Sis City.... TG v Sheets

[ezgoer89]

I have no opinion on the race at this point but I post these for comment:

Sheets:  2 yo top: 7+, 3 yo races: 7+, 7+

TG:  2 yo top: 5, 3 yo races: 3, -1

[bloodline bob]

subtracting 3 points from RAG to equate to TG you get 4+, 4+ and 4+ so they are within a point or so except for the Ashland where they are 4 1/2 points apart.  RAG thinks the Asland was slooooow. Nobody fired except the winner I guess.

[Blind Switch]

so there you have it:

Scenario 1, she wins:

Sheets: Forging 3 yo, waiting to explode
TG: We had the Ashland right!

Scenario 2, she looses:

Sheets: She was just too slow
TG: She bounced

Medication scenario:

She wins: Allday and Dutrow juiced her
She looses: Allday and Dutrow were too afraid of using the \"good stuff\" during Derby Week.

All plausable, all destined to gobble up more than the required amount of bandwidth.

[miff]

The normal 3-4 point spread between TG and Rags seems to be a thing of the past.I compare figs with a Raggie. Some are-5-6-7pts off,mostly ordinary races as opposed to big races.

The greater \"distance\" in the two scales seems to mostly be faster TG figs.

[bloodline bob]

I\'ve read about how tracks are getting slower and horses are getting faster and it is interesting and makes some sense because of the selective breeding but the TG fig inflation of the last few years seems illogical. Looking in the archives i see that a horse named Pro Prado ran 3 consecutive 1\'s last year making him one of the fastest spring 3 year olds of all time up until the last few years.  Faster than Charismatic, Real Quiet, Silver Charm all of them.

Doesn\'t seem right does it?  I would think the way to check to see if the bred is getting faster is look at the grass races. I think grass course records do seem to fall but not 3-6 points worth over a few years.

[miff]

BB,

Pro Prado is one of many \"poster\" horses who get inflated figs because they race wide.I remember him being a \"suck up\" rat that liked it wet.

[jimbo66]

Shocking that this thread has generated no response from JB.

Neck deep in Derby analysis, I guess..

[TGJB]

Jimbo-- right, I just got here.

On the figure, I ask anyone with any common sense to tell me that they think Sis City ran no faster winning the Ashland by ten than she did at two.

Blind Switch-- it\'s all percentages, that\'s why we have Thoro-Patterns. The test of the figures will be not just how SC runs in this race, but how she AND OTHERS out of the race run in other races, in terms of figures. If you guys have seen the other ones out of the Ashland who are in the Oaks, imagine how they ALL would look if you add 3 or 4.

Bob-- there is a whole presentation in the archives here about horses getting faster. I did a lot of work-- you should read it.

On that note I have to point out Watchmaker\'s wednesday column. After all the stuff I have had to endure (and addressed in the archives presentation) about times not getting faster while horses run better numbers, he points out that 5 of the 10 fastest of 130 Derbies have ocurred in the last 9 years-- as evidence the track is faster.

\"This is no coincidence, because it\'s not like the Thoroughbred breed has suddenly become so much better\".

Deaf frogs abound.

[miff]

JB,

Very self serving, Watchmaker is clearly referring to the racetrack management scraping the surfaces to produce OOO\'S and AHHH\'S from the crowd on big race days.

How fast would Fager or Sec run on Wood Day?

[TGJB]

Miff, you are missing the point. I know what Watchmaker is saying-- and the assumption he is making when he does. \"Frog with no legs is deaf\".

I\'m not doing this whole thing again, but as I said previously, Secretariat ran over a 2 1/2 inch cushion at Belmont, and it is now 3 1/2. The one day a couple of years ago that it was only 3 inches, Najran ran a 1:32 mile. How fast would he have gone over 2 1/2? Who was it that ran over a scraped track?

[DeathBredon]

Of course, tracks do try to juice things up on big days, but that doesn\'t mean that t-breds are not getting faster (and frailer).  Indeed, the whole point of t-bred racing and breeding is to \"improve the breed,\" which means make them faster.

Look what animal husbandry and breeding has acheived with other animals -- dogs, cats, birds, etc.  And think about how much more money is and has been in the t-bred industry relative to the others. So, if you can bred a dog to look like a cat and vis versa, surely you can breed faster horses.  So, it should surpirse no one that t-breds ARE actually getting faster on average all the time and will slowly continue to do so.

(Unfortunately, they also seem to be getting frailer, too.  But that is another issue.)

[bloodline bob]

JB-

I have read the archive presentations - several times.  I find it fascinating and insightful especially since this has occurred to almost no one - how Mike Watchmaker could have the job that he does and never have read your stuff is mind boggling.

However its still possible you are wrong. Its hard to buy that Pro Prado would make Secretariat look like a high priced claimer. Ok logically the breed should get faster to a point although eventually it must level off. Horses will not be running a mile in 10 seconds some day no matter how good our training methods. Its a question of degree.

It seems to me if you want to test and quantify the theory it would be easy - just examine the track records of grass racing where there is no cushion issue. I did a litle research on that today by looking up the records for Epsom Derby winners over the last 100 years. The record is Dante (2:26 4/5) in 1945. In the last 25 years the fastest is Lammtarra (2:32 3/5) in 1995. They aren\'t getting any faster over there, at least not at a mile and a half (which could be the issue - we\'re breeding for speed).

My other question is why would they all get so much faster in the last 3 years?

[P.Eckhart]

During wartime the Derby would be run at Newmarket not Epsom.

[bloodline bob]

good catch.  still, times haven\'t improved much. certainly not in the last 10 years or 3 years.

[miff]

BB,

\"My other question is why would they all get so much faster in the last 3 years?\"


Figures are faster, horses ain\'t.