Okay, guys.

[TGJB]

Attached courtesy of Mark Coomes and Chris Johnson.

What we\'re looking for is the usual breakdown (new tops, pair, off, X), broken out by no CD works, one work, 2 or more, before the Derby.

[TreadHead]

Love it.

Here\'s another one I just read...

Horses who have earned $1mm prior to the Derby are 1-36 in the race, lone exception was STreet Sense.

[TGJB]

You think that\'s comparable to the question of horses getting a work over the track?

[TreadHead]

Nope, just an interesting factoid I had no idea of, similar to this one.  Since both have been going on for so long, kinda crazy they were not more well known.

Could be something at least somewhat interesting to it, however, as it suggests that horses that put forth enough effort prior to the race to win a million might be tapped out by Derby time (or are too brilliant in winning the shorter races).

[jcipoletti]

That stat caught my eye too. Figured a horse has to start a fair amount to amass those earnings, so started looking at performance as a function of career starts.  Since 2005, 13 horses with 10 or more career starts have entered the gate, with 11 running X\'s, one Off and one Top.  Since 2009, it is 6 X\'s out of 6 runners.  

Street Sense only had 7 starts before the Derby.

[TGJB]

Jcip-- I\'m definitely interested in someone running THAT one going back further. Wow.

If you do it, please let us have a list.

[pizzalove]

If memory serves me correctly I beleive in 95 Tejano run who ran second had shipped in late.

[jcipoletti]

Going back further with it tonight, will post what I come up with.

[ChiTownJoe]

Any chances we can get the list of non-workers and off odds? Average is what 3 per yr?

[jcipoletti]

Did a quick scrub of the data, found a couple 3.5pt Offs I had mistakenly noted as Xs.  Invite others to point out any other errors you find.  

Derby Performance by # of Starts

[vagrant]

It\'s in there. Click the second tab, marked No CD Work.

[phil23]

Ok, did it manually, could only get pp\'s (to check where they last worked) dating back to 2010 (4 years worth) online. So ran those, for every horse in each derby. If anyone has older pp\'s or knows a site that has them, can run the older ones.

RESULTS 4 yrs - 78 horses

2+ workouts at CD - 32 horses
TOP 13%
PR 16%
OFF 25%
X 47%

1 workout at CD - 25 horses
TOP 12%
PAIR 24%
OFF 24%
X 40%

0 workouts at CD - 21 horses
TOP 0%
PAIR 19%
OFF 14%
X 67%

It\'s only 4 years worth but...that 0% tops for 0 works at CD does kind of stand out. But again, only 4 years worth.  And actually, given what we know of how few run Tops in the derby, maybe it should be the other way we are looking at it, that having at least 1 work over the track seems to yield a better % of tops than the usual 8.5%

But again, really need some more years to confirm


One thing that did stand out going through these, and this is interesting for THIS YEAR\'S derby. All of Makers horses (5 in total, all OFF\'s or X\'s) before this year had everyone of their works leading up to the race at the Training Center. Not at CD itself. Whereas this year, he brought all three over, VIC and HH will have had 1, and if the weather allows tomorrow or the next day, AROD will have had 2. And more to the point, they will all have been on the grounds since last Tuesday (22nd) afternoon.

A couple of notes

-Backtalk, in 2010 had his 2nd last work at CD, but his last, for some insane reason, at KEE. I included him in the group that had exactly ONE work

-Giant Finish, 2013, brought in late by T. Dutrow, I am pretty sure he had 0 works over CD, that\'s what news reports indicated (was not in the pp pdf i had for it for some reason), if anyone knows if he did in fact have a late blowout a day or two prior to race over CD?

-Prospective, 2012, had his final 3 works over CD but with a race in-between, the bluegrass. So I took him as having just 1 (his lone work after the bluegrass) at CD.

[TreadHead]

Nice!  This is great work.  Still a small sample size, but bears watching if there is such a thing as \"too much foundation\".

[phil23]

I\'ll echo tread\'s props, nice work.

If we combine yours (10+ starts last 5 years yielding 0 Tops or Pairs for 6 horses) with mine (0 works over CD last 4 years yielding 0 Tops for 21 horses) it does sort of point to some possible questions for a certain horse who just shipped in today. Mind you we\'re playing with some seriously small sample sizes at this point.

[jcipoletti]

Much appreciated guys...happy to finally contribute