Man Bites Dog

[Furious Pete]

Fair enough.

[Furious Pete]

And fair enough.

For what it\'s worth, I thought you nailed it this year re the derby. Keying Good Magic was probably the better bet than just locking Justify as the winner.

[Furious Pete]

Imho, I don\'t think you could ever predict this from speed figures. Maybe you could look at the sire stats and see that the sire stats from Arch on off tracks is very good, and coupled with what Battle of Midway did last year, yeah maybe you could call it a use at 85/1. It\'s a stretch, but fair play to you if you did. Bravazo\'s figure is heavily ground loaded. Decent off track stats on the sire. Well, this is clearly hindsight bias. I can see why one doesn\'t want to go down that road with you.

If I were to do a post mortem on this my aim would not have been to explain how these runners ran those numbers, those things happen, especially in conditions like these. It doesn\'t mean it\'s predictable. I would rather look at betting strategy, and maybe one concludes that the \"all\" button actually could prove a decent weapon in circumstances like these (the Derby exotics is something completely else than regular exotics, and the slop didn\'t exactly subtract from the chaos). I must admit that I have never used that button myself, in vertical wagers, well, to be honest, I don\'t even think I have ever played a superfecta. It\'s just not my style, but when you have a good key horse like TG players had in Good Magic, maybe it could be worth it. It\'s worth considering.

And when the favorites have won six times in a row, after the entrance of the new points system, well maybe it\'s worth to adjust ones \"value parameters\" when it comes to the favorites. As Ed DeRosa said multiple times after the Derby, Justify made those 5/2 look just fine. If he breaks badly, like Mendelssohn did, it\'s a different story. Baffert could\'ve been wrong, those last hundreds of yards in the Santa Anita Derby could\'ve been an optical illusion. But you didn\'t get 3/5, you got 2.9/1. A few weeks before one could get considerably better, at least here in Europe. It\'s a game of percentages, no doubt, but what a post mortem should do is helping you in calibrating your fair odds line. When lightly raced horses wins in an era where horses runs much less going into the derby, when the new points system disables sprinters to enter just to mess the whole dynamics of the race up etc, well maybe it is the right thing to do to downgrade things such as \"foundation\", \"the apollo curse\", \"big jump ups\" and \"pletcher stats\", maybe it isn\'t all that relevant anymore. At least not as relevant as before. Maybe. It\'s worth to take another look at.

Heck, maybe even there comes a year when the winner isn\'t auto-tossed around here 4 weeks in advance (tongue in cheek).

[TGJB]

Justify was tossed around here, auto or otherwise?

[Furious Pete]

Lol. Tricky tricky. I guess there were both.

[moosepalm]

TGJB Wrote:
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 The idea is to make
> the right bet, not pick the winner.


That should be put up here in a manner that\'s the equivalent of a website billboard.

[TheBull]

Heck, if you thought 2.9 / 1 was value on the win end, then youre best bet was probably to place, as he paid 2/1 to place. But like many have said here, the Derby is a totally different animal in terms of betting parameters due to tge large field, dead money and potential for a major score. If I thought was 5/2 was value on a favorite in 7 horse claimer on a Tuesday at Parx, my bet is probably going to be different than if it were the Derby.

[johnnym]

What if you only play win bets.

[P-Dub]

johnnym Wrote:
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> What if you only play win bets.


Same thing applies.

5/2 can be the right bet, or at times it can\'t. Depends on what YOU perceive as value.

[TGJB]

So meanwhile, unless I missed something, Jake hasn’t posted their Derby numbers...

[johnnym]

Statement was make the right bet not pick the winner.
If you are strictly a win better it’s irrelevant what the odds are if you can’t pick the winner.
Just saying

[TGJB]

Boy is that wrong.

[johnnym]

I did post with an intent to hear a response from you
Please explain to me why
Ty

[BitPlayer]

I’ll take up Paolo’s question about what we might learn from the performances of Instilled Regard and Bravazo (not having bet either of them) in the Derby.  I apologize in advance for the scattered nature of my thoughts.

One thing that TGJB has been saying in the seminars that is finally sinking in with me is that training patterns have changed (i.e., less is more) in recent years, leading to an increased number of tops in the Derby.  Accordingly, although I have generally used all the data from the archives in my Derby handicapping, today I’m trying a new approach, using only data from the Derby-points-system era (starting with 2013).  My data is hand-entered, so please forgive any errors.

The seminar says that recent stats suggest in a 20-horse field, we could expect two tops (10%).  Indeed there were: Instilled Regard and Bravazo.  My stats (2013-2017) show 12.5% new tops (12 out of 96).

With regard to predicting who might run those new tops, the seminar relied on pattern data.  In their last races, Instilled Regard ran an “Off” race (1.25 off top) and Bravazo ran an “X.”  Since 2013, the only horse to run a new top in the Derby off a bad race was Frammento, who improved 3 points (to a 3.25) in the Derby after running 1.25 points off his top in his prior race.  In that sample there were 6 horses coming into the Derby off an “X” and 15 coming in off an “Off.”

In retrospect, one might point out that Instilled Regard had a 2yo top of 4 and so had lots of room to improve.  Also, his pattern was based on a slight regression in the Santa Anita Derby.  TG had that race slower than other figure makers (where IS Jimbo?).   Make that race a little faster and Instilled Regard would have been entering the Derby off a series of “Pairs.”

One thing that Instilled Regard and Bravazo had “going for them” (?) is that they were slow going into the Derby.  It makes some sense that horses who have already run very fast will have more difficulty improving their performance than horses who have not.  From 2013 through 2017, there were 48 horses coming into the Derby off a top worse than 2, and 48 who were coming in off a top of 2 or better.  In the fast group, there were only two (Firing Line and American Pharoah) who ran new tops in the Derby.  In the slow group, there were ten new tops, including four new tops of 3 points or more.  Instilled Regard and Bravazo add to the stats of the slow group.  In addition to having more room to improve, it is also possible that slow horses are more likely to improve because their jockeys know they are slow and ride more conservatively, hoping to get a check.

Of course, as Instilled Regard and Bravazo demonstrated, even if you are right about who is going to improve, betting on slow horses to improve enough to hit the board isn\'t necessarily a recipe for parimutuel success.  They followed Frammento, Keen Ice, and Mylute in failing to crack the trifecta.

[T Severini]

well...its TGraphs job to go over probability based data.

With Instilled Regard, don\'t lose track of the fact that he\'s been brought here by Hollendorfer, who is not a \"come for fun\" guy.

Also don\'t discount that Derby number especially after getting body slammed by Magnum Moon.  One last thing...this is a million dollar 2yo in training and he is bred.