Briefly

[Mall]

Assuming the polytrack which is being installed at TP works out reasonably well, I am told that it will be installed at Kee, the US distributor, before spring. It\'s gotten very positive reviews from horsemen since it was installed at the Kee training track a number of mos. ago.

Ah yes, Summerly. I played Rush Bay into Summerly in the 9th-10th double on Fri, & then tried to play her with the winner of the last, but there was no 10th-11th double, which is why I played her into the wrong derby horses in the Oaks/Derby double. The reason her performance is interesting, however, is that prior to the races on Fri & again on Sat, I took the position that the track was playing pretty close to fair & was favoring horses with the best late kick. One or more posters questioned the assessment because Sis City wired the field, which is actually beside the point. She had the best fr3 in the race, much better than Sis City, & was every bit as fast if you were willing to ignore one race. Same thing happened in an early race on Sat, a horse with the best fr3 wired or came close to wiring the field, which was enough for some handicappers to, in my opinion, mistakenly conclude that the track was favoring early speed. CD has a history of getting faster throughout the day when it\'s dry & sunny, but for 4 days in a row competitive number horses with the best fr3 won and/or ran well in a much higher pct of races than usual, even for CD. In other words, very favorable conditions for those with accurate performance figures who understand the difference between pace handicapping & the one component of pace handicapping which is sometimes discussed on this Bd.

[jimbo66]

Mall,

Can  you explain what an fr3 is?  I thought it was a typo, but then you repeated it 4 more times!!

Thanks.

[Mall]

an abbrev. for 3rd fraction.

[Chuckles_the_Clown2]

Mall assuming Fr3 is late pace, but Churchill appeared to play to speed but for the 8th and Derby. The race battle won, finished first in was interesting if thats the race you\'re referring to.

The Derby melted down on torrid pace, bounce and fate, The Humana apparently had a bouncing lifetime top Madcap on the agenda. Had she been right she certainly could have set the track record Battle Won almost matched.

The day still needs to be carefully reviewed but all that outside for the top two in the Derby may not have been all that bad. If you give them 2\'s or 3\'s which seems logical, the wides are gonna pad everyone else into the twilight zone. Its gonna be an interesting figure.

[Silver Charm]

I like that one Mall.

And it has been a profitable one for me too.

[Silver Charm]

>The Humana apparently had a bouncing lifetime top Madcap on the agenda. Had she been right.....

She came back rundown on one heel. That is the key one heel only.

Every kind of scope and scan you can imagine is being done as we speak.

TGJB,

\"Pace-- as I said late yesterday, the pace was hot. While it may very well have been a factor, it was not the overriding factor-- several who were far behind it did not run well. Some were trained by Pletcher and Zito.\"

And the ones that weren\'t close to it either were terrible to begin with, had shown little in the stretch of prior races and were suspect at 10F, or both.

Seriously JB, we all know there\'s a drug problem in racing. However, it stretches credibility to blame every bad/superior performance on drugs and every bad handicapping selection on the same. These are horses. Sometimes they run like crap for no reason. Sometimes they run like crap for very obvious reasons that just don\'t happen to show up in speed figures alone.



Post Edited (05-09-05 11:09)

[Mall]

Since you mention two races that were a lot more interesting to me than the big one, here\'s my possibly idiosyncratic take on what happened. I went in believing that one or more of the undercard races would be a putovers, & I think Simon\'s winner in the 5th & Roman\'s winner in the 11th fit the bill. With the win Sat, Simon has shipped 5 horses to Ky over the last month or so & won with 3, & Battle\'s price Sat was the lowest. I think the only way you could bet the horse was to close your eyes & hope he was the one, although I do know some who bet the horse based on a comparison of what the pk3 will pays should have been paying vs what they were actually paying.

ME is a much more interesting case, since she appeared extremely vulnerable from a lot of different standpoints(one big race off a long layoff & surgery, very weak fr3, very little if any number power, etc) & with all the \"experts\" touting her as a pk4 & pk6 single, the race shaped up as a terrific betting opportunity. The question was how. Do you play all or almost all of the field in pk3s or pk4s, or do you invest in exotics in the race itself, & hope she runs out. The problem with the former approach, of course, is the possibility that the result of at least one race in the sequence was impossible to predict. The problem with the latter is that a horse which was pretty close to impossible to find runs 3rd, which is what I\'m guessing happened to JB, since I have to believe that \"all\" is the only option for the 4th slot for anyone betting against ME in supers. Although neither approach was profitable Sat., the race is nonetheless a good example of why the \"how\" is often every bit as important as the \"who.\"

Silver,

>For those who posted Summerly lost at Keeneland because she couldn\'t handle a pressured pace... wrong<

I want to comment on this because I think it\'s relevant to a lot of things that aren\'t clear to me.

I\'m not sure what the correct figure for Sis City\'s big race actually is. We should keep in mind that no one else had that race really fast.

a. If the race was really fast, then Summerly\'s performance within it was not especially out of line with prior performances. It would actually be fairly consistent with the view that she would not run as fast and win as easily with pace pressure as without it. I know I didn\'t expect her to get beaten that badly. I just expected her to lose. However, a really dominant speed/pace performance often \"takes out\" many of the other horses.      

b. If the Sis City race was not that fast, then Summerly\'s performance that day was dreadful. If that\'s the case, then she didn\'t run poorly because of pace considerations. She ran that poorly for other reasons. In fact, I said as much on another board. However, that does not mean that I was wrong about her prior races with loose leads in easy paces not being as good as they looked.

I haven\'t seen Summerly\'s figure for this recent win (more of a legit performance), but I\'d guess it wasn\'t much faster than she had run in her prior races despite making the lead and being loose for a portion of the race. She certainly didn\'t win as easy or all wrapped up the way she did when she was loose and loafing.



Post Edited (05-09-05 12:50)

[HP]

In the ME race, I invested in exotics in the race itself AND pick 3\'s and pick 4\'s, she ran out, and it\'s a good thing I backed up to the exactas since that Puxa screwed my biggest play.  

It looked like they were pretty evenly matched past the favorite, except for Josh\'s Madelyn who I weighted a little more...

I went five deep and ended up making about 5/2 on the race, and another nose and I would\'ve got nothing.

Whew.

HP

[Mall]

It might be a rationalization, but in these kinds of situations I tell myself that the important thing is to have made the right plays, since that is the only thing within your control. Actually, there is one other thing. You can make sure you don\'t lose one of the seven $1 tix sold on the biggest super in history. Today\'s story about the guy who made the play, never got the ticket, & left the OTB with nothing, only to get a call on the way home from a mutuel clerk who found the ticket has to be one of the most remarkable betting stories ever. Now that\'s one clerk who actually deserves a nice tip!

[HP]

Mall,

FWIW, I wrote down

Lion Tamer
Pomeroy
Battle Won
Leveltheplayingfield

for that race.

I thought Battle Won had a shot at the weights and liked the price.

I got stuck working a little bit of overtime and I didn\'t get to play it (figuring the two shorter priced horses LT and POM had good chances), drooling over the ME race a little later.

HP

[HP]

We posted simultaneously...that is an amazing story, to say the least.  I heard there were 12 winning super tix total...  HP

[TGJB]

RVL-- that is very interesting information about the supertest-- I had actually spoken to a couple of the TOBA guys last Summer, and forgot that was where they were going.

Which brings us to trying to decide whether it was the test or the plain clothes operatives...

[TGJB]

CH-- what a nonsense BS post that is. I \"blame every bad/superior performance on drugs and every bad handicapping decision on same\"? Get a clue.

I said BEFORE the race, TWICE in the seminar, that this was a unique situation because of the supertesting.