Calvin desperate?

[mjellish]

Sek,

I don\'t know why you seem to have such a hard on for me anytime I disagree with you.  Let me make this clear to you.

NO - I\'m not changing my story at all.  I just added the details of why I said the rail was better later in the day.  
 
YES - Calvin does ride closer to the rail than just about everyone else.  And YES this makes a difference at Churchill, especially in the slop.  So NO - Calvin is not lucky.  He makes his own luck.    

YES - Supersaver was likely to get a 1W trip around the first turn.  

NO - Supersaver was not guaranteed to get that trip.  Especially around turn 2.  

NO - I do not look for patterns on a Roulette Wheel (dunno where you came up with this or where you are trying to go with it).  

And - for what it is worth - I would agree that all too often people see one type of runner winning and assume this means there is a bias.  For example, I think someone on this board, maybe even you, said that speed was backing up at Oaklawn on ARK Derby day and that closers had the best of it.  But I didn\'t see it that way.  I saw front runners with suspect form run out of gas or solid horses go too fast early, and the pressers and closers reaped the benefits exactly as they should have.  But when a fit front runner caught soft fractions that day they punched their ticket, just like they should have.

I don\'t want to bogart this board with a back and forth.

So YES - this is all I have to say about this.  You can have the last word.

[miff]

It\'s only relevant if you have horse.Horses 1w 1w run in toliet every day if they are empty. All equal,fence a edge.

Re Calvin, don\'t think he can hold a candle to Rosario, Bejarano and neither has a mount to my knowledge.

Mike

[sekrah]

> YES - Supersaver was likely to get a 1W trip
> around the first turn.  
>
> NO - Supersaver was not guaranteed to get that
> trip.  Especially around turn 2.  

Just two more questions Michael I\'d like your opinion on:

#1. What were the odds off Super Saver throwing Borel at the gate?  That\'s about the only way he wasn\'t getting 1W in the first turn.  Even if he stumbled or was caught flat footed, he still would have gotten the rail into the first turn (although obviously it would have hurt his chances).

You are acting as if this was a 70%-75% shot.  I simply don\'t see, barring a disaster of some sort, how he doesnt get 1w in the first turn.

Given who was riding him (who had already won 2 races that day by bolting his horses to the rail within the furlong), it was a 99.99% certainty he was 1w going into the first turn.   Say Borel gets Shackleford this time and draws the 4 post.  Dialed In, Nehro, and Toby\'s Corner are to his inside.  Do you think he\'s not getting the rail?

#2. Who was going to move inside Borel once he got 1W first turn?  The expected suspects took the lead in front of him, Borel had to navigate around 1, it took less than 3 seconds.  And like you said, nobody goes where he goes.  So who was getting inside Borel after the first turn?

[Einstein66]

I believe Rosario has a mount (Brilliant Speed).

[mjellish]

Sek,

Since you asked, I think you are missing my point.  I\'m not trying to debate whether SS was 75% or 99% sure to get a 1w 1w trip.  My issue was with your word \"Guaranteed.\"

Been playing this game long enough to know that you\'ve got to stay humble and not use words like Guaranteed.  And the best time to be humble is not when you lose, it\'s when you win.  Because it could be the last time you cash a decent ticket for a long time.  I\'ve seen some really bad players tote horses that win and then act like they\'re a genius when they in fact constructed a poor a wager and made very little money or maybe even lost.  I\'ve also seen very, very good players go on 0-for whatever streaks, lose some tough photos, etc., go on tilt, develop health problems, get busted out, sometimes permanently.  But I\'ve also seen a few people, and I mean a few, who consistently stay at it and seem to stay ahead of the game.  And at the end of the day they are all humble, at least about the game.  That\'s not to say that they don\'t get a little brash or throw their money around or talk a little smack here and there or party a bit too much or whatever.  But even after a decent score, they don\'t let themselves stay too full of themselves for too long because they know that if you play this game long enough, especially professionally, it will eventually humble you.  There just isn\'t anyone who knows it all, no one approach that will always work, no so such thing as a \"guarantee.\"  It\'s a game of information, the ability to interpret that information, construct a wager, and it\'s a game of percentages.  The way I see it the people on this board are already ahead of the masses simply because they have better information.  And I may even be willing to Guarantee that.

[twoshoes]

Sekrah -

See Eternal Prince...... I\'d guess that was all MJ was trying to say. Better yet, talk to Mig and see if he doesn\'t still harbor a bit of a pit in his stomach from the break in that race.

