Changing Track Speeds: A Derby Contender Case Study Perhaps

[JimP]

Guys, I\'m disapponted in how the formatting turned out in that last post. I tried to get the numbers aligned better to make them readable. It didn\'t work. I hope you can wade through them anayway and get to the points I was trying to raise.

[bobphilo]

Jerry - Here's an even more dramatic example of track speed changing from race to race.

Rockport Harbor won the G3 Essex Hcp in 1:47.68 for the 1 1/16 miles.

The race immediately before this, a Maiden Special Weights, was won by a 3YO named Sayhellotolarry in 1:47.42 for the same distance in similar front running fashion while setting faster early fractions.

Either a) Rockport Harbor is a very poor graded stakes for older horses winner or
b) Sayhellotlarry is suddenly a new Derby contender or,
c) there was a dramatic change in track speed from one race to the next.
What kind of maintenance did they perform to the track between these 2 races? I'd be interested in seeing what figures these 2 get relative to each other.

Bob
 

[bobphilo]

Jim,

Don\'t worry about the formating, the figures were clear enough. I frequently have the same problem when trying to post table-like messages.

While the results you get by adding 3 points to the Strub numbers are plausable, leaving them as they are is more likely to be correct. The reason for this is something I discovered when I used to make my own figures. Beyer once did a study from the DRF database and found that the average race winner has an improvement in his Beyer from his previous race by 6 to 9 points ( this is roughly equivalent to 2 or 3 T-Graph points). By not realizing this I found my own figures were begining to creep downwards. If one applies this average improvement factor to the assigned Strub figures you will find they are more in likely to be correct without adding the 3 points.

Bob

[Silver Charm]

>Who Bob and John beat is IRRELEVANT.How FAST he ran is all that matters.

Or in this case how SLOW he ran.

[Tabitha]

TGJB Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> CTC-- You are using raw times, comparing rough
> classes of horses. We are using figure histories
> of the exact horses in question, with previous
> efforts adjusted for track speed, weight, ground
> etc. Who do you think has a better handle on what
> happened?

Actually, I predicted before the figures were published that the efforts of High Limit and \"Bob and John\" would be controversial and
scored disproportionately.

The quote below is interesting.
 
> \"For what it\'s worth, they watered the track before
> each of the first 4 races, again before the 6th,
> and no more afterward. The first 3 races held
> together. The track got much slower for the
> fourth, and gradually speeded up slightly
> thereafter as the day went on, possibly because it
> was drying out...\".

In this quote you state the track got very slow with the 4th race, which by the way involved 3YO 32 Thousand Maiden Claiming Fillies. Just how many races had these fillies run to establish a sound pattern of repeatable figure races?

I\'ve bet upon a lot of cheap young maiden claiming fillies in my life and there is only one truism that I can take from that class of race and it is this:

\"Maiden claiming fillies are notoriously unreliable.\"  

Just how much stock are you willing to invest in the notion that those fillies were reliable enough to gage a major track \"Slow Down\" upon? By your analysis the track was speeding up post 4th race. What if you were incorrect about the track becoming abysmally slow in the 4th? If the track actually remained static or sped up slightly by the Strub what would that say of High Limits effort? Could it mean that \"Bob and John\" may have actually run faster than High Limit?

Is there any reason to believe the following pedigree may be finding maturing form?

http://www.pedigreequery.com/bob+and+john

Silver Charm began this thread with a quasi thought provoking post, then intimating that Bob and John may be the next fast horse. He then made a sudden retraction to defend the host assigned number. Would the Real Silver Charm please stand up? Is he the One that impliedly questioned the number assigned or is he the Silver Charm that abandoned the implied theme of his post to embrace High Limit as the next great handicap star? But even more importantly, which Silver Charm is correct, the sincere one or the disingenuous one? The inside money is on the proposition that he doesn't know.

[Silver Charm]

>Silver Charm began this thread with a quasi thought provoking post


Quasi thought provoking post?.....this thread has you up half the night then editing what you said late morning the next day.

>then intimating that Bob and John may be the next fast horse.......High Limit as the next great handicap star.......

>which Silver Charm is correct, the sincere one or the disingenuous one? The inside money is on the proposition that he doesn't know.

>Would the Real Silver Charm please stand up?

This apparently has turned into a Handicapping Board version of \"To Tell the Truth\". Between church, 10-K readings, and the competitors conference call I haven\'t an opportunity to respond properly. Also out of respect to the proprietor of this Board and his highly competent staff I reserved my opinions.

