Travers - Postscript

>If Ghostzapper runs up the track in a grade one next time out, it will be for one of two reasons. Neither will have to do with class.<

This is silly.

No one ever said that because a horse runs a fast race in a lower class he can\'t move up and run well or win. They do it all the time. In fact, I would argue that some horses that are winning in lower classes will actually run faster if put in tougher situations because they have the reserve stamina and acceleration that hasn\'t been called upon at the lower levels.

What I am saying is that generally a horse can and often will maximize his speed figure under the less strenuous conditions he finds in lower level competition. Generally, we are talking about small variations because class moves up and down are not huge (they are usually sensible), but they are large enough to seperate contenders that otherwise seem almost identical on speed figures.

What I am describing is similar but not exact to what one would expect from a baseball player batting against \"AAA\" pitching vs. major league pitching.

His batting average is very meaningful, but it must be viewed in light of the competition. If he\'s batting 350 in AAA, I\'d be pretty sure he can be competitive in the majors, but I wouldn\'t expect him to bat 350 right off the bat.

I\'ll take a 350 major league hitter vs. the 350 AAA every day.

I\'ll also take the AAA player against a 300 major leaguer (or something like that - just trying to illustrate the point.  

As far as Ghostzapper goes, he earned that figure on slop, against easy competition, and it was so fast it is unlikely to be duplicated because of mean reversion (or whatever you want to call it)

I am not a 200 bowler, but occasionally I put a few games like that together on a day when everything is working for me. (I assure you I am not bouncing)  Ghostzapper is no 300 bowler.



Post Edited (09-02-04 15:24)

>Evidence is another matter<

There is plenty of evidence that the pace was fast enough to understate how well RIM ran.

1. The fractions were very fast.

2. After 25 years of watching horses run I can tell when they are running very hard and when they are running well within themselves and what happens as a result of each.

3. The overall race development

>Of the other 2 in that duel, one was much slower (the Texas horse),<

No doubt he was slower and that would partially account for why he stopped.  

>the other was Peace Rules, who I was betting to run poorly <

I was willing to concede that Lion Heart\'s disaster did not prove that distance was factor even though I predicted he would spit it out when challenged by Purge. It could just as easily have been the pace.

>Do I think a slower pace would have caused RIM to run a faster final time? No.<

As far as I am concerned the evidence  supporting the proposition that speed horses run faster figures when able to run on a loose lead in a comfortable (but not too slow) pace is overwhelming.

>Do I think it would have caused PD to run slower? No.<

It takes an extremely slow pace to have an easy to measure impact. However, that does not mean there are not effects between zero and \"easy to measure\".  It\'s just fairly difficult to isolate them because there are so many factors impacting performance and because not all horses have the same levels of acceleration, stamina etc... So there is no formula for it.

I understand your stress on science and what can be measured accurately as opposed to the subjective opinions of various handicappers, but I think it is fairly obvious that RIM ran a lot better than PD.



Post Edited (09-02-04 15:29)

[TGJB]

I got tired just reading those posts-- a full answer would take a long time. But two points briefly--

1-- You didn\'t understand the point of the quote you pulled. The point was about bouncing, and possibly the horse getting help in one race he could not in another, and saying his effort next time would not necessarily be indicative, regardless of who he ran against. If GZ had run that level of performance in the Whitney, RIM could have done whatever classy thing he wanted to, he would have got dusted. \"My experience of 25 years\" is not acceptable evidence (except to you, obviously)-- I\'ve been making a living in this game for longer than that, based on handicapping using the data (both for betting and buying and managing racehorses), and providing others with accurate data to do the same thing using the same theories. And that doesn\'t necessarily qualify as evidence to anyone but me, either.

2-- The correct analogy to the baseball example would be a horse WINNING 35% of his starts against allowance foes, and not being able to win that % in G1\'s, because of the level of the competition. But if a guy throws 95mph in triple A, he\'s probably gonna throw 95 in the majors. What that will get him depends on the competition. Hence the use of performance ratings, to cut across class designations.

[jbelfior]

Sorry TGJB, but GZ would not have dusted anyone.

He would not, in my opinion since that\'s all we have been throwing around here, been able to run a similar performance rating, Beyer/Bris #, etc.

The reason?? An inability to handle the internal fractions of the Whitney and still finish with the same energy he was able to finish with in The Iselin. That\'s with or without the benefit of any \"help.\"


So what you are saying is that PURGE\'s Jim Dandy would have won him the Whitney (assuming PURGE\'s 1 1/8 # was better than RIM)? Here\'s another opinion....Put PURGE\'s performance in the Whitney and as impessive as it was he would have been off the board.  


Good Luck,
Joe B.

>2-- The correct analogy to the baseball example would be a horse WINNING 35% of his starts against allowance foes, and not being able to win that % in G1\'s, because of the level of the competition. But if a guy throws 95mph in triple A, he\'s probably gonna throw 95 in the majors. What that will get him depends on the competition. Hence the use of performance ratings, to cut across class designations.<

Your analogy is also correct, but we obviously diagree. I believe it goes beyond that.

Just as the final times of races get faster  as you move up the class ladder, so does the pace. Within the fractions, so do the 1/16th mile bursts that determine whether you can get postion to win or not and how hard pressed you are to do it. The horses have more stamina, determination etc... That  makes the races more demanding.  

