Slide? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Slide.

>predicted that Rock Hard Ten and Eddington would not handle the 12 furlongs.<

I don\'t think 12 furlongs had all that much to do with RHT\'s or Eddington\'s performance in the Belmont.

When you challenge a horse that is both superior overall and that has greater brilliance, you usually pay a big price. That\'s what happened to them. Without the challenges to SJ on the backside, IMO they would have run a LOT better.

Take a look at hundreds of speed duels between 2-3 horses where 1 clearly has more early speed/acceleration and is better overall. The other 2 will routinely get buried badly because they are running to their limit and the other is still within himself. The primary speed gets hurt much less han the 2nd/3rd speed.  

In fact, that scenario is often a great exacta play. If the 2nd and 3rd speed horse look like contenders for the place spot, they are actually usually underlays in the exacta underneath the main speed because of the potential of him killing them off and a less talented closer sucking up for second. (this works with unrateable speeds)

The Belmont wasn\'t exactly a duel, but that backside pressure took more out of the others than it took out of SJ.

[twoshoes]

That is exactly the point and the reason I thought RHT and EDD had no chance here. They were both trained to attend the pace and plain and simple they were going to lose the battle and the war right there. Smarty is superior to them, at least right now. It\'s also the reason I gave Birdstone a chance here. He was a fresh grinder who could only benefit from the likely pace scenario and frankly as unhealthy as the line looked he was honestly the only other horse (Purge didn\'t settle like he did in the PP)in the race that appeared to me have a chance to pick up the pieces. A Grade I winner over the course who was glued to a dead rail in his final prep for the Derby and had no chance in the Derby itself mainly because of how he was brought to the race. He got something out of the effort and Zito capitalized by getting more bottom in him and keeping him happy at Oklahoma. The other thing that helped him of course was Bailey\'s imprudent ride. I realize he probably felt he couldn\'t let Smarty gallop on the lead after a moderate half but it really was a ridiculous premature move for any jock and cost Eddington any shot he had to begin with. Forget about Smarty\'s people being upset with the move - where are Eddington\'s people?

twoshoes,

That was fine handicapping on your part. I thought they were being trained to stay withing striking distance, not commit suicide. :-)

[twoshoes]

Thanks - Have to admit it didn\'t have to play out that way but I had a hunch it would. One point driven home again - handicapping is a small part of the equation. I had this race buried and let it slip away for a lot less than I should have seen for return. Good, but not great.

[fasteddie]

Marcus:

Any way you slice it, my point was that Bird was a huge overlay WHEN you factor things like horse-for-course AND his numbers at 2.

Horses mature a lot from 2 to 3, and one of my favorite non-stakes plays is 2yo layoff maidens who show talent, and come out first time at 3 following at least a 3 month layoff.  

Where Birdstone is similar is that he ran a HUGE 3yo debut, and caught 2 bad tracks thereafter. His POTENTIAL says he is a must-use in an otherwise bad betting race, if you believe that Smarty would not collapse (I didn\'t, and he didn\'t!) This is why IMHO 9 out of 10 players would call him an overlay, so lighten up!

>Smarty would not collapse (I didn\'t, and he didn\'t!) <

IMO, Smarty didn\'t run near his fastest race. I think people are going to assign this race a wide range of numbers depending on how they interpreted the track speed and how they believe the race development impacted the horses\' final figures (if at all) etc...

I am of the opinion that the race fell apart because of the competitiveness of the action on the backside and to a lesser degree the distance limitations of Smarty and perhaps others.

I don\'t think Birdstone or Royal Assault ran particulary well.



Post Edited (06-10-04 14:30)

[fasteddie]

I agree that doing numbers for a 1 1/2 M race are dubious, at best, BUT, if you take Birdstone out of the race (no pace influence) then Smarty wins by 8, and that leaves us with this quandry: Did EVERYBODY regress?? Not according to TGJB. That is not supposed to happen. Birdstone ran a good race, and Smarty ran the best he could, for that distance.

A \"collapse\" would have him back where Royal Assault ended up. Running a 27 second final quarter mile was no disgrace, and his 2:00 mile and a quarter is one of the best ever, and only a handfull of 3yo\'s has ever done it this early in the season!

I would prefer to refrain from debating any specific figure because (again) I believe there\'s going to be a lot of different opinions on how fast the race went.

I will just say this.

If you gave a theoretical figure to Smarty, RHT and Eddington for the 1 1/4 it would be MUCH higher than their 1 1/2 figure.

Granted there was a wind against them in the stretch. That contributed a little to the slow final quarter, but you don\'t need especially good visual skills to see that Smarty was dragging his butt in the final 1/8 or more. Eddington and RHT finished like coma patients.

I can\'t see how you can conclude anything but that RHT and Eddington\'s figures had to have collapsed substantially and Smarty\'s declined by a not insignificant amount. It\'s the degree that is probably debateable.

Whether that collapse was due to their efforts on the backstretch, the 1 1/2, or a little of both is hard to guage.

However, it is possible that some people might build the effects of the trip into their track variant and give RHT, Eddington, and Smarty too much credit speed figure wise and thus overrate the speed of Birdstone and Royal Assualt.