However I have decided my considerable reputation has been challenged and to withhold my opinion could be interpreted as a sign of cowardness.

[tgposter]

Bob and John Race: 24.2 48.4 112 136.2 149

High Limit Race: 23 47.1 111.2 136.2 149

I think there\'s a pattern here:

a) The final times that tend to come up on the fast side compared to the rest of the day also tend to be accompanied by *moderately* slow paces and generally uncompetitive race developments. That was clearly the case in the B&J race.

b) The final times that tend to come up on the slow side also tend to have very fast paces and competitive race developments that wipe out all the contenders (the 2005 Derby) or extremely slow paces (many turf races).

*Perhaps* Beyer is overrating High Limit\'s race a bit. The horses behind him are not all that good this season (at least yet) and those that set the pace are cheapsters that dueled each other off.  

*Perhaps* Bob and John ran a faster race than recently, but mostly because of the easy circumstances and not because of any special improved ability. Perhaps he wouldn\'t have run as fast against faster fractions and more competitive competition.

*Perhaps* (stress perhaps) the track didn\'t change speeds and both figures should be *about* a 105.  

105 would tell us that High Limit improved in his second start off a layoff, Ice Cole and Acexecutive dueled each other off, Giacomo came back short but not that bad, and Greely\'s Galaxy is a one hit wonder.

105 would tell us that B&J etc... imnproved their recent figures partly because they are lightly raced horses and partly because the early pace was moderate and uncompetitive but not so slow it hurt them like in a turf race with an extremely slow pace. That left all of them with more in the tank for the last 4 furlongs than a more typical race.

[Tabitha]

Silver Charm Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> >Silver Charm began this thread with a quasi
> thought provoking post
>
>
> Quasi thought provoking post?.....this
> thread has you up half the night then editing what
> you said late morning the next day.

The fact that I was up late had nothing to do with your post. The edit was a single edit for a typo because the issue was whether the track \"sped\" up, not \"speed\" up. Clearly the track was getting faster late. The issue is whether it was slowed down by multiple lengths in 30 minutes before it started a \"generally faster time trend\" Thorograph thinks it did took a substantial \"slowing hit\" in one race that applied to the Strub as well. I don\'t.

>
> >then intimating that Bob and John may be the
> next fast horse.......High Limit as the next great
> handicap star.......
>
> >which Silver Charm is correct, the sincere one
> or the disingenuous one? The inside money is on
> the proposition that he doesn't know.
>
> >Would the Real Silver Charm please stand up?
>
> This apparently has turned into a Handicapping
> Board version of \"To Tell the Truth\". Between
> church, 10-K readings, and the competitors
> conference call I haven\'t an opportunity to
> respond properly. Also out of respect to the
> proprietor of this Board and his highly competent
> staff I reserved my opinions.
>
> However I have decided my considerable reputation
> has been challenged and to withhold my opinion
> could be interpreted as a sign of cowardness.

Still not sure where you stand. Maybe, you dont have a firm conviction either way.

[Silver Charm]

Tabitha,

I\'m doing to you what I do to all of my women.

I\'m making you BEG FOR IT.........

[TGJB]

Miff-- Beyer (who at this point is the only other American figure maker I know of worth talking about in terms of judging track speed) has HL running 13 points faster, or 4 of our points. In other words, we both came to the conclusionthat the track changed speed quite a bit-- just disagreed about how much.

CTC-- While the track was at its slowest for the maiden claimer, it was still much slower after that, compared to the first three races. Nobody hung anything on one maiden claimer. But there was enough historical data in that race to come up pretty tight with a figure, and most definitely enough to know it didn\'t make any sense at all to use the variant from the earlier races.

Jim-- I\'ve gone through this before, but the way to do this is not by looking at each horse and deciding whether it\'s possible for them to have run the worse figure. It\'s by looking at each horse and seeing what the percentage chance is of them running in different ranges, and one of the quicker ways to do that is with the Thoro-Patterns. But in this case, just look at what percentage of each horse\'s figures are 3 or more points off their tops, historically-- and then think about the percentage chance of so many doing it.

Just to give you an idea-- if it\'s 50% for one horse to run that bad (it\'s not), it would be just over 6% for only 4 horses to do it. And the same goes the other way-- if it\'s 30% for each horse to run a paired or new top (it\'s actually higher), the mathematical chance for only one of 11 to do it is very small (Jimbo showed the formula for that one around BC time).

[Silver Charm]

People are really getting sensitive over this issue. Posts being deleted, must be a case of cabin fever. Anyway here goes

For those following along please see the first post from TGJB in this string which contains PDF files of both the Strub and Sham.

