A Running Style Perspective

[Tavasco]

Introduction
The following write-up is a different perspective on the upcoming Kentucky Derby. It is an explanation of  my opinion of how the race will unfold and conclude. I understand picking a single race without a context is contrary to popular technique.

The analysis based on running style. Note - I assign a primary running style to each entry based on my opinion of previous races and what I considered their best previous race.

The Entries
1. Lookin At Lee (S)
2. Thunder Snow  (E/P)
3. Fast and Accurate (E/P)
4. Untrapped (P)
5. Always Dreaming (E/P)
6. State of Honor (E)
7. Girvin (P)
8. Hence (P)
9. Irap (E/P)
10 Gunnevera (S)
11 Battle of Midway (E/P)
12 Sonneteer (S)
13 J Boys Echo (P)
14 Classic Empire (E/P)
15 McCraken (S)
16 Tapwrit (P)
17 Irish War Cry (E/P)
18 Gormley (P)
19 Practical Joke (P)
20 Patch (P)

The Process
I selected one race for each entrant. A past performance which I deem representative of the entrants best effort to date.

I judged each entrant against other entrants of a like type
Best in type advance to be judged against other types for best in race.

Step One - E Contenders
Normally I would separate contenders into the four distinct categories. For this exercise I\'m only using three groupings. Lumping the one E type with the other pace factor E/P\'s Part B I\'m distilling the pace factors down to the top three. In this case: 1. BOM, 2.IWC 3. CE in that order. My expectation is that these three horses jointly and/or individually exclude the others of their type from being competitive in this race. I\'ll leave the following horses out of subsequent consideration.
2. Thunder Snow, 3. Fast and Accurate, 5. Always Dreaming, 6. State of Honor, 9. Irap, 18 Gormley

Note - this decision is based on my early pace figures not final time figures. The overriding consideration being if a horse cannot obtain its desired position it will be unable to run its optimal race.

Step Two - P Contenders
Differentiating P types is different than that of front runners. Remembering they do their best running in the middle and end of a race.
13 J Boys Echo, 08 Hence, 20 Patch

Exclude
4. Untrapped, 7. Girvin, 16 Tapwrit, 19 Practical Joke

Step Three - S Contenders
I differentiate S types based on sustained pace. Giving as contenders:
10 Gunnevera, 15 McCraken

Exclude
1. Lookin At Lee

Some Fuzzy Points Early in The Process

I designated Hence as a P while most would claim S. This horse is on my radar because, by my data, he showed pacesetter speed (by the clock) @ Sun so to me he\'s is a P not an S and c/b even closer to the lead.

Gormley is a bit of a mystery. Richiebee\'s argument is not lost on me. I don\'t think he will compete for the lead in this race so I am moving him on past the first cut because he is comparable to the other P\'s

Phase Two - Apples vs Oranges vs Peaches
Now I need to consider final times and some energy distribution Of The pace setting pack I\'m eliminating both BOM & IWC as horses who use too much energy early in the race to last in a 1+1/4 race. CE advances with a concern he could have compromised his chances by attending to fast of a pace. i.e. win the battle lose the war.

The Pressers
13 J Boys Echo, 08 Hence, 20 Patch
My figures indicate as they hit the head of the stretch the order will be Hence & Patch neck & neck with J Boys Echo closing. J Boys Echo/Hence is a toss-up which lost the most ground on the preceding turns? Patch not their equal late.

The Closers
10 Gunnevera, 15 McCraken
Gunne\'s FOY was so strong late and overall gotta go with him. Many like McCraken but my view is it would be on the come i.e. assuming improvement. If I couple that with my assessment that his final time deteriorates as his pace quickens I\'m not putting two closers in the tri.

All Told
My contenders CE, Hence, J Boys Echo, Gunnevera.
My bets: At least Hence both ways.
My concerns whether to include Gormley in verticals.

[mjellish]

a thought or too to consider.  This whole bet is based on pace and running style.  I don\'t know that the Derby, and in particular this uear\'s Derby, is a good race to that.  Gates open, 20 or so pop out, some bumping, shuffling.  You can throw your pace numbers and running styles out the window, at least for a few of these.  Think Palace Malice.  Show me how anyone saw that coming using pace numbers.

I think it\'s relatively safe to assume a few things about these colts general running style and post and how that may relate to their trip early.  But to try to figure out what is going to happen on the 2nd turn or later with regards to trips and pace is probably fodder.  Even early can be tricky.  I bet against Chrome in 2014 because at that point in his career he hated running inside of horses.  I mean HATED.  I saw him try to bite a horse outside him in the stretch in one of his races.  Breaking from the five i figured there was no way he\'d get an outside staking trip.  But when they came out of the first turn and thats what he had i looked at my buddy and said \"i don\'t believe it but he\'s got the trip and he\'s winning.  We may cash at a saver at best.\"

Just my opinion.

[Tavasco]

MJ

I remember quite well your CC inside of other horses running alert and it helped. Oddly enough (imo) the idea that this race is not an ideal candidate for this technique has validity but I was so confused that I wanted to simplify somehow.

Solving what I perceived as a series of simpler problems in hope that I would get something I hadn\'t seen rather than a picture I could be confident of.

So I surprised myself when J Boys Echo fell in I wouldn\'t have otherwise used him.

AD is still an enigma, as is BOM and Thunder Snow. Just don\'t know enough.

