Adding two, spring 3yos

[Bull]

Jerry,

First of all, you have my utmost admiration for even attempting to come up with accurate figures for that day (4/23) at Keeneland. I recall margins of victory on dirt of 25, 12, 7, 10, 6 and so on. What about the 5th race, where the winner won by 7 and the second place horse was 22 lengths clear of third? I agree that many guys who train for the Lexington breeding elite gear up for this meet, juice or no juice. Either way, this is one horseplayer who is counting the hours until that place closes for the summer.

Is there any chance they can run those two Keeneland meets much like the Dubai Racing Carnival? They should not allow betting no matter what you\'re religious affiliation. Just have the breeding industry put up the purse money as sort of a showcase for their horses, and let the juice run wild. I would have no problem forgetting that the place ever existed.

Bull

[Campbreeze]

Although Sham broke down in the Belmont, it was not a mortal injury.  I saw Sham on a side trip during my first visit to Keeneland in 1991.  Slapped him on his neck and asked him what it was like to run so close to greatness (wasn\'t it a couple of decades before a horse beat Sham\'s time in the Derby?).  Anyway, I got no response, he just tried to bite me.

[DeathBredon]

Though the public and press often overate the track bias concept, often KEE really does have a strong bias, though it can change in the wink of an eye and is often incorrectly diagnosed.  

For instance, Thunder Gulch\'s Bluegrass fig was a toss out due to the very deep track and very slow pace.  He \"bounced back\" nicely at CD and he paid about 25-1 at the Derby, I think.  

Tommorrow, in the Ben Ali, Zito\'s horse will test my theory that, on 4/9, the rail was live but Zito\'s horse got hung wide and had no shot.  Throw out that fig.  Thus, the horse may return to form and win for fun.  Remember, you heard it here first. :-)

Also, speed-on-the-rail biases (common for sloppy tracks) can really distort figures both for the advantaged and against disadvantaged.  Recall Go for Gin getting hung wide on the first turn at Gulfstream on a speed/rail favoring track.  Naturally, GFG\'s race and fig was horrible that day.  But, at the Derby, he had it his way and ran back to his prior big numbers.

Remember, how a fig is earned is often just as important as what the fig itself.

[TGJB]

DeathBredon-- whose figures are you referring to, do they include ground loss, and what makes you think that a tough trip or bias are the only reasons a horse would run an off race? Some of us did pretty well on that Thunder Gulch Derby-- in fact I know one guy who wrote an article in the DRF saying to box 3 horses, and they ran 1-2-3 ($2k tri).

[Saddlecloth]

The problem I have is he gave the horse a figure he thought was relative to his ability, not relative to how fast he ran on that day.  I heard he lowered the number from 125 to 112 based on the horse not being able to run a 125, but clearly on that surface the horse freaked and ran a crazy number, it happens.

TGJB wrote:

> If you mean would it affect how I did the day, no. I did look
> to see what he did with the 25 LENGTH SPRINT WINNER of the
> first race (maiden), and he did give it one of the best sprint
> figures of the year (112). He also robbed him. Try dealing with
> races where the winner runs 18 points (that\'s EIGHTEEN #&*!
> POINTS) better than anyone else. Secretariat ran 12 points
> better in the Belmont.
>
> That place is a bitch to do figures for. The day before was
> hell too-- and that wasn\'t even a sloppy track, although there
> were very strong winds.
>
>

[BitPlayer]

TGJB -

It was not my intent to disparage your figures or your figuremaking in my earlier post (now a couple of days ago) in this thread.  You have explained your methods well enough that I know you wouldn\'t arbitrarily set the variant for a spring 3yo stake race so that half the horses at least pair their tops.

However, as you have indicated, the projection method of figuremaking requires that you have some preconceived notions about what is likely to have occurred in a race (e.g., they didn\'t all run five point new tops) that allows you to decide whether to break a race out and, when you do, to pick the variant that makes the most sense in light of the fixed beaten-length-and-ground-loss relationships between the horses.  As you suggest, the alternative is to be very reticent about giving different variants to individual races absent an obvious change in track condition.  I\'m inclined to side with you that your approach is more accurate than the alternative as a means of creating a useful handicapping tool.

I think you have to be careful, however, about using your figures to validate your underlying preconceived notions (such as that spring 3yo stake horses at least pair their tops roughly 50% of the time).  Because of your preconceived notion, your figuremaking will tend to push the figures in that direction.  I\'d concede that you couldn\'t push a square peg into a round hole (so that 50% is probably not an unreasonable estimate).  The extent to which your bias might affect things would depend in large part on how often you break races out and by how much.

Having exhausted my thoughts on that subject, I do have a couple of questions:

Len\'s argument that all permutations are possible raises one of the questions. It\'s fair to guess that somewhere, sometime, there was a spring 3yo stake race in which all of the horses either ran an off race or Xed (I\'m reminded of the movie \"Magnolia\": strange things happen all the time).  Do you think your methods would allow you to identify such a race? Or do you think an occasional error in assessing an individual race is a small price to pay for getting most of the races right?  Or do you think something else entirely?

My second question relates to the Fountain of Youth.  Without having seen subsequent figures for the entire field, it strikes me that a number of horses coming out of that race posted markedly better figures in their next races.  Would something like that cause you to revisit your figures for the race?

Respectfully,

BitPlayer

[TGJB]

Saddle-- If he knew before the race that horse had the ability to run \"just\" 112, he could have made a lot of money.

Yeah, it\'s funny how things that came up at the Expo keep coming up. Beyer took the position that if 2 horses with a solid history of running 80s come up as 95s, you should bring them to 80s. Friedman said you should give them the 95s, tie it to the rest of the day. Both seemed to forget their were other horses in the race. This is probably a function of using pars, where you go mostly by the winners, and it\'s wrong-- if the race is full of 80s that get 80s, you give the top two 95s, but if giving those two 95s means moving up the rest of the field 15 points as well you don\'t, regardless of the rest of the day.

[TGJB]

Bit-- I want to give you an in depth reply to this, and I haven\'t got the time right now. Hopefully later today, definitely soon.

[DeathBredon]

TGJB,

With regard to Thunder Gulch, my memory is that his TG number was good before Kentucky, dissapointing in the BG, and obviously decent in the Derby.  That BG put a lot of folks of him, but it really wasn\'t as bad a race as the TG fig (or Beyers) showed because of the way the race evolved and the way the track was playing.  (I didn\'t know you had tabbed him [congrats], but I nailed him independant from the TGs and my personal observations at the BG.)

With regard to the Ben Ali and Pies Prospect, Beyer gave PP a bad number in 4/9 race.  But again, based on the way KEE was playing that day, I figured him to run back to his Florida form in the Ben Ali (and I think I wasn\'t far off).  

Although I didn\'t see the TGs for the Ben Ali, other posts on the board seem to indicate that not many would have backed Farish\'s horse from the figs, especially as the short priced favorite.  Neverhtheless, Farish\'s SIX YEAR OLD horse managed to run the TWO BEST races of his life back to back at Keeneland and win handily.  Of course, we locals were not all surprised by this seeming minor miracle (we made Alumni Hall the favorite) as Farish horses most always seem to run several points better at KEE than anywhere else.  Still, I bet the horse with the highest top hoping for an \"upset.\"

In short, the 4/9 prep and the Ben Ali are examples of why I imagine that KEE must be horrible to make figs for.  I know its hard to use them at KEE.  (Its also why I wouldn\'t through out Frankel\'s horse in the Derby, especially if Bobby can get him to rate.)

Best wishes,

DB