SA 4'th 12-28

[fillway56]

Just started paying attention to Thorograpgh. Was wondering opinions on this race,Bafferts & Frankel\'s horses seem to have the best #\'s here but any thoughts on bounces?

[Dana666]

There are three very solid runners in that field. It\'s an allowance race that\'s better than 90% of the stakes races run for 2 year olds this year!

Frankel\'s horses seldom bounce - Ramsgate is a professional, solid horse who knows what to do (really looks like a grass miler to me). Wanna Runner is an athletic, nice moving horse who won\'t give up without a fight -- a typical Baffert! Refinery is an abosulute monster ( a derby future wouldn\'t be the worst bet on him) but he\'s the greenest of the three and he drew outside -- hard to tell what kind of trip he\'ll get. It should be an exciting race with many implications down the line!

Off the t-graphs, I give Wanna Runner a 6, Ramsgate a 6\" and Refinery a 5+ (so the trip will tell the story).

[TGAB]

Lightly raced horses are a volatile bunch, and obviously 2yos are the most lightly raced bunch as a whole. The lightly raced ones are learning how to race, the effects of races, efforts, and gaining condition. Trainer styles and pedigree also have to be factored in assessing newcomers and lightly raced ones. There\'s little performance history if any, so it\'s difficult to tell when a performance will elicit a reaction.

The three above have raced 3, 2, 2 times, respectively, and none of them have regressed as yet. Each improved last time out to run a single digit effort. The fact that each got down to the sub-10 level quickly indicates that they have  talent--2yos aren\'t fully developed physically, and although some develop more quickly than others (pedigree influence).

Wanna Runner ran two nondescript effort at Dmr and then exploded with big effort going two turns on about 12 weeks rest. Now he comes back 4 to 5 weeks later. Ramsgate okay 1st out but caught a dead rail (X adjacent the figure) so the effort might not been as bad as it looked and indeed 8 weeks later he jumped up about 6 points and enters here on about 6 to 7 weeks rest.

Refinery debuted faster than both above and improved 1-1/4 points 3 weeks later, about 4 weeks ago. He\'s a bit slower than the other two and shows more regularly races.

As a general rule, small incremental steps resulting in new tops are less likely to yield bounces, next time out, time off notwithstanding. For instance Refinery is less likely to bounce among the three since his new top is a small forward step and he proved he could handle a prior level not too far removed from the present one.

In this case, the two that made the biggest forward moves also enter with the most time off since that effort, more recovery time and they\'re faster and haven\'t been set back yet.

Hope this helps.  

     

[Dana666]

That\'s great info. Thanks!!!

I suppose the only thing that\'s difficult to factor is that any trainer who rides Tyler Baze is nuts -- he\'s so afraid out there, he takes almost every horse back. I mean, he breaks on top with Refinery and rides him for a couple strides and then gradually eases him back (all while 4 wide) on the first turn, i.e, he took him completely out of the race, no shot after that, period.

Now, he does that with almost every horse he rides (since the summer when he was having his anorexic troubles). I don\'t wish the kid any harm, and everyone who knows him says he\'s a real likeable person, but, gosh, does anyone else see what I see? He does this on 99/100 horses he rides -- watch replays if you don\'t believe me.  

Alex Solis has been doing that for  10 years but AT LEAST he gets horses to relax nicely and he\'s strong as hell and finishes like there\'s no tomorrow, so he\'ll win his share of races and you can predict with a good degree of certainty what he\'ll do (that\'s all handicappers need), not to mention he usually gets the best horse to ride in any given race, but Tyler is so weak,and he gets on so many speed horses that he just refuses to ride -- he did this the entire meet at Del Mar, it\'s like he just has to hang on until the race is over.

Do these trainers even watch replays???

[SoCalMan2]

Dear Dana

I agree with you that I do not wish Tyler Baze any ill will -- especially in light of his publicized problems (wasn\'t he the guy who flew to Indiana only to be sat down by the stewards and not allowed to ride?  if yes, why does Indiana have better stewards than California?).

Nevertheless, he has cost me more money than any other jockey ever period.  In fairness, this was due to one extraordinarily bad ride he gave me in 2002 on a Baffert filly who figured to lay over a field when I had a gi-normous pick six on the line (his bad ride cost me 900k -- figures okay, not a typo).  I have found that when I am betting a track he is riding at and there are other good jockeys in the race, I penalize his horse 2 points (although I am cautious if he is likely to be lone speed).  This has worked out quite well for me.  I still am forced to play him sometimes, but only when he is on a really powerful horse.  I feel bad for the guy, but he is just awful and I agree with you -- any trainer giving him a leg up is nuts.  Having said that I haven\'t necessarily noticed him particularly worse on front runners rather than any other type of horse -- I have found him to be universally awful.

SoCalMan2

[Dana666]

Yes, exactly right! When he\'s on a lone frontrunner, esp. turf, he\'s usually fine. I might try your two point penalty system. Ultimately, I feel you just handicap the race and play what you figure, but he can drive you nuts!

900K! That\'s one you never forget. I\'ve had a few pick six stories but not that big. Once there was about 150K in the pool and everyone was knocked out, and I had 5 horses out of twelve in the last leg, a maiden turf race at Hollywood. My horses ran second through sixth! NicK Hines beat me with a first time starter named Poker Money. I don\'t think the horse ever ran another race after that, but that day he was good enough.