Belmont Day

[TGJB]

Full sheets for the whole card with the numbers they ran on Belmont Day are up in the ROTW. Very interesting day, from a figure making point of view-- they watered the track at 11:30, and again after 1,2,4,5,6,7. They presumably were worried about the storm that hit Manhattan, so they stopped watering it then, sealed it after the ninth (Brooklyn),kept it that way through the Manhattan (grass), then opened it (harrowed) before the Belmont. No more water from about 4:00 through the end of the card a little before 8:00.

The result-- the track gradually speeded up 3-4 points from the beginning of the card through the seventh as they added water. The Belmont was the only two turn race and therefore a stand-alone anyway, but the only one-turn dirt race after they re-opened the track, which was the 13th, run almost 3 hours after the previous 1 turner and longer than that since the last drop of water, was run over a track about 15 POINTS SLOWER than the previous 2 one-turn races.

Or rather, that\'s what I did with it. There\'s a guy who once said, in a book, something about knowing for a fact that tracks never change speed except when there is rain, snow, freeze, or thaw, and a friend of his who said once that sealing and unsealing a track made no difference, you should just average the whole thing and come up with a variant. I would love to see how they handled the day, and not just the last race.

Anyway, take a look. Interesting day.

[MO]

Thanks Jerry.

I was pretty sure AA bounced. His bounces are getting better though (thanks for the lesson Alan B!) and I\'ll be looking for AA to get down to a negative 4 or 5 come October. Haskell will be a short field and he should gallop.

MO

[Chuckles_the_Clown2]

The Belmont Stakes numbers confirm what seemed apparent to the eye. Alex ran a decent race. With the exception of Andromedas Hero\'s forward move to a 2, the rest didn\'t really run very fast.  Wasn\'t Alex\'s best, but really didn\'t figure to be going that far after the long grind. Still, the effort was good and Alex doesn\'t appear to bounce much. He\'s got some good bottom. 4th fastest TFig Belmont ever?

Point Given -2.2
Birdstone   -1.1
SmartyJones -0.3
AfleetAlex  -0.2


Nolan\'s Cat is called 1W,4W and then the trouble line says \"6 wide\".  He sure seemed wider than that the last turn. Have to watch it again.

[Silver Charm]

Looking at the figures there have been as many as three Breeders Cup Day winners who tuned up over the surface that afternoon.

Interesting Stuff

[kev]

Yes, N.Cat might have been 7w at the top of the lane, but in order for TG to come up with the 4w, he might have been closer to the rail around most of the turn than 7w or whatever it was.

[jimbo66]

The Riva Ridge came back slower than I thought it would.  Egghead regressed 4 points and Lost in the Fog regressed a couple points as well.  

Another \"4\" for Survivalist.  

The track for the 13th was 15 points (30 lengths?) slower than the previous one turn races?  How can you feel comfortable about the figures when the track variant changes that much in a few hours?  I would think a change like that  would be unusual in a week, let alone a few hours, barring major weather conditions.

[marcus]

Really Great Job !  It almost looks like all the horse\'s ran their numbers in the Belmont . I watched the day on TV and wondered if path\'s 3.5 to 6 (aprx ) where playing a bit like a dead rail or were dull eariler in the day + Also , Thanks for all the #1 Best analysis in the ROTW , specially for the triple crown races!    

[beyerguy]

MO Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Thanks Jerry.
>
> I was pretty sure AA bounced. His bounces are
> getting better though (thanks for the lesson Alan
> B!) and I\'ll be looking for AA to get down to a
> negative 4 or 5 come October. Haskell will be a
> short field and he should gallop.
>
> MO

I know pace isn\'t considered important very often here, but I really think the Belmont could be classified as a slow paced race that affected final figures.  It was run like most turf races, slow early, then fast late, at least one horse ran fast late.

[TGJB]

Jimbo-- the relationship between points and lengths changes with distance, at 7f the 15 points is about 21 lengths, still a lot. Yes, that is an extraordinary event, I don\'t ever recall seeing anything like it, which is why I mentioned it. What I think happened is that sealing the track squeezed the water out of it, harrowing it exposed the dirt to air and it dried out even more over the next couple of hours before the last race, and they were not adding any more water because of fear of the storm.

Regardless, you have to make your decision based on the horses. It\'s absolutely clear that the track changed speed (see what happens if you add 15 points to that race), so the only question becomes how much it changed.There were a couple of ways to go, that looked like the most likely, I\'ll review it when the horses have run back a couple of times.

[Michael D.]

jerry,
re the 13th - they hit the half in 46.3, just about what i would have expected. the big fav was off the dutrow juice, and all of the other horses that took money were stretching out. if the track was just a bit heavier than normal, i could see this type of race collapsing. is it wise to make such a huge variant adjustment based on just that one race?

[TGJB]

Michael-- the fraction actually looks pretty slow to me compared to the other sprints (and yes I know those were better horses, but this was a whole lot slower)-- Beyerguy might have a better opinion on that. But on the other points, 1) the other two trained by Dutrow\'s assistant won, running right around their tops, while I had this one going back considerably even the way I did it, and 2) there is no question that the track got a whole lot slower, the only question is how much-- you can\'t do that race at anywhere near the same track speed as the other races unless you are a fundamentalist and pay no attention to what figures you give out. The most you could possibly add would be enough to give the horse with 11s another one, which is about a 3 point add to what I did (from memory), still a 12 point difference in track speed, but I thought the other more likely. Time will tell, we\'ll review.

[beyerguy]

My pace number for the final race winner is pretty quick in relation to the final time, about 15 points faster on the Beyer scale, which is around 4 lengths quick.  And, that is for the winner.  The leader another 3.5 lengths quicker.  In other words, for 7f at Belmont, that pace fraction was very fast for that final time.

Even so, the track was still much slower than it was earlier in the day, and probably so for the Belmont as well, though it is tough to say with the slow pace and the being the only two turn route.  The TG numbers look very plausible.  

[Michael D.]

thanks for the response

[beyerguy]

I\'ll be curious to see what Beyer comes up with, I have the track going from around 10 to 15 Beyer points fast for final times, to at least 15 Beyer points slow for the 13th.  I think TG will find his after his review he was spot on.

I agree that the pace was slow. To me it looked like they were crawling from the 1 mile point to the 1 1/4 point. AA wasn\'t even asked to run at all until the last quarter mile. There is no question in my mind that he could have run faster had he been required to.