[sekrah]

I backed off the guarantee.  I say 99% first turn.  95% second turn.  Agreed?  Any one of the 20 horses could break down or throw the jockey out of the gate.  If anyone is worried about that happening they shouldn\'t be playing.

I\'ve seen some really bad players tote horses that win and then act like they\'re a genius when they in fact constructed a poor a wager and made very little money or maybe even lost. I\'ve also seen very, very good players go on 0-for whatever streaks, lose some tough photos, etc., go on tilt, develop health problems, get busted out, sometimes permanently. But I\'ve also seen a few people, and I mean a few, who consistently stay at it and seem to stay ahead of the game.

I agree with this.  I know a mix of these same kind of people as well, but you missed a group.   I know a few really good handicappers who totally boot a race by failing to spot the logical obvious play and then just chalk the loss up to bad flukey luck the rest of their lives.

[TGJB]

Sekrah-- I tell you what. Next time you see a situation where you think a horse in a 12 horse field (let alone one with 20), who is not lone speed, is 99% to have the rail one turn and 95% on the other, you let me know, and we\'ll make a bet. I\'ll take 4-1 he\'s not, which is a big overlay for you.

In the meantime, AGAIN, knock off the name calling and characterizations. You\'re lowering the tone of this board, and there\'s no need for it.

[shanahan]

Dana - you must live in NY or LA I am guessing...the guy owns CD like no one since Pat Day...reconsider -as that comment makes little sense.  There are many great jockeys who have never won the Derby.  You shortchange Mr. Borel, who has a fearless mission of going inside when the option is easy.  Take note.

[sekrah]

TGJB Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Sekrah-- I tell you what. Next time you see a
> situation where you think a horse in a 12 horse
> field (let alone one with 20), who is not lone
> speed, is 99% to have the rail one turn and 95% on
> the other, you let me know, and we\'ll make a bet.
> I\'ll take 4-1 he\'s not, which is a big overlay for
> you.
>

Deal.  Contact me and we\'ll make this happen.  I\'d be willing to make numerous of these wagers as soon as Churchill fires up.

Sorry for lowering the tone of the board.

[Flighted Iron]

Horseracing has a primal taste that holds a matter of attraction. Many times in a lifetime a man will go down inside with no fear and risks life not out of need but in the face of who he is.

[TGJB]

Just shoot me a person to person message when you see one.

[Dana666]

I don\'t like or dislike him. And I\'m not discounting the hard work (for years) it takes for almost any jockey to just get a derby mount, but if you don\'t understand how the luck factor plays into his recent success, I can\'t possibly explain it. But I\'ll try.

So he works that 1w trip that Jerry loves so much out in his mind, and it goes exactly according to plan as all the other riders magically open up the rail just so he can come through, it also just happens to rain on one day when he\'s on a horse who loves the mud, and on and on. And out of 100 derbies, how many do you see Mine That Bird winning? Seriously, how many, really, 1 in 100 -- oh yeah, he won that one. Yeah, that\'s not randomness, that\'s all skill, sure.

Please, there\'s nothing wrong with luck -- but you all are attributing way to much to the man rather than the situations that presented themselves, which, to be fair, he took full advantage of.

What you\'re not getting is the bias in the human brain to try and link cause and effect to results. We can convince ourselves of many of these so called links to causality when most of it is completely random. This is especially valid when considering one person\'s amazing success when matched against others who are seemingly just as talented or whatever; this one dude stands way above the crowd; well, if that\'s the case, don\'t assume it\'s anything special he\'s doing, assume it\'s randomness first and then maybe time will tell if there\'s some other factors in play. I think this observation particularly relevant to Borel in this case. How many riding titles did he win in New York or California, traditionally anyway, the real testing grounds for riders?

Look, if you cashed tickets with Borel, I couldn\'t possibly convince you in a million years that\'s he\'s not the greatest thing since sliced bread, but, again, that could be a bias in your mind due to happy brain chemicals you associate with the big score, not necessarily anything real.

If you hate the thought, don\'t shoot me,  the messenger -- better yet, shoot Nassim Taleb; he\'s the one who honed this philosophy of understanding the world. I just happen to agree with him.

[Dana666]

It\'s not a ridiculous statement at all. A million and one things could happen to him. You\'re assuming he\'ll ride in many more derbies -- how do you know that anymore than I say he might never be a factor in the Derby again? I said might, nothing guaranteed. Why would you assume his success is guaranteed?

[Dana666]

Sounds like some randomness in play here, no?