Thoro-Graph and the Dosage Index (edited)

[jbaugh66]

First of all, I\'ve stalked here for years and there\'s truly no better place for Derby discussion than this board.  Kudos to TGJB for being an active participant on the board as it is rare indeed for a host to mingle with the commoners in the message board world.

The reason for my post is the awesome Historical Derby spreadsheet that was posted yesterday.  Overnight I did a little tinkering with it and here are my findings.

The chart below breaks past Derby starters into several categories.  For the purposes of this study FAST= Route Top of less than 3 and CONTENDER is based on field size, but is approx 15-1 or less.  Records for each category are listed as Starts-Wins-2nd\'s-3rd\'s-4th\'s along with a % of exacta finishes.

 9-1-2-0-0 Slow Contenders Above 3.5 Dosage (33%)
26-0-0-3-1 Slow Contenders below 3.5 Dosage (0%)
83-1-4-1-4 Slow Non-Contenders below 3.5 Dosage (6%)
23-3-1-0-2 Slow Non-Contenders Above 3.5 Dosage (17%)
62-9-7-5-3 Fast Contenders Below 3.5 Dosage (27%)
14-1-1-3-1 Fast Contenders Above 3.5 Dosage (14%)  
59-1-0-2-3 Fast Non-Contenders Below 3.5 Dosage (1.7%)
21-0-2-1-1 Fast Non-Contenders above 3.5 Dosage (9%)

Upgrade the Win and Exacta chances of any horse that has a Route Top of 3 or higher AND a Dosage Index of 3.5 or higher.  Since 1998 the record of these types is 32-4-3-0-2.


Downgrade the the Win and Exacta chances of any horse that has a Route Top of 3 or higher AND a Dosage Index lower than 3.5.  Since 1998 the record for these types is 109-1-4-4-5.
 

Horses with a Dosage Index lower than 3.5 must also have a Route Top of less than 3 AND go off at 15-1 or less.  These low Dosage Index horses that failed to meet both of the above criteria are a miserable 168-2-4-6-8 since 1998.

Horses with a Route Top of less than 3 must also have a Dosage Index lower than 3.5 AND go off at 15-1 or less.  These fast horses that failed to meet both of the above criteria are a miserable 94-2-3-6-5 since 1998.

[smalltimer]

I took a quick look at the Dosage Index site and the only horses with DI higher than 3.50 are
Intense Holiday 3.80
Vicar In Trouble 5.00
Wildcat Red 5.67
Vinceremos 7.00

I don\'t know if there are others that should be included on that site due to late deletions or additions.

Looks like they included 25-30 of the Derby potentials listed.

[toppled]

First of all, these days many of us are doing a lot of number analysis and even if I disagree with your premises, I have to tip my hat for your attempts to analyze the data in a way that we may not have thought of. So while I disagree with some of your findings, it\'s nothing personal, just a different interpretation of the data that you can take with a grain of salt. (Full disclosure-I\'m looking at a horse that doesn\'t meet your criteria to be a major player at odds of >15/1)  

When 3 of the last 5 winners have paid 15-1 or more, I wouldn\'t be trusting the public\'s making of the odds as a criteria to toss a horse.  If I had a horse who met my criteria except his odds were over 15/1 and because the worst knowledgeable betting pool of the year made him an overlay, (a player\'s dream) I\'d have a tough time tossing him and seeing him pay $35.  The fact that the win percentage for slow non-contenders above 3.5 is the 2nd highest win % (13.04%), only surpassed, and not by very much, by fast contenders below 3.5 (14.51%), would lead me to believe that maybe odds aren\'t a very good criteria to use as a toss item & when you\'re upgrading higher dosage horses all I think this proves is maybe it\'s time to just say dosage is an outdated method for picking Derby winners, especially since only 3-4 horses in this field have a dosage index above 3.5.

[TGJB]

Before this goes sideways:

I was not and am not endorsing use of Dosage for handicapping, and I\'m certainly, definitely, not advocating using it for specific horses.

There\'s a difference between large population and small population studies (which fortunately for me nobody in Ragozin\'s office, including Ragozin, ever understood). It involves mostly when it\'s right to use averages, and when it\'s not.

My assumption, since the Dosage guys make their decisions based on the results of races, is that the Dosage stuff has some correlation with generally accepted analysis of pedigrees being \"sprinty\" or \"distance\", ON AVERAGE. That makes them of some use in the type of large population study the guys did here, since if the Dosage guys get some wrong it will wash out, plus or minus, given the large numbers.

That\'s a whole different thing than thinking specific ratings they give out are accurate. Even if you accept their premise, there are a whole lot of things wrong with the methodology used to come up with Dosage-- I once did a segment on Post Time about this. I don\'t have time now, but after the seminar is up next week maybe I\'ll go into it, if anyone cares.

[jbaugh66]

I wouldn\'t use this for making selections myself so I certainly don\'t take any offense.  The use of the odds was intended more to make sure I\'m comparing horses with similar chances of winning.  Like you I view odds of 15-1+ as a positive because we all want value.

Here are a two things that I think might be interesting to take from this.

1) The faster the horse the more important the pedigree for the distance.  The horses that have outrun their pedigrees on Derby Day were on the slow side coming into the Derby and the fast horses that flopped had weak distance pedigrees.

2) The public overbets slow horses with strong pedigrees in the hope that the additional distance will be just the medecine.

3) The public overbets fast horses with poor distance pedigrees.