I hope this point is clear.

What I am saying is that I believe they ran slower due to early effort and not track speed.  

It\'s pretty difficult to guage what figure Birdstone might have run. He\'s had an impossible spring.

Royal Assault is a little easier, but it is no mortal lock that he ran back to a top or even close just because he finished ahead of some other pretty good horses.

IMO, those other pretty good horses were deader than dead in the final quarter due to their efforts etc...

I am using my knowledge of trips, visual skills, and that weak late fraction to conclude this. Lots of people might disagree.

If you want me to guage Smarty\'s speed figure, I\'d say he ran a LOT slower than in the Preakness. If you want me to guage his effort, it wasn\'t bad at all. He put away two other decent horses and ran 1/4 mile further than he wants. If you want me to guage Birdstone speed and effort they were nothing to write home about.

[fasteddie]

I do see what you are saying, and yes, Smarty was tired at the end, but in general, 1 1/2 mile races are run so infrequently that it is hard to get a good gauge on them. Just look at the history of the Belmont, by itself. The times of this race, since 1990, vary from Indy\'s 2:26 to Thunder Gulch\'s 2:32. Was Indy\'s that good, or \'Gulch\'s that bad??  Smarty tired, absolutely; collapsed, absolutely not.

Ultimately, a 1 1/2 mile final figure is useless, as they never race it again, but the internals can tell you a lot. They should make the Belmont a 1 1/4 on the grass; make it like the Canadian Triple, and it might have more relevence with breeders.

Since 1979, other than \'Indy, NO winner of the Belmont has had an impact on the breed!

>Smarty tired, absolutely; collapsed, absolutely not.<

OK, we are probably debating language as opposed to what happened. :-)

On the point I was making prior....

If a speed handicapper does not incorporate certain negative aspects of horses\' trips into their figures, they would have a tendency to build them into their track variant instead.  

That would have the effect of overrating the speed figures of other horses in the race that had easier trips.

If you do that enough over a long period of time, it would tend to produce figures that were rising slowly over the long haul even though the horses were not improving.



Post Edited (06-10-04 15:45)

[TGJB]

So let\'s say the pace was slower, say 2:00 for the 1 1/4. How fast do you think they would have run that last 1/4 into the wind? How about if it was 2:01? Point being, I think the final time is representative (whatever that means in figure terms)-- they did their running early, and just finished out the race, running the same final time (or very close to it) they would have otherwise. I don\'t think this was a \"quit\" race, unlike last year\'s Travers, where I think the pace caused those who disputed it to run a slower final time.

[fasteddie]

Classhandicapper:

As someone who used to make figs, it would all depend on how you base them. Track records? Pars?

I would always \"get in trouble\" with a race like the Belmont. I found out early that you can\'t use, say, Secretariat\'s 2:24, as it was an abberation. On a \"par\" track, a number closer to a 2:27 works much better. To better quantify this, I feel a 3 point regression from negative numbers (Smarty) is not as bad as drop from a 7 to a 10.

I\'ll keep saying this: w/o Birdstone, Smarty wins by 8 in what would visually appear to be a romp, because his rate of deceleration is not as severe as the rest of the field.

TGJB,

I totally agree that the final quarter is a function of the fractions - fast early  fractions equals slower late fractions and vice versa.

At a certain point I think it starts to become clear that the pace played a role in not only the final fractions but in the final time also. I think we agree on that.

The problems of course are when and how much.....

\"I\" don\'t think there is a formula for determining that even though some guys try to estimate it with pace figures. I think it\'s a very individual thing that varies from horse to horse depending on stamina, brilliance, etc... and your ability to make accurate pace judgements (which is really tough).  

I haven\'t bothered to figure out the final quarters for RHT or Eddington, but I feel  confident that their early efforts were too extreme for them for a 12 furlong race because they were much too slow and tired late - especially in relation to their 10 furlong times.

I suppose you also could argue they aren\'t 12 furlong horses and that\'s why they tired so badly too. Maybe it was a little of both.

I guess this gets into subjective areas that don\'t translate well into numbers.  We might disagree on the trip or disagree on the impact even when we agree on the trip.

I tend not to get too hung up on an exact number and have come to believe that the impact of pace is not an all or nothing thing as in \'large impact\' or \'no impact\'. There are things in between that aren\'t measured well, but that do exist.    

I am making a subjective judgement here that could be wrong.



Post Edited (06-11-04 11:26)

fasteddie,

I used to make projection figures, but I would make some effort to anchor them to pars in case I was making any mistakes that were leading to slowly expanding or shrinking figures.

I understand the problems with using pars to sort of anchor or double check your work.  I think JB has written some great stuff on that.

However, there are also problems with not anchoring to pars unless you are perfect at making projections that lead to slowly shrinking and expanding numbers.  

>I\'ll keep saying this: w/o Birdstone, Smarty wins by 8 in what would visually appear to be a romp, because his rate of deceleration is not as severe as the rest of the field.<

I agree, but it doesn\'t change my opinion of how fast he ran (which I believe is not very fast) or how well he ran (which I think is fine).