That is what people are generally referring to when when they use the term class - even if they don\'t realize it. It really has nothing to do with the designation of a race. It\'s related to the demands of the race over and above the final time.    

You are probably right that Ghostzapper would have beaten RIM if they ran together (IMO he put in a superior performance), but I would be willing to bet almost anything that his speed figure would have been a little slower because he would have been used much harder at some point in that much tougher field to get position and eventually to get past RIM. That would have taken a small toll and slowed him down a bit.  

We don\'t have to agree, I just want you to understand what I am saying as opposed to conventional class handicapping.



Post Edited (09-02-04 16:10)

[derby1592]

This whole thread (and several recent related threads) is starting to sound a lot like a philosophical debate.

One camp echoes Peter Berstein\'s lament, \"Our lives teem with numbers, but numbers are only tools; they have no soul... The result is a culture that threatens to become so complex and frequently so arcane as to constitute a new religion.\"

While the other camp resonates with Lord Kelvin who once stated, \"When you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it into numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meager and unsatisfactory kind: It may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely in your thoughts advanced to the stage of science.\"

Unfortunately, as R. J. Heuer of the CIA astutely observed, \"It is a common experience to discover that most available evidence really is not very helpful, as it can be reconciled with all the hypotheses\" and as Bart Kosko depressingly summarized, \"If you can prove a statement 100% true, it does not describe the world. If it describes the world, you cannot prove it.\"

So I think some of as are going to just have to \"agree to disagree\" on this topic and move on to more pragmatic tasks such as dodging yet another hurricane (hope Catalin and all the rest of you in Florida make it through the big storm with no major damage) or figuring out who will win tomorrow's feature...

Chris

\"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn\'t go away.\" Philip K. Dick

[jbelfior]

Ch--

Well said. Class is not just defined by determination near the wire, but also the ability to put in bursts of speed to avoid trouble, hit a moving hole, dart to the better part of the track, etc. As I mentioned in a previous post, it also involves not shying away, or becoming intimidated in between foes, or not extending when in close quarters on the rail.

Still don\'t agree with your GZ opinion. The horse is still unproven around 2 turns versus top level animals. The competition in the Iselin was a joke, however he did look very impressive.


Good Luck,
Joe B.

[TGJB]

As someone once said, that\'s what makes horse racing.

Back when we were first starting, in the 80\'s, Brad Thomas (whom I have a lot of respect for) was also just starting, with a publication called The Fact Sheet, which dealt with a lot of things like bias/trip notes, and other esoterica. He didn\'t like sheet theory too much, and ran an ad in the DRF with a great quote from Dostoevsky\'s \"The Gambler\" (I think), about all the wonderful intangibles involved in gambling. I came back with an ad the following week with the Damon Runyon quote-- \"The race is not always to the swift, but it\'s the right way to bet\".

As I\'ve said before, I don\'t discount pace entirely. We have a Graph Racing filly in today\'s stake at Del Mar, and I would be happier if another front runner (or two) scratched. It might or might not make a difference, but like chicken soup, it couldn\'t hurt.

[Lucy]

could you give Scott, Michael and Tannenbaum, Edward a message for me?

\'Fellas -- thoro-graph does consulting work, helping manage horses. It makes a difference.\'

kthx



Post Edited (09-03-04 02:26)

[TGJB]

Dude! Excellent!

The filly was bought for 5 figures, she\'s won 3 times (no claimers), placed in 2 stakes, in the 10 starts since we bought her. She\'s already earned more than her purchase price, and as a stake placed sister to a stake winner has decent residual value.

Jake just called telling me to thank you for bringing this up, dude.

[miff]

Did anyone score out tossing the slow 4-5 shot ANABElTAYLOR from Pletcher/Velasquez or the way overbet Exaggerate This also 4-5 from Pletcher/Velasquez. Both raced Thursday.Unbelieveable how much money people overbet on slow horses from power connections.

[HP]

Given your heading, I think I know where you\'re going with this. \"Overbet power connections\" I buy. \"Slow\" I don\'t.

I thought Anabeltaylor was a real bet against based on the possibility that she would back up off her last top effort and others in the field were just as fast and may have been sitting on better races. I really liked Reynolds\' horse getting a little weight (finished second after a LOUSY trip) at 10-1. Can\'t say Anabeltaylor was \"slow.\" As usual, the public overbet the last race, which was fast enough to win.

As for Exaggerate This, I thought the horse was clearly a major contender and I would have been shocked if he went off higher than 9/5. No way I can describe this horse as \"slow\" relative to this field. See the \"Foot guy\" thread for more...

HP

[jimbo66]

Exaggerate was certainly overbet at 4-5, but I don\'t think he was \"slow\".  Unless I am misreading the figures, he was the fastest horse on dirt and turf.  I believe in the red board room that JB also selected him.

He was rank early, choked down and then flattened out.  It happens.  But I don\'t think he is the best case of \"overbet and SLOW\" powerful connections.

[miff]

Guys, I have seen EVERY race of Anabeltaylor, she is very slow can\'t get an eight in 12 secs if her life depended on it. The other horse Exaggerate this was not slow just way overbet because of the connections.

[Boscar Obarra]

  Just for the record, how many \'slow\' overbet Pletcher/Velasquez horses won during the meet?  Pointing out the losers without reference to winners under the same conditions may be problematic.

  Don\'t know the answer to this, just asking.