Saratoga's 11th on Saturday - a question

[firmturf]

I handicapped the 11th on Saturday and felt like I made a big mistake. In trying to learn the figures I am asking (after the fact) if I indeed read the race wrong.

My only question is about the winner Starforaday.

The colt had shown signs of coming around going 13 (5 back) to a 11, then 9.2 then 7.2 and another 7.2.

Was this a tell tale sign that he was about to make another move forward?

I appreciate your help and thanks to Thorograph for a good day yesterday.

[TGJB]

Horses like this are almost impossible to handicap. Clearly the two big efforts at early 3 hurt him (hence the layoff, and subsequent poor efforts). The only positive I can see is that he ran okay last time on a surface and at a distance he probably doesn\'t like. This kind of cripple tends to throw his big efforts off layoffs and non-efforts, but that doesn\'t mean it\'s a good idea to play them.

P.S.-- he was my last throwout in the pick six, and the horse that finished second would have been my best result, not that it was paying that much.

[Lost Cause]

I had five horses in that race in the pick six also,three of them for multiple tickets, and my pick 4 plays. It was just one of those wide open anybody can win races that an all wheel was not such a bad idea.  I thought I covered the best five horses but it seemed like it started raining and they did seal the track before that race.  Being by Five Star Day he might have just liked the moisture in the track while the others didn\'t..

[Bally Ache]

Starforaday gave me a $206 pick three which I was happy with considering a blind person could have picked the preceding two odds on chalks.  I was happy that is until I noticed that the DD for Races 10/11 paid $224.  In other words I was penalized for having Street Sense.  Takeout is half again as much on the pick three vs. DD.

New Yorkers are merciless when you give them an obvious chalk to chew on.  But they weren\'t so discerning when evaluating Grasshopper vs. Sightseeing.

[SoCalMan2]

I was in the same position as TGJB.  

In terms of analyzing this horse\'s sheet, here is my view for what it is worth.  

The two most recent races were a pretty good sign...the horse was likely to move forward off them (i would give a backward move a 20% chance and a pair up a 20% chance which gives him a 60% chance of a forward move).  He had run generally off races since the big efforts 18 months earlier.  The last two races were the first non-off races since the two big efforts.  The problem is that if he moved forward only one or two points, that might not have been good enough with the figures other horses could run plus taking into consideration weight and trip factors.  It certainly would put him with the pack but not at the top.

So how to decide whether he would make a small move or a big move?

The conundrum was that he had run that \'2\' early in his three year old year.  If he could come back to that \'2\' (or close) you had to be very wary and use him.  So, you need to assess the chances of him coming back to the \"2\"....the problem with the \'2\' is that it was the only figure he had run like that, it was run on a track very rarely used for racing (it could have been a horse for course type thing), it was run in Florida in the winter (and today\'s race was in New York in the Summer), and he had given a tip off (5 point forward move) before running it (which he did not give today)  On balance, while I thought there was a good chance of the horse moving forward to mid-pack...I thought the chances of coming back or close to the \'2\' while existing where a lot less likely than the likelihood of the short forward move to mid-pack status.  

His price was nice however.  

In the end, he was my fifth horse.  In the wagers I went 5 deep, I had him.  In the wagers I went 4 deep, I did not have him. While one poster complained about the price of his pick three, the pick four did have a nice price and was pretty hittable with three favorites coming in the other races plus this horse.

The race in question was an extremely challenging race...while I made him fifth on my list of horses to use, he was not a lot ahead of horses even deeper (and, if his price was not generous, he would have been lower ranking).

Anyway, this is just one guy\'s opinion on how to handicap that race...take it for what it is worth...but I would not sweat too much about missing him in that in races that are so wide open, there are a tons of ways to bet them right and still miss them.

[flushedstraight]

Bally Ache Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Starforaday gave me a $206 pick three which I was
> happy with considering a blind person could have
> picked the preceding two odds on chalks.  I was
> happy that is until I noticed that the DD for
> Races 10/11 paid $224.  In other words I was
> Takeout is half again as much on the pick three vs. DD.

Bally, you were not penalized for having Street Sense. Note NYRA takeout below. Pre-takeout, the p3 = 274.66, dd = 271.50, so in theory you were laying about 86-1 on Street Sense


15% Win, Place and Show (lowest in the nation)
17.5% Daily Double, Exacta, and Quinella (lowest in the nation)
15% Pick 6 on non-carryover days.
25% Pick 6 on carryover days, Pick 3, Pick 4, Trifecta, Superfecta.

[Bally Ache]

Okay, I\'ll restate it to say they I got almost no premium for having three winners rather than two.  Granted not much of a premium is warranted since the horse in question was, I think, 1-4.  There is still the anomaly of the Pk 3 paying less than the DD which offhand I can\'t recall ever seeing before.