A couple observations

[jimbo66]

I think it is pretty clear that Zenyatta ran better than many on this board thought.  (put me at the front of that list).  

She was gallant in defeat, but the posts here are way overboard.  Mike Smith didn\'t lose the race.  This is what Zenyatta did her whole career, drop way off the pace, then come running.  It just so happens in that in her slow paced synthetic races, her drop back was 10 lengths.  Against very fast colts on dirt, she dropped further back.  Smith actually saved some ground on the far turn and found a seem in the 2 or 3 path, as opposed to going 5 wide.  Once clear, she had a chance to get by Blame, but as she approached and Gomez driffted Blame out astutely so he could see her coming, Blame just dug back in.  He wouldn\'t let her pass even after the wire.  He was better today.  She was gallant, but he was better.  Blame actually spent a good portion of the backside on the dead rail.  It is clear, he loved Churchill Downs.  

Quality Road was downright awful.  It was MORE than the dead rail.  Miff and others that said QR was doomed with the rail post were certainly correct, but still, even with being caught down inside and being on the dead rail, coming in last?  I know the law of numbers says that Pletcher will have lots of \"flops\", but it seems like he has an awful lot of these in major races.  Even when \"pinned down\" in the slop last year, this horse ran negative 3 and change. What did he run today, a 10?  

Not sure LAL wants a 1 1/4.  Got a wide trip from Garcia, but that was expected.  Still lacked punch in the stretch.

Goldikova is some kind of horse.  It is too bad it took me 3 years to realize that whatever kind of figures TG or Beyer or anybody else give her, they don\'t capture how good she is.  Once they straightened out in the stretch, she just mowed them down.  Large fields in the BC Mile on the turf are not supposed to have blowout finishes like that.  It is supposed to be closer.  She is awesome.  Best Miler I have seen, period. Not close.  Would smash Lure and Miesque if you ask me.

[123]

They could put Goldikova in an auxillary gate and she\'d still win. Push button acceleration! Her stretch runs are amazing.

[BB]

Understatement of the year?

"She had a very good turn of foot," winning rider Olivier Peslier said.

Can she make it four?

Goldikova's owners and breeders, Alain and Gerard Wertheimer, did not rule out another year of racing.
"We have no idea what she's doing," Gerard Wertheimer said.

[miff]

\"Goldikova is some kind of horse. It is too bad it took me 3 years to realize that whatever kind of figures TG or Beyer or anybody else give her, they don\'t capture how good she is\"


Jim,

TG had Goldy a little slow but she laid over on Beyer,Timeform and Rags.Finally brought her \"A\" race yesterday and despite an ugly-ish trip,whistled.

On QR,Johnny V obviously protected the horse when he stopped trying at the 3/8ths pole.Horrible training job by TAP,dead rail or not,dulling QR out and spacing him a ridiculous amount of time into a 10F race.The post draw was the absolute nail in the coffin.

Your observation on Zenyatta is perfect imo.Between the kickback and the first split on the long run to the first turn, she was out of her comfort zone.Think should may have won if she did not have to angle out sideways past the 7 horse as they straightened off the far turn.On the other hand, Blame is the pit bull type who may have refused to let her get by regardless.Good Classic but pretty ordinary adjusted time wise,Beyer gave it 111,a little generous.


Mike

[Badride]

What was the TG on Goldikova.   Shes an absolute monster.  Who needs any kinda figure when a turn of foot is that visable.    Im sure her being smallish adds to how quick she looks, but god is that something.   When you can see them visably quicken that like, unreal

[Silver Charm]

We had Paddock access for both days. I let a couple friend of mine go down for the Turf Mile. Fortunately the girl knew enough French to understand that the one word Freddie Head kept saying over and over and over to Pesslier was \"Wait\".  

Also saw my man \"The King\" before the Sprint and shortly after as they went to unsaddle. Difficult to say what he was more upset about regarding the wide trip, because of what it cost him in the Purse or the Super!

Which he had anyway.......

[bstaubs22]

I went deep trying to beat her in the p4 and when I saw her warming up on the track before the race I felt like a fool. F. Head was also accurate when he said GIO was the main rival since they came 1-2.

