Blue Grass

[Chuckles_the_Clown2]

Zanjero is an interesting case study. I\'m sure you realize he was taken over by Asmussen for this year and the Bluegrass was his third start. Appearing to have been less than stellar out of the gate, he laid down a 1.12 in training. I thnk the fractions on that track were legit.

i\'m also of your opinion that for the Derby it is best to put a line through the race. Factor it never happened.

miff Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Chuck,
>
> Common sense, just look where the very slow early
> Zanjero was laying the entire race. That alone
> tells you the pace was pedestrian.How the fig will
> be scored is another issue.
>
> Mike

[Caradoc]

Chuck: I\'m not saying horses can\'t improve by 3 points; I\'m saying it\'s unlikely that all these horses ran as well as you think, given their past histories and simple probabilities.  

It appears you are approaching the race as Beyer does because you are treating relative ground loss as irrelevant.  In your view, the first three finishers all get the same figure, even though their trips were vastly different.  Whatever their numbers, SS\'s figure has to be about 2 points better than Zanjero\'s.

[TGJB]

Michael-- I\'m sure I\'m going to have to adjust the BG for pace. And probably many other poly races-- they aren\'t just like grass races, they are like European grass races.

The industry leaped before they looked...

[miff]

\"Michael-- I\'m sure I\'m going to have to adjust the BG for pace. And probably many other poly races-- they aren\'t just like grass races, they are like European grass races.\"

The industry leaped before they looked...


AMEN,JB!!



Mike

[TGJB]

And Michael, in the interets of fairness-- no sooner did I shoot my mouth off than Asmussen started getting some big forward moves.

On the BG-- haven\'t seen ground or the day as a whole, but seems to me that Teuflesberg and Dominican had similar tops going in, good place to start.

[Chuckles_the_Clown2]

Jerry,

I\'m sure you haven\'t had time to look at the Bluegrass closely yet, but there were other routes on that card without the ultra pedestrian early fractions. Do you really think the last two races can be explained upon every horse being throttled until the stretch?

Do you think the homestretch was quicker than other parts of the track? Heck, from my perspective the entire track is different from one section to the next. I\'ve not been a big Poly follower but this card\'s outcomes were patently ridiculous.

What was the name of that horse that won the Poly Lane\'s End last year? He was offered for immediate syndication, ran like poop in his next start and died shortly thereafter. You may be able to predict similarly for the Bluegrass winner.

Wide was not an impediment on that surface. It\'s going to be an interesting Figure, but I\'m with Miff, throw the race out and handicap the Derby upon the basis that the Bluegrass was never run. If you want to back those from the Bluegrass besides Street Sense you\'ll get good odds. You will probably need them.

I\'m doubly sick of Poly now.

TGJB Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Michael-- I\'m sure I\'m going to have to adjust the
> BG for pace. And probably many other poly races--
> they aren\'t just like grass races, they are like
> European grass races.
>
> The industry leaped before they looked...

[NoCarolinaTony]

You\'re entitled to Bet Aqueduct all winter too.

Now thats what I call racing.....

NC Tony

[TGJB]

CTC-- the idea behind the \"slow pace\" designation is that sometimes the pace is so slow the final time is affected-- you see it happen often in grass races here, and on a regular basis in Europe. What happens is that they go so slow that they simply can\'t make up the lost time-- they can\'t run 20 second quarters or 40 second halves. TG, Time-Form, Beyer, and Ragozin all adjust our figures when that happens, though we have different ways of doing it (Ragozin evidently has some kind of formula, according to Friedman, while the rest of us go by the horses).

[miff]

Tony,

Not talking about the quality of the horses, talking about the surface. Kee has the best horses by far right now and the worse surface to try to figure them.The inner at NY is one of the easier surfaces to gauge, the horses are awful.


Mike

[Chuckles_the_Clown2]

Jerry, I appreciate the accuracy of the response, but I\'m not a complete novice upon this. Are you saying that had they run a legitimate pace race they could have run say a 1.50?

On the basis of the 8th race I\'d speculate that they could have. The fractions of that race were:

23.57
46.59
1.09.57
1.21.26

Which means the winner ran the last eighth in 11.79, which is quick.

But I\'m not sure you answered my question, other perhaps than to dismiss it with a detailed \"Turf Pace\" explanation. Is that what you believe, or in other words have you ruled out track conditions changing to a degree that one rarely if ever sees?

