BC #'s

[Michael D.]

TGJB,
these views are indeed difficult to follow. firstly, did you adjust c\'stopper\'s # for the bad start?



Post Edited (12-11-04 09:55)

[Michael D.]

while waiting........ how good was kela in that race? sure s\'town got the nice post to work from, and i love bailey, but my guess is that if pletcher had trained kela up to that race, he would have brought much more tactical speed to the game, would not have been forced to run so wide, and would have won.

[BitPlayer]

I disagree.  One of the things to which Mike Mitchell attributed Kela\'s success this summer at Del Mar was that they had finally learned how to ride him.  He won\'t run inside horses.  Wide trips are part of the deal with him, and large fields like the BC obviously make the wide trip wider.

I also suspect that Kela\'s bad performance in the Underwood this past weekend may have been partially due to the fact that Nakatani kept him relatively close to a hot pace, rather than taking him back and letting him make one run, as Tyler Baze and Jerry Bailey had done in the past.  Of course, his fever the previous weekend and the wet going may also have had a hand.

[Michael D.]

could be right bit, i don\'t see many of pletcher\'s mounts with that problem though. pletcher and JR seem to be able to get most of them on the engine, in a good spot, without ruining their game. i think just a bit more tactical speed in that race, and kela gets a much better trip. but point well taken; with some horses, it is difficult to get them to change styles without taking away some of their zip, and sometimes the trainer just has to let the guy run wide.

[Michael D.]

bit,
watched the race gain. i think kela ran the final eighth in about :11.5 (very fast). don\'t you think if they had trained just a bit more speed in him, he still would have been able to finish strong? tough call. in his future races, i would imagine kela will show a bit more speed than he did in the BC, but as you say, if mitchell can\'t get the horse to run between (or if the horse won\'t, period), he is always subject to a tough trip (forget his last, the sloppy track made that race very unpredictable).

[TGJB]

Michael-- We don\'t adjust figures for bad starts, but aside from that, CS didn\'t get a bad start. He broke with the field, then dropped back, which is a whole different matter.

JB,

>CS didn\'t get a bad start. He broke with the field, then dropped back, which is a whole different matter.<

I agree with you, but if RAGOZIN routinely notes and applies these unusually poor beginnings in their figures, that might account for the difference. Then it\'s not a matter of quality but of methodology. I addressed the issue further over there (along with the Derby).



Post Edited (12-11-04 17:26)

[Michael D.]

still waiting on a reply over there, but TGJB said that \"the only way clockstopper could have gotten a much better number (as Ragozin gave it) would be if he was significantly wider.\" now TGJB knows that len adjusts for slow starts, so i\'m not sure why he wrote that. class, you are correct, it looks like a matter of methodology (and one\'s opinion on the question of whether CS broke slow or not), not a mistake in ground loss as TGJB seems to think. but i can not be sure until i get an answer from len.



Post Edited (12-11-04 17:20)

[miff]

JB,If you know Rags theory:

Why would breaking bad have anything to do with a horses final fig? I can understand a notation \"OP\", but why a fig adjustment?

[TGJB]

Michael, let me make this perfectly clear-- I was in the Ragozin office for 9 years, some of it working there, and some having a desk there when I ran a stable and bet for a living. FOR SURE, unless there has been an EXTREME change in Len\'s thinking, they DO NOT adjust figures for a horse running slowly in the rearly stages. They only do so if the horse LEAVES THE GATE AFTER THE OTHER HORSES. The theory is that you would be measuring his actual time for the distance once he is running that way. I do it differently, for reasons I have discussed here.

Clockstopper left the gate with the field. Razzle, since you made the snide comment, why don\'t you go to NTRA.com and take a look at the replay. You will see that there is no doubt about it, and why we have multiple trackmen look at it. I won\'t hold my breath waiting for an apology.

So Michael, the right phrasing would have been, that they would assign him that figure if they had him wider, or incorrectly had him off poorly (a lot, to cause that big a difference).

Look, this is business as usual. Friedman is not answering the questions, and the cult members not only don\'t care, they blast those who ask. WE\'RE TALKING ABOUT THE BREEDER\'S CUP AND DERBY, FELLAS. WAKE UP.

[jimbo66]

I am certainly not one of the guys who always agrees with Jerry on everything.  

But I just watched the replay and it is clear.  The horse broke with the field and then dropped back.  I don\'t get it.  That happens all the time with deep closers like Clockstopper.  I certainly WOULD NOT want a figure adjustment for this type of trip.

What would be good is if Len bothered to answer the questions asked on his board.  I don\'t see too many posts from him and one thing you have to give Jerry is that he responds to almost all the questions and his opinions and views are in print all the time on this board.  So much so, that many of us regular posters are constantly questioning him.  

On the other board, you have some good posts by Michael D, with selections and race analysis, but you don\'t see any questions about methodology or what I would consider \"deeper\" topics.  And there definitely isn\'t anybody taking Len to task for his views, like people occasionally do here with Jerry.

Anyway, my two cents worth, and it might not even be worth the two cents.

[TGJB]

OCCASIONALLY do here???

You are right, of course. As I\'ve said before, it\'s not strange that Len does what he does-- he\'s running a business, and while his behavior might not be moral or \"stand up\", it\'s understandable from a practical point of view. What\'s really amazing and disappointing is the reaction (and lack of it) from his customers. What a low expectation, lackadaisical bunch-- and their reaction to the screw-ups only guarantees more of them. Why change? No one holds them accountable.

[Michael D.]

given the fact that the horse was so far back early, and len put an \"s\" next to his fig (meaning slow start), i think TGJB should have focused on that to begin with (at least to some degree), and not focus solely on a mistake in ground loss. but now that we have everything cleared up, i have to watch the replay a few more times here to see if i would prefer to have the bad start (if you can call it that) included in the fig. seems some of the smarter guys here say no. a response from len would help, but with a few pk6 carryovers today, i would be selfish to demand an immediate answer. (why do i get the feeling that everybody here will say no, and everybody over there will say yes).

[TGJB]

Michael-- it\'s not a question of whether you would prefer the \"slow start\" be put into the figure. There was no slow start, not the way Ragozin uses the term. It\'s a flat-out screw-up, one way or the other. Again. And that\'s only one of the screw-ups I brought up-- we still have to deal with the relationships between the other horses in that race I mentioned, and the Derby beaten lengths. A 3 length error for 15 horses in the biggest race of the year is pretty important stuff.

[Chuckles_the_Clown2]

Its important stuff. If the ground loss is so off, how can you be comfortable that the weight is always factored correctly, let alone the variants. And if they are having trouble with the basic observations, how can you reach a comfort zone with the expertise and extrapolation? Its a tough gig, I know, because I screwed it up. But if you screw it up, you HAVE to correct it don\'t you? If the B.C. and Derby are off, my god, what about that 12,500K claimer at Delta Downs last July?