B

[Millennium3]

I posted this earlier way down, but it fits better on this thread. Agree Zenyatta ran better than most here thought. But it was also clear here on this board, as opposed to the press, that her task was going to be much tougher than anything she\'d faced before. She arguably ran the race of her life, and by the end it looked like she\'d given everything she had.

Looking at the race again, it\'s easy to play \"what if\" about Zenyatta. But the truth is Blame actually ran just a little bit better than she did when it mattered, in fact he actually had to fully commit to kick for it sooner than she did and still held himself together. The pace was brisk but not suicidal, yet the front runners were starting to fold sooner than you\'d have thought they would have at this level of racing. So the moment of truth for the contenders which were close up came at the 5/16ths, just before coming out of the turn, instead of the preferred tactic of fully committing after you\'re out of the turn, balanced and upright. Blame, Lookin At Lucky, and Etched had to have their spots to strike already claimed and basically commit before they came out of the turn, or risk gaps closing if they\'d waited until straightening up. In that way, Zenyatta did almost exactly what she did last year: cut the corner inside and then move outside at the 3/16ths. If you watch both races from the 1/4 pole to the finish, her stretch run looks basically the same. Blame, however, had plenty of his own work to do. Once he got to his opening, it took him from the 1/4 pole to the 1/8 pole to fully beat back Lookin at Lucky. He was now fully committed, and then he still had to fend off Zenyatta, who was well out in the middle of the track. So he had to commit early and put two good ones away in succession, and yet he still kept finding more to do it. Zenyatta really put in her same run as last year in the final quarter mile - in fact she was the last one to commit, which the way this race unfolded, was an advantage. It may have taken her a bit longer to get outside, but the stretch run at Churchill is about 30 yards longer than Santa Anita. As Smith said in his press conference, he needed Blame to fold a little bit. And Blame never did.

As for Quality Road. I don\'t know about a dead rail or not, but it was clear once the gates opened his chances were slim-to-none. This was a very unhappy animal coming down the stretch the first time. He was on the wrong lead all through the first quarter mile, and his head was tilted to his right. It was clear this was never going to be his day by the time they went 10 strides into the race. Whether he was jarred up mentally by the lights, or the crowd, or whether he never fully recovered from his Met Mile, the fact is that before they went a 16th of a mile, any tickets with him on them were bound for the trash heap.

[Footlick]

Shirreffs said she was recovered from the race about 10 minutes after she cooled out, just like always.  Amazing

[TGJB]

Mike-- that\'s horsepucky, and you know it. You and I were going to finish our email conversation anyway once the results were in, so this is as good a place as any to start. We\'ll finish when we put up the BC figures.

I have the Ragzoin data for the BC. Not only did Goldikova not lay over the field, Paco Boy had three figures as good as the best Goldikova ever ran (which was not true on ours, Goldikova had a slightly better top). Comparing their figures on Ragozin, 3 of Paco Boy\'s last 4 were better than ANY of Goldikova\'s last 4.

Paco Boy finished fourth in a 3 horse blanket for second, with 2 other horses within a length behind them. Which is exactly the way the race figured on TG, except that Goldikova exploded. When we do the figures for the race, take a look at them.

Also-- the conversation we had was about your opinion that the Euro figures were too slow in general. An awful lot of Euros ran, and it will turn out they ran to their figures. Watch and see.

I was debating whether to go into Ragozin, but since you have, I will.  It\'s not just that their data did not correlate with the results AT ALL (as you can tell by not a single person posting on their board about hitting a single race, let alone winning for the BC as many here did). It\'s that their data these days has no correlation with reality, with common sense. Just a couple of quick examples:

Awesome Feather-- third race back, which is a stake win by 5 lengths. We have it a 7 1/2. Ragozin has it a 19. Seriously.

Dubai Majesty-- the G II win in the prep at Keeneland. We have it a 1, they have it an 8.