You make Poly figures all the time. I rarely if ever study them. Last year there was no need to look at the Lanes End. This year, the figures have to be thoroughly considered or completely dismissed. Was it all pace?

TGJB Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> CTC-- the idea behind the \"slow pace\" designation
> is that sometimes the pace is so slow the final
> time is affected-- you see it happen often in
> grass races here, and on a regular basis in
> Europe. What happens is that they go so slow that
> they simply can\'t make up the lost time-- they
> can\'t run 20 second quarters or 40 second halves.
> TG, Time-Form, Beyer, and Ragozin all adjust our
> figures when that happens, though we have
> different ways of doing it (Ragozin evidently has
> some kind of formula, according to Friedman, while
> the rest of us go by the horses).

[Michael D.]

TGJB Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Michael-- I\'m sure I\'m going to have to adjust the
> BG for pace. And probably many other poly races--
> they aren\'t just like grass races, they are like
> European grass races.

that\'s why I love em Jerry.

seriously, I do like the experiments at WO, TP, Kee, and Hol. those were four awful dirt tracks. if we had the old Kee configuration on Sat, that would have been one ugly mud fest, with Teuf running off by ten.

four is plenty tho. AP and the rest of Cal is going too far. we are talking about changing the breed here, what\'s the hurry?

[NoCarolinaTony]

I always thought handicapping was all about adapting.

Those who play best always adapt. This is not to say that you don\'t, i just don\'t understand the big deal being made of this. It\'s liKe playing the poker hand you are dealt to win. and as you\'ve said before, you have choices so you don\'t have to play.

Although the way tracks are changing surfaces, you might want to learn it now vis a vis later.

Tony

[Chuckles_the_Clown2]

Tony, Poly is only a trend and is already on its way out.  Thats inside information.

Don\'t get me wrong. I think Poly is a wonderful tool for Cheney betting. FYI Cheney betting is where you shotgun a few beers and then shotgun all the long odds horses in a race. The chances of such a horse winning are increased upon poly. The Bluegrass and a few others on the card are evidence of that. But I certainly already knew that.

TGraphs purpose and my style is to find a truly advantaged horse that is predominate over his contemporaries. I don\'t want track quirks to take away from that insight and I\'m certain TGraph doesnt either.  

I did read that you liked Dominican, so congrats. That four horse on the line finish had to be thrill with Dominican using ever inch of the bias and erratic footing by Street Sense to put a nose on him. It certainly was indicative of the \"Shotgun Principle\". Winning is winning, but aiming with a rifle is going to be much more enjoyable in the long term. Think hes a Derby horse?

Nevertheless congrats...Good luck on the Lexington. I\'m not going to bet it but will be very eager to see if you raise the Beretta.

P.S. Maybe you deduced that a good closer with a shot is the way to wager Poly. If so, you\'re not the only one. That said, it should be pretty clear to you that the fact that Dominican got up tends to indicate the pace of the race was legit. Then again, maybe your 12 guage had him winning by daylight on a \"fair\" pace.

[fkach]

>23.57 46.59 1.09.57 1.21.26<

23.57 and 46.59 is obviously crawling early when the horses run 109.57 etc... after that.

Based on a few of your posts, I believe you are confusing track speed with jockey strategy. The paces tend to be slow on Poly because the jockeys have figured out that if they run real racehorse time early they have no chance of winning.

You can\'t look at all the paces and say \"well they were all slow so the track must have been playing slow early and fast late because of wind or the track being fast in some spots and slow in others\".

While that is theoretically possible, that\'s not what\'s happening at KEE. It\'s obvious because it happens quite consistently at KEE and to a lesser degree on all the other Poly tracks too. The jockeys are riding like it\'s a European turf race because it\'s the best way to give their horse a chance of winning (especially going long).

[NoCarolinaTony]

Ctc,

Was no shotgun approach to it. (I chugged a couple of Kentucky Bourbons, not beer BTW). Backstretch noise said Great Hunter was not himself. Leaving only two runners. Even with Prado up, you had to hope and think that TBerg had distance limitations.

As for speed figs being a panacea to find those hidden gems, everybody has a figures someplace (BRIS,BEYER,RAG,TG,and others) The hidden figure is much harder to come by in the modern era of racing, (ie even Jerry will tell you that). Good figure ovelays are pounded at the windows making them underlays more often than not.

I don\'t handicap the Derby until the field is set and PP\'s are known.

Tony