a similar situation.)  High Limit\'s OP and inability to return to his top off the short layoff enabled me to take a stand against him.  Besides, breeding suggested dirt was his preferred surface; hence, the use of him on dirt.  
T. D. Vance, as noted in the analysis, had been shipping well.  The small forward move in his last pointed to further improvement this time out.  The co-pick, Silver Whistle, had a forging line.  I played him to do no worse than his last and probably improve.  At the odds, T. D. Vance was this pick over Silver Whistle.  
The rest of the field, with the exception of Crown Point (which showed a similar line to T. D. Vance\'s) was either to slow or had races indicating they were off form.  

Jerry\'s swamped, and asked me to cover this.  
Horses nowadays have less excuses for x\'ing.  Change of surface (dirt/turf, as well as off tracks), change of distance, in general, going off a pattern, may produce an X that\'s excusable for one race (although, even in these cases, the change represents a trainer with fingers crossed hoping an ouchy horse will take to the change.)  The short answer is that true x\'s (more than 3 or 4 points) make the horse very suspect.  I would want that \"somewhere on the sheet\" to be as far back as possible from today\'s race.  
Dead rails represent a non-effort, an x with a legitimate excuse.  Since a horse\'s last race is generally the main factor in determining its odds next out, horse x\'ing on dead rails are good betting opportunities, all else being equal.

Sorry for the delay.  I thought about having a discussion on tops in general (when to get off a horse, things like that)...but, it\'s too big a topic, and no time.  
BR doesn\'t look the same to me, because of age and because of the line.  BR has been cycling normally, got into the best shape in his life, and broke through.  I don\'t see any breakthroughs in the near future, but simply recycling back to the new top.  My expectation for BR in the immediate future is that it will bounce, and if the bounce is within reason (3-4 points at most), a move forward off the bounce, although not necessarily back to its new top.  That second race off the top may have value as a bet.  
Thanks for your posts.

Sorry for not being able to respond to this yet.  BR is an interesting, so I will get to it, even though it may take a couple of days.



Post Edited (08-16-03 11:10)

Be glad to continue the discussion.  I think you\'re asking me to explain my perceptions: \"What do I see?\"--a difficult job, but here goes.  
What you saw as a comfort zone I saw as efforts.  GM bounced in 6 of those 8 efforts.  Her slowness in breaking through indicates to me a problem which was solved when the breakthrough came.  The bounce off the 11.5 was reasonble, indicating the top didn\'t cripple her.  Keep in mind this is a developing 4yo and still has some new tops in her.  
As to the \"rule,\" I\'ld modify the ending to \"we should expect it to break through soon.\"  18 months has no significance other than pointing to a problem which was solved (as mentioned.)  
Regarding the 2 point breakthrough: For a horse like this I want to see a strong forward move.  Change that one number (11.5 to 13.5) and the line is unbettable.  
So with those modifications, that\'s a rule I use frequently--even though there are no rules.  
It\'s been my experience that explanations are always clear to the person making them.  If I haven\'t explained myself well, please feel free to continue the discussion.

Thanks for the email. Sorry for the late reply.  
Concerning odds: It\'s almost impossible
a day or two in advance to figure actual track odds precisely.  As a rule of thumb
I try to determine how many legitimate contenders are in the race and adjust the odds accordingly.  For example, a race
with 3 contenders would make a fair bet 2-1
on each; 5-2 represents an overlay, so demanding the play be made at 5-2 or more creates a built-in overlay.  Admittedly this
isn\'t a nuanced method but, with the time
constraints involved in doing the analyses,
it does provide a guideline when working from track odds.  
Regarding CC\'s line:  My expectation was that CC would move forward off the bounce,
not necessarily that it would return to its
top.  In general, that\'s been a productive
pattern in the past - new top/bounce/forward
off bounce - in 4/5 year olds.  
Thanks for the questions.