Bekhabad-- If they ran the Turf a 100 times, on Ragozin, Bekhabad would win it 90 times, with De Bussy winning the other 10. Dangerous Midge would win zero times. At the weights, they had Bekhabad\'s last 3 races 4-5 points faster than anyone else in the race had ever run, except De Bussy (once), who was 2 points off Bekhabad, best-to best. They had Bekhabad with a perfect pattern (2-3-2). They had Midge off a lifetime top of 6, and he was spotting a point of weight to Bekhabad. While I did not like him because I thought he would bounce, it\'s important to note than on TG, Midge was FASTER than Bekhabad, best-to-best.

Hey Ragozin customers-- I\'m not doing this to give you s--t. But you are far better off using Beyer than Ragozin-- they are at least in the ballpark, don\'t make the BIG mistakes Ragozin makes a LOT of. Here\'s my suggestion-- listen to the BC seminar, look at the BC numbers when we put them up. On days you buy Ragozin, look at our Red Board Room the next day and compare. Give yourselves a break.

You have nothing to lose but your chains...

[richiebee]

JB:

The East Village Boys may have blown a couple of numbers, but they do have both
Chuckles AND NYC 1347 on their message board now.

[miff]

\"I have the Ragzoin data for the BC. Not only did Goldikova not lay over the field, Paco Boy had three figures as good as the best Goldikova ever ran (which was not true on ours, Goldikova had a slightly better top). Comparing their figures on Ragozin, 3 of Paco Boy\'s last 4 were better than ANY of Goldikova\'s last\"

JB,

In an unbiased look at both sets of BC figs, RAGS has figs that are not credible far more often than any fig maker, scale to scale.The example you correctly point out is just one of many. Boys at Toscanova is another. Goi Ponti, yet another, not even close.

On TG,after an exhaustive look at that day and conversion your fig for Fly Down does not reconcile(ground loss,track slowing still don\'t get it there)

Those of us who interpret the sheet methodology differently,DISCOUNT phony wide figs,a la Paco Boy vs Goldy.Do you really believe the horses you had close to Goldy were anywhere near as fast after watching yesterday.I don\'t, just confirmed what I felt before the race.

On the Euro\'s,some of their superiority is tough to display after shipping across the ocean, quarantining and not having time to totally acclimate.I\'m never surprised that many do not perform their \"A\" race. Don\'t know any American turfer who would be competitive at Group 1 level in Europe, yet the figs do not reflect that. Common American turfers are as fast or faster than Group 1 euro\'s??

To each his own.

Mike

[smalltimer]

JB,
Two of the best examples of the difference between the 2 services are in the numbers of Pluck and Dakota Phone.  Take a look at those and what jumps out is the pairing or opposite directions these two horses are taking into the race.
Rags has Pluck pairing and TG has him moving forward,
Rags has Dakota Phone regressing 1 point and TG has him moving forward 1 point.  Same horses moving in different directions.  Two winning horses Saturday.
There are many more examples.

[TGJB]

Mike-- wading through that:

The Travers figures have held up extremnely well so far, about as well as any figures ever do, in fact. I told you myself that I didn\'t expect Fly Down to get back to that figure again soon, if ever. The rest have been DEAD on-- First Dude, Kimmel\'s horse, etc.

I don\'t know what you mean by phony wide figures for Paco Boy, since some of his races in Europe were down straightaways, and others around one turn, without much ground loss being involved. But you still don\'t get it-- if you move up Goldikova\'s figures you have to move up Paco\'s, and all the other Euros, in the Mile and other races. When you see the BC figures see for yourself how that would work out-- make whatever correction you want for Goldikova, and then make it for all the other Euros as well. If you do that they will all have magically bounced in the BC, save for Goldikova.

AGAIN-- take a look at the figures for the 2009 BC, still in the Archives section. Look at what the Euros had coming in, and what they ran here. Focus. That\'s how you know whether the figures are right, not by how you \"feel\" the Euros are.

[TGJB]

Yeah. I just named a couple of the more egregious ones, but man... if you covered up the names on top I would have no idea whose sheet I was looking at, in many cases. I mean, race after race, just crazy stuff. Turf sprint winner is another that comes to mind, just another horse on theirs (and with a bad pattern). Second finisher in that race is competitve on ours (not that I used him, just used 2), unusable on theirs.