Shipping into BC - ? for TG

[shanahan]

TG - the seminar seemed overly sensitive to the time horses shipped in to CA - a comment made numerous times...what is the post mortem on this?

[firmturf]

I\'m not TG but it seemed pretty obvious who had the advantage on Saturday. Top 3 finishers in all synthetic races were:

Marathon: Euro, Cali, Cali
Mile:     Cali, Cali, Cali
Juvi:     Cali, Kee, Cali
Spr:      Cali, Shipper, Cali
Clsc:     Euro, Cali, Cali

[jimbo66]

Firmturf,

It really was that simple.  Which is my point of last night about not bothering to use figures to handicap.  The figures were useless.  I don\'t mean TG, I mean anybody\'s figures.  I have seen the Rags numbers, they were no help, nor were the beyers, and certainly \"pace figures\" were useless.  If You came from racing on CAli poly or on European turf you were live, no matter how slow you appeared on paper.  All brilliant dirt figures earned elsewhere were as important as backup punters on a football team.

Strange world we have created for gambling.  Adjustments need to be made.  This gambler didn\'t adjust.  I saw a couple on the board here who did.  Congrats to those.

[shanahan]

Yes, you are right on here - both of you, of course...but how long should it take a horse to \"acclimate\"?  A week?  A month?  Seems that JB\'s commentary was overloaded with \"shippied in too late to even work\" type of comments.

[sighthound]

Regarding shipping, one might consider this:

Horses that ship alot via plane are not bothered by it.  They continue to eat and drink, and don\'t miss a beat.  Some not familiar are/could be.  Depends upon the horse.  East to west on a plane in the US is only 4-5 hours for the flight.

Two theories on mitigating effects of shipping from farther away:

1) ship in at the last minute, run the race immediately - before any tiredness or changing of routine (time of day - relative to the animal\'s internal clock - being fed, exercised, etc. that we call jet lag) can affect the animal.

2)  ship in early enough (1-2 weeks or so) so the animal\'s internal clock can be adjusted to the new location.

[TGJB]

How did those horses who shipped in too late to work do?

We\'ll see how the figures come up, but off the top of my head, My Pal Charlie is the only horse who ran okay on the main track that had not run well on synthetic or turf or had not worked over the Pro-Ride.

There were an astronomical number of hard to figure variables in this year\'s BC-- surface, shipping, drug testing. I got creamed. Funny thing is, if any one of 4 horses had won the Turf, I would have had the pick six (after watching a day and a half, went 8 deep in the Classic).

[firmturf]

Note the one two finishers on day 1 of the FM Sprint were trainers that had a string in Cali and worked their charges over the course two times or more.

The next two syn races were won by California horses - although both favorites.

Turf on Day 1 was all shippers.

It seems once the races went to grass the Euro\'s and East Coast were dominant.

[Silver Charm]

I do agree with TGJB that there were so many variables it may be unwise to start jumping to too many conclusions but....

Other than Sky Diva and Zaftig who both ran third the NY based dirt runners did not run well. But even when the surface was dirt this was kinda the case was it not.

Be curious to see how the Keeneland based people fared. Probably not good. They probably thought they were doing good by working over Synthetic and staying hunkered down at home. But a lot of those horses came up really short in the stretch. (See Catalano and Romans)

Pletcher was a complete zero. But he does that every year anyway regardless of track or surface. (Sorry Barry)

The Euros I expect next year would be coming over with horses in nearly every division after seeing what the outcomes were this year. I would be curious to see how big of portion of the Nomination Fees they contribute as compared to the American based horses.

We put on the event, put up 75% of the money and they take home all of the loot and glory. Sounds like a deal to me........

[ronwar]

If you take a look at the last two times the BC was at Santa Anita you will notice the same pattern.  Cali horses dominate on the main, while the East Coast and Europe horse had a leg up on the grass. I knew that going in put still could string the right ones together.