Thanks for your comments and I\'m looking forward to you annual description of how the race will develop. I have always found it an interesting & well conceived read.

[BitPlayer]

I have the impression that Hollendorfer was not happy that Battle of Midway was on the engine in the Santa Anita Derby and will be telling Prat not to repeat the error.

[Tavasco]

Royal Mo not in...yet?

[mjellish]

Well, the short story on where I am at is I think it\'s pretty tough not to key the fastest horse on TG given his odds will be fair relative to how much he lays over this field and he is likely to get the type of trip he wants to get.  He seems to be doing very well according to my clocker who saw him in Florida this spring and is familiar with him, says he\'s not doing anything substantially better than he did before his last prep but seems to be holding his form.  The way I see it he doesn\'t need to move forward to win.  He can even lose a little bit of ground and still wind because most of them lose some ground so it\'s not about \"losing ground\" it\'s about losing ground relative to the rest of the field.  If he runs his race and gets a fair trip he can probably run slightly off his top and still have enough of on edge on this field to take it, unless someone else moves forward or gets a much a better trip.  If he moves forward and gets a fair trip I don\'t see how he loses unless someone freaks.  Why overthink this?  Most years the fastest horse is the ML favorite, so I\'m not going to get too complicated this year.  

For betting structure, I\'m not betting a dime in the win pool.  The way I see it I have a horse I like that I can key at fair odds relative to what I perceive his actual chances to win are, and there\'s a few longer priced colts that I like that I think have a chance to get into the tri or super.  Hopefully they will or I won\'t cash in the verticals at all.  I will not have a single ticket that has a favorite, 2nd favorite, plus whoever in any box of any type.  Doubt more than 2 of the top 4 ML colts run well enough here anyway to be in the tri, and if they do I won\'t hit a vertical.  I may have a fair amount of money this year in the horizontals rather than the verticals anyway.

I expect the pace to be honest, if not fast, depending upon what happens early and I\'m not going to try to predict it.  I think my horse will get the type of trip he wants.  That\'s about all I can say about how I think the race is going to develop.

[metroj]

Prat up for 4/28 work on BOM fwiw, sat behind workmate, went past latter part of work, galloped out well.  From the 11 post thinking they will be looking for a stalking/2 to 3 wide type trip a couple of lengths off of the pacesetters.

[jerry]

The ghosts of Hayfields picked the 9 horse.

[kevb]

I agree, I would be very surprised if BOM is vying for the lead. Dorf maps out the races very specifically and forcefully, and in this case I think it means get BOM to relax behind the leaders. I think the same instructions go for IWC. I think the leaders will be State of Honor and Gormley-setting a moderate-fast pace. With BOM, IWC Thunder Snow, CE, and maybe IRAP trying to relax in the box seat. I don\'t see a crazy fast pace. I think it is going to be tough for the closers.

[Tavasco]

Philosopher Soren Kiekegaard is remembered, in part, for his notion that life can only be understand by looking back.

Surely the Sunday that follows the first Saturday in May is a day to reflect on for most (those of us who failed to get any of the juicy verticals and tore up once promising win bets) back on what actually happened in comparison to what we expected.

For me and my semi-automated running style perspective this is my current understanding

Early Speed Group
I excluded Always Dreaming based upon my early pace ratings. BOM, IWC, CE as well as several others previously had run faster.  On a subjective note I imagined the most likely start for AD was to get caught behind a couple other and have his trip complicated. Well kudos to Johnny V because I am now of the opinion that he gave his mount the best chance of winning by his actions in the first half mile.

Even though I didn\'t expect BOM to contest the lead I was confident he was going to guarantee an honest pace. He surprised me hanging on for third. IWC performed as I expected in as much as his energy distribution in the Wood gave me confidence that while he would contend he would not finish. With respect to CE I was using his BCJ race as my basis and he did compete just one place shot of my hopes.

Pace Factors Summary, I\'ll categorize AD as having had a jump up early pace performance.

The Pressers
Practical Joke & Tapwrit were the pressers that performed. Tapwrit was not able to get a pressing position probably due in part to issues with IWC early. That said he ran credibly even though from much further back than typical. Practical Joke did get position and in the end the solid pace with no collapse in front of him was too much to overcome.

Presser Summary - The presser I envisioned were instead failures. The Hence trip resembled a bounce. J Boys Echo now looks a declining colt. (The cost of not incorporating patterns.) Patch - not considering the post, large field, mud, eye issues again demonstrates the down side of just going by the numbers.

The Closers/Stayers
Gunnevera\'s effort was typical of closers in so much as he couldn\'t catch the speed or the pace pressers. Lookin At Lee played the jump up role we are accustomed to seeing with some regularity. Since I wasn\'t reading patterns a hereto slow but improving horse jumped up and my technique never sees them coming.

Closers Summary
When I saw the early fractions, I thought good, this race could come back helping a closer like Gunne get into the tri. Yes and No.

Apples vs Oranges vs Peaches
The horse with an ability to run on or with the pace garnered three of the top four spots. On the surface one could deduce that was an advantage on this one data point. The exact cause(s) of that effect is another discussion. I expected a peach (Closer) to get into the tri just surprised by the one that did. I also expected a P but my poor selection (in hindsight) and their flops turned out to be irrelevant. Tough when any one thing going wrong ruins hopes.