The Bounce Theory Boys

[Silver Charm]

Those who doubted this angle need to step up and be accounted for on Monday morning.

Sis City: Oaks X
MadCap Escapade: Distaff X
Bellamy Road: Derby X

Bandini: Blue Grass Bungee Jump

[Chuckles_the_Clown2]

Silver Charm wrote:

> Those who doubted this angle need to step up and be accounted
> for on Monday morning.

> Bellamy Road: Derby X

Beyer
Crist
Goldberg the Favorite Cruncher

where are you now?


>
> Bandini: Blue Grass Bungee Jump
>

Ok that\'d be me...but he was dead before the race was on.

But Silver you said Bellamani ran a hole in the wind negative 9 or 10 I thought?....surely he could have bounced 9 points and still won?



Post Edited (05-08-05 22:29)

[Silver Charm]

>But Silver you said Bellamani ran a hole in the wind negative 9 or 10 I thought?....surely he could have bounced 9 points and still won?

In some of the Pre-Race Analysis Michael D I believe pointed out that from an 18 horse sample, all of whom had run Large Tops going into the Derby, 12 of them bounced 17 points or more. I took the other point of view that 6 of the 18 bounced 3 or less and a lot of the others had major issues much more so than the bounce angle. The Wood effort was clearly too much for Bellamy Road to handle. He probably did bounce 17 points and ran about 7.

And yet lot of what you heard was how strong his gallops were and how good he was looking. When his neck began too bow up as he left the paddock for the race, whatever hole he created in the Wood, he sucked me right into it. Like a lot of other people.  

There are a lot of us who are licking our wounds right now. However if you are not willing to stick your neck out in this game or in life in general then who cares what your opinions are.

[HP]

Silver,

I\'m not sure that \"the Wood was too much\" for Bellamy Road to handle.  You talk about getting \"sucked in\", how about Javier Castellano?  Keen judge of pace.  Went wide chasing it too.  AWFUL ride.  I think a more accurate review would be that the horse was used early and I think he ran well to stay on as well as he did!  

Bailey \"the human clock\" deserves a knock too.  He\'s a little over-rated.  

HP

[Chuckles_the_Clown2]

That neck bowing conduct is usually a sign of a horse feeling frisky, but frisky for Bellamania was the whole issue.

They may have loved his gallops, but his works certainly weren\'t as impressive as pre Wood. Some of these guys writing about works are long time horse watchers and some of us put little effort into that part of it, but Bellamania is one of the most awkward movers around. He did not rate, he laid just off speed he could not outfoot.

The preakness however might be a different issue. Going Wild is not as quick as Spanish Chestnut and Zito should seriously consider scrapping any thoughts of rating, put the blinkers on him and send Castellano on a screaming monkey ride.

Bailey did have his horse too close, but sometimes its the horse that judges the pace.



Post Edited (05-09-05 08:33)

SC,

>Sis City: Oaks X<

I\'ve seen 3 sets of figures from other sources and no one else had Sis City\'s race prior to this debacle much faster than her other recent races. It was mildly faster and not outside the range of what would be expected for a lightly raced improving filly. Yes she won by 10 lengths and that would make all the other horses very slow, but isn\'t interesting that so many disputed figures involve huge front running winners that put away their field. Before I could even dispute the reason for the sub par performance, I\'d have to be convinced she actually ran as fast as suggested - which I am not either way - and won\'t be because I\'ve looked at the race.  

>MadCap Escapade: Distaff X<

Has had obvious physical problems for a long time. A subpar performance at any time would not be unexpected.  

>Bellamy Road: Derby X<

There is a huge difference between wiring Grade 3 horses loose on the lead on a track that was kind to speed (unless you ran insane fractions) and running wide in a fast paced race against Grade 1 animals taking pot shots at you from everywhere at 10F.

The horse\'s \"figure\" may have been accurate, but the general assessment of his performance was very overrated and the probability of an off the board performance was wildly underrated - totally unrelated to bouncing. I think he ran fairly well in the Derby even though the \"figure\" will be slower.

>Bandini: Blue Grass Bungee Jump<

Bandini was dreadful. He was being passed by tired horses at one point. I can\'t explain this performance from a standard handicapping perspective. However, we should keep in mind that most people that didn\'t like him felt the BG was too slow, not too fast. I didn\'t agree, but maybe I was wrong about that race. I think we need to see what tests show about his condition.

[fasteddie]

Pace (or lack of) makes the race, and often times can be very telling as to future class.

Case in point: Monarchos Derby vs. 2005-

Identical track conditions, BUT 1:59:4 on a
:44:4 pace vs 2:02:3 on a 45:1; the last half in 53 and change?? Good harness horses can almost do that!!

At least Congaree, Point Given, and Balto Star
came out of this and were good horses; it will be interesting to see if any of this year\'s group amount to much.

Many unanswered questions here; are todays training methods putting horses \"over the top\"
too soon? Are all these speed-oriented pedigrees finally catching up with the breeder\'s?? Less 2YO foundation???

I can\'t fathom how any sheet maker can make this race fit a profile; did all the good one\'s bounce, and what kind of # do you give the winner? Brave new world....

[Chuckles_the_Clown2]

Bandini obviously freaked out. Agreed that even with paranoia he should have finished  mid pack. He was shutting down quickly after his works and at this point the large Tgraph Top (7 pt.) has to be suspected.

People are gonna say the Bluegrass was a fraud. Theres great potential for lucrative wagers provided you can time when the last two finishers in teh Kentucky Derby will snap back.

[Bally Ache]

HP

As I\'ve said before jockeys in general are overrated. They\'re mostly passengers.  But in this case I have to disagree about Bailey.  He put that horse in position to win but when they got to the 8th pole the horse was done. I think High Fly finished tenth which is a pretty bad collapse considering where he was that late in the race.

To me, this was the most easily predictable thing about the race.  I don\'t think he\'s of the first rank and he\'s not a 1 1/4 horse.  I dismissed Noble Causeway who a lot of people seemed to like because he couldn\'t run down High Fly.

[HP]

BA,

Did not like NCauseway either.  Before the race, Bailey was saying how great HFly was specifically because he could move at any time.  He made the case that HFly was a versatile horse and it made sense to me.  He talked about how he would have to judge the frontrunners and how they went and figure out how to time his move.

Then in the race, he moved early into a hot pace and faded to tenth.  He moved BEFORE the mile to get there.  Sorry, I think he did a bad job, considering his huge rep.

I give the much maligned Mike Smith some credit...he made some nice moves through traffic to get his horse up.

I agree with you on jocks in general, but I think the Derby is more of a jocks race than most.  

HP

[TGJB]

CH-- Ragozin got the Ashland (and the GP race, for that matter) wrong, but Beyer got SC very close to the same as we did. And nobody in their right mind could think Ragozin is right-- look at the pp\'s and tell me a 16 length win in the Davona Dale and a 10 length win in the Ashland are no better than her 2yo top.

Beyer has the GP race a little better than us (and WAY better than Ragozin), but even on his the last was a top, and even more so when you factor in the ground which would add about 3-4 more points to the spread between the two horses.

Which brings us to Summerly, biases at FG leading to bad races at Kee, etc...



Post Edited (05-09-05 13:25)