Mike Smith on $50 winner? * no further

[shanahan]

how\'s that work?  Don\'t they sell programs out there?

[P-Dub]

It wasn\'t Smith.

Chart says .....angled in and settled off the pace inside, cut the corner into the stretch, split rivals in deep stretch and surged between horses.

According to everyone here, he never saves ground and always goes wide. Must have been a late jockey change.

BTW, great call by Wrona.

[TGJB]

I hear Jimbo clearing his throat.

[P-Dub]

If he can produce actual data that supports the assertion, because around these parts we don\'t like assertions we just like facts, that he consistently goes wider than the average jockey fine.. For the last 10 years all we\'ve had on this subject are assertions.

[jbelfior]

I\'m asserting that there have been an inordinate amount of longshots winning graded races on the turf in Cali in the last year.

Don\'t have all the facts other than yesterday and Stormin\' Lucy in the Matriarch ....but there have been more than a few others.


Good Luck,
Joe B.

[jimbo66]

p-Dub

Almost too easy...  

But to be clear, I am president of the \"deport Frenchie\" fan club.

Just an occasional griper about smiths wide rides.

Also, we do have data on his trips.   Thorograph tracks it on their sheets, as you know, and wide Mikey consistently is in the bottom quartile of ground savers.

It is a funny stat though sometimes.  Frenchie is in the top quartile of that stat.   But does taking horses with tactical speed, like Union rags in the derby, and grabbing hold of them out of the gate to drop back to last to save ground, really a good thing....   Whereas u have to love the way mike smith rides a speed horse and uses tactical speed when his horse has it.  (Also seems as strong physically in a stretch duel as he was 15 years ago - as much as I love Stevens from a brainy ride perspective, he is not as strong in the stretch as he used to be)

BTW, in these eastern parts, the current version of Johnny V. Is not one to go through a hole on the inside either and is not as good a rider IMO as he was 5-7 years ago.   (We are all getting older though....)



Jim

[P-Dub]

Fair enough.

Trying to forget about last night.

[johnnym]

Jimbo to me Frenchie is very much different on the grass than the dirt.

Come Derby time whatever mount he is on is a automatic toss, Union Rags,Dialed In..

[P-Dub]

jimbo66 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> p-Dub
>
> Almost too easy...  
>
> But to be clear, I am president of the \"deport
> Frenchie\" fan club.
>
> Just an occasional griper about smiths wide
> rides.
>
> Also, we do have data on his trips.   Thorograph
> tracks it on their sheets, as you know, and wide
> Mikey consistently is in the bottom quartile of
> ground savers.
>
> It is a funny stat though sometimes.  Frenchie is
> in the top quartile of that stat.   But does
> taking horses with tactical speed, like Union rags
> in the derby, and grabbing hold of them out of the
> gate to drop back to last to save ground, really a
> good thing....   Whereas u have to love the way
> mike smith rides a speed horse and uses tactical
> speed when his horse has it.  (Also seems as
> strong physically in a stretch duel as he was 15
> years ago - as much as I love Stevens from a
> brainy ride perspective, he is not as strong in
> the stretch as he used to be)
>
> BTW, in these eastern parts, the current version
> of Johnny V. Is not one to go through a hole on
> the inside either and is not as good a rider IMO
> as he was 5-7 years ago.   (We are all getting
> older though....)
>
>
>
> Jim

I\'m looking at sheets from Sunday.  I don\'t see anything that shows what paths a jockey uses on average. It shows the paths of each horse runs per race.

Unless I\'m missing something, where does it show Smith is in the bottom quartile of taking horses wide??

This horse looked pretty hopeless on TG, and got up to win by a nose in a blanket finish. No way she wins without Smith cutting the corner and saving several lengths with a ground saving trip. Turf races are often won by getting the best trip, so having data on who saves ground would be important.

So maybe its tedious to you Richie, you are one of the many that have made that assertion, but if there is data showing where a jockey puts his horse it would seem to be important instead of relying on assertions based solely on what one wants to believe.