Bob and John for most Baffert Trainees has been a slowly developing individual who has received, for this particular conditioner, light training. However Baffert has followed a similar pattern with his two previous Derby winning trainees, who were products of his program: Silver Charm and Real Quiet.

http://www.thorograph.com/archive/files/derby1997.pdf
http://www.thorograph.com/archive/files/derby1998.pdf  

This may explain why he has, as TG has accurately measured, paired in his last four efforts. Going into the Sham, Bob and John according to the Thoro-Pattern analysis was 40 % likely to pair, which is precisely what he did. But we are still in February and as the sheets of the aforementioned champions explains things change once we get to March.  Bob and Johns work pattern has been a blend of the four, five and six furlong variety, (see DRF workout archive). The last two were not bullets. Which means the trainer was backing off on the pressure attempting to get his runner to reach peak form as the stretch run to Kentucky begins in the first of March. As the intensity and distance of the works starts to pickup expect to see Bob and John make that next inevitable forward. But don't expect to see it any sooner than that and absolutely don't think you saw it when you really didn't.

High Limit unlike Bob and John was a fast horse from the get go. And despite the efforts of the most patient of conditioners the horse suffered thru a early productive three year old campaign that was beset by physical problems over the remainder of the season.  After a six month break from dirt racing High Limit returned with a game front running effort in the San Pascual and put it all together in the Strub doing something he previously had not done. Rate kindly and finish strongly. The result was a breakthrough Top. If High Limit is over his physical issues and can hold his current form, the trainer profile says he has a 42% chance of paring his Top. A pair of that effort makes him highly competitive on Big Cap Day, with holding his from being the primary concern instead of distance limitations.

[TGJB]

SC-- what posts were deleted? It wasn\'t by me.

[miff]

Jerry,

There was a post by a new name TGPOSTER that compared the splits of the two races and made some suppositions. I read it.It\'s gone.

[TGJB]

I just called Paul, and he took down a post from a guy who is barred here. Not because of content, but because of source. If that guy sends it to someone we do allow to post here and that person puts it up, it will stay up.

The poster was CH. After repeated warnings I barred him for a couple of months, but he started posting under other names. After a few of those I sent him an e-mail, telling him to knock it off or I would make it permanent. He kept doing it, and after a few more I barred him for good.

Later this week we are going back to the old way we did things-- if you don\'t have a real e-mail address (not hotmail etc.) you won\'t be able to post here.

[Tabitha]

miff Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Jerry,
>
> There was a post by a new name TGPOSTER that
> compared the splits of the two races and made some
> suppositions. I read it.It\'s gone.

I read it too and tend to agree with with TGPoster. His position was that in all likelihood \"Bob and John\" ran faster than scored here and High Limit ran slower than scored here. My best approximation using site numbers is about a 1-2 for High limit and about a 2-3 for Bob and John. If you deduct 3 points from ALL in the Sham the race is still viable. If you Add 2 points to all in the Strub the same is true. In the Sham there were young, improving age horses. In the Strub there were comeback and questionable horses.

The individual that deleted TGPosters response is probably the same individual that removed CTC\'s \"Ask the Experts\" access.

Silver Charm, the older Derby patterns are probably not as applicable for a number of reasons. One of which being the current vogue of \"Projection\" and strict adoption of \"Changing Track Speed Theory\". Assignment of Pairs is more likely with that methodology, as is assignment of some really big numbers, when the Pairs don\'t actually occur.

TGJB, its entirely possible that I could be persuaded by perusal of the Sham/Strub card MSW race past performances with the figures earned. For that matter it wouldn\'t hurt to see the entire card with post race figures earned. By offering only the subject races with the figures earned all that is suggested is Projection dictated that the assigned numbers be assigned. We know that. My take on it at this point is signficantly different than a 5 for \"Bob and John\" and a Negative 1 for High Limit. I believe the track was quirky early, but speeding up by the 7th to be as about as fast as the 3rd race.

You\'re position is fast early, really slow by the 4th, despite watering, and then no water beginning with the 6th and then a quickening trend due in part to drying, but never getting so quick as the 3rd when watering was suggested to be keeping the strip glib. Understanding nature plays an enormous role, its very hard to follow the logical consistency of fast, very Slow, Quickening, but still slower than the early races when watering ostensibly made the track faster. In the face of that, the 9th race final time looms.

There may be a difference, at this point, there is no objective basis to believe it is a 6 point difference.