Why I think it may be important in this years derby is because California Chrome is a fast horse with a questionable pedigree.  At 3.4 his dosage index slips just under the 3.5 from the study, but after factoring in the fact that he\'s a Cal Bred and the huge surface switch from SA to CD.  I think he\'s an awesome bet against.

[HP]

Haven\'t there been a few Derby winners where after the race the Dosage guys went back and revised their calculations to make the winners fit the profile?  I think Strike the Gold was one of these?

[toppled]

Even without all the extra analysis, the fact that CC isn\'t any faster than a few other contenders and at least 1 horse has a pattern that (to me) screams new top (I\'m looking forward to seeing if JB agrees or disagrees with my opinion when I get my Derby day sheets and I\'ll be monitoring workouts from the public clockers like Welsch etal.), there should be plenty of opportunities to take a stand against CC.  I can\'t imagine too many people around here will be going in on CC.

[TGJB]

What\'s the over/under on Miff\'s using the term \"Kool-Aid\" over the next 10 days?

I\'m hamstrung by not being able to comment until the seminar. But man, is there a lot of stuff to talk about. We\'ve got all kinds of studies, some new (involving DATA), and I\'m not even going to get into the Dosage/distance stuff, which is really interesting for what it DIDN\'T show.

I can think of one old-school Staten Island Italian who\'s going to be really surprised (and grumpy) when he finds out Kool-Aid can be nutritious.

Tons of stuff to talk about, lots of studies, hope I get the damn thing written.

[smalltimer]

You\'re not going to get anything done if you insist on reading all the posts on here, including this mindless one.

[TGJB]

Usually end up doing the seminar writing midnight or later, last few days. Collecting thoughts and studies now. You would be surprised how many variables can a) come up, and b) be measured, for one race. Really interesting.

[smalltimer]

So many concepts are placed on the board it seems like an impossible race to play with lots of confidence, unless you jump in like mjellish and a few others.
Getting a clean trip with a solid contender probably trumps everything else, keep statement being \"solid contender\".
I\'ve had very good success in the past just tracking which jockeys continuously find themselves in trouble in these 20 horse fields.
Its not been a secret I\'m a very long time fan of Mike Smith, yet, in the last 5 Derby\'s he\'s found trouble 3 different times with working a trip.  The 2 lone exceptions being Bodemeister and Palace Malice, both of whom sped to the front and avoided trouble.
Even J. Castellano has managed to have trouble lines in 3 of his 4 mounts.
And Jon Court is batting 100% with troubled trips all 3 of his Derby\'s.
Bejarano is clipping along at 3 bad trips in 5 Derby\'s.
The king trouble finder is Leparoux with 4 troubled trips in 5 Derby\'s, the lone clean trip was on Awesome Act who broke 16th and finished 19th.
Kent Desormeaux 3 bad troubled trips in 3 Derby\'s.
The clean trippers?  Among others Maragh, Nakatani, and Rosario.  All clean trips except Maragh has only passed 4 horses in 3 races while Rosario (I know Orb passed a bunch last year), but he also passed in the other two races a total of 12 more horses, (4 and .  26 horses passed in 3 Derby\'s with no trouble yet. I know off the pace, blah, blah, blah.  
Even Borel has had trouble lines in 2 of his 5 Derby races.
So, far from a science, this rationale can be like walking on the edge of a razor, yet, the guys that find trouble seem to find trouble, and those who avoid trouble tend to avoid trouble and still make meaningful moves in the race.
Just adding to the confusion here.

[FrankD.]

Variables are abound I\'m sure as you hit double digit scotches at 3:00 AM !!!!
Not that you\'re a known night owl at all JB.

[TGJB]

Frank-- Vodka, not scotch, and at least 3 nights a week not that either. I can\'t even read a comic book after drinking, let alone write something.

[smalltimer]

This topic did not draw a lot of attention because we all know the Dosage Index went out the window too long ago to remember.  Since I join the rest of the room in considering Dosage a non-factor, I still wanted to respect a fellow TG\'er who put a fair amount of time and effort into his theory.
The only category I had any interest in was the Fast Contender with a Dosage of < 3.50.  
This chart played a mild factor in my setting aside a small \"basket\" of wagers using as a secondary factor in addition to the main factor being JB\'s numbers on the horse.
The result was actually very profitable for me and something I\'ll consider doing in future Derby\'s.  But not as a primary handicapping factor.
Using the mentioned category I thought it showed the most promise.
There wound up being 4 horses that met that criteria.  ( Fast horse, TG figure of 3 or better and < 15/1 odds).
Up until they sprung the gate and Candy Boy dove from 16/1 down to 9/1 there were only 3 horses that met this criteria.
California Chrome, Danza, and Wicked Strong who were of course the 3 betting favorites.  Had Candy boy remained at 16/1 he wasn\'t in this category.
Then I looked and the forward moving patterns of horses in the remaining field that had a TG of 3 or less and landed on Curve.  It did prove to be a pretty good tool in eliminating 10 horses in the field.
I wound up with Cal Chrome on the top of 6 tickets and in the place hole 19 times.  I played Curve on top 4 times and 8 times in the place hole.  I also had Danza on 11 tickets spread across the super board, and Wicked Strong 7 times in various spots.
Long story short, I got lucky but not real lucky.  I had Wicked in the 4 hole on 2 supers, but Samraat who lost by a nose to Wicked in the 4 hole 6 times at twice the odds.
Moral of my story is I\'ll use this as a small contributing factor in the future. But, without solid, realistic TG numbers to rely on it does no good.
Different strokes for different strokes here.