[richiebee]

P-Dub Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
 
 
> So maybe its tedious to you Richie, you are one of
> the many that have made that assertion, but if
> there is data showing where a jockey puts his
> horse it would seem to be important instead of
> relying on assertions based solely on what one
> wants to believe.

I am a huge Mike Smith fan. Something about his commitment to keeping himself
physically fit and excelling at an advanced age, for coming back from as horrific
a spill as I have ever seen. Back in the 90s, I was on the third floor grandstand
of Belmont yelling \"IRON Mike\", not \"Wide Mikey\".

As to the whole notion of rail hugging, as has been mentioned here a gazillion
times, scraping the paint is not always the easiest or safest way home (traffic
and dead rails), so my kool aid with regards to saving ground is slightly diluted.

[Molesap]

This is from Grand Arch\'s TG PP from the Poker. I could be wrong on this, but I think this is the place people were referring to (in bold). I assume this is the average path over the last year that Ortiz had taken with his mounts since it is in the Jockey Profile.

Jockey Profile (last 12mo):
Ortiz, Jose L.
Category Strts Wins Win% Path ROI

Given this assumption, I looked at some regular riders at SA and noted their average overall paths below. Interestingly, Smith falls right in the middle at 2.2.

Path - Jockey
2.0 - Baze, Balnce3, Puglisi
2.1 - Prat, Gonzalez, Bejarano, Desormeaux
2.2 - Smith, Pedroza, Pereira
2.3 - Elliot, Guiterrez, Talamo, Van Dyke, Garcia
2.4 - Marquez, Clerisse
2.5 - Cedillo

[richiebee]

More facts/stats I luv it!

[P-Dub]

Molesap Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> This is from Grand Arch\'s TG PP from the Poker. I
> could be wrong on this, but I think this is the
> place people were referring to (in bold). I assume
> this is the average path over the last year that
> Ortiz had taken with his mounts since it is in the
> Jockey Profile.
>
> Jockey Profile (last 12mo):
> Ortiz, Jose L.
> Category Strts Wins Win% Path ROI
>
> Given this assumption, I looked at some regular
> riders at SA and noted their average overall paths
> below. Interestingly, Smith falls right in the
> middle at 2.2.
>
> Path - Jockey
> 2.0 - Baze, Balnce3, Puglisi
> 2.1 - Prat, Gonzalez, Bejarano, Desormeaux
> 2.2 - Smith, Pedroza, Pereira
> 2.3 - Elliot, Guiterrez, Talamo, Van Dyke, Garcia
> 2.4 - Marquez, Clerisse
> 2.5 - Cedillo

Thank you.

I\'ve never noticed this before.

[TGJB]

This is getting way too simple, so I\'m going to have to screw everything up.

What we put in the system THEORETICALLY normalized for field size-- I.E., a ride 2w in a 12 horse field would count as less than 2w in an 8 horse field. I just had George look at it, because neither of us has given it any thought since we first did it years ago.

It looks like it\'s adjusting for fields over 8, but not for ones less than 8. So he\'s taking a look at that.

We never looked at this before because I think it\'s the first time anyone mentioned using those stats. And the reason it\'s an issue is that field size in California is generally much smaller than at some tracks in the east, so some comparisons would be apples/oranges.

[SoCalMan2]

Also, sometimes there are tracks where the rail is just dead and everybody knows it and nobody goes on the rail.  

I do not know any tracks like that now, but in the last 10 years -- there was a time when nobody went on the rail at PRX and the same was true for one of the thoroughbred tracks in Indiana (I do not recall which one).

My point is that jockeys who rode regularly at one of those tracks would have inflated path stats, which was fine as long as he/she was riding against jocks with similarly inflated path stats.  But at least when it was the case at PRX, the PRX jocks would have terrible stats while a jockey who rode mostly elsewhere in the mid-atlantic and came into Parx for the day would come off looking like Angel Cordero by comparison (at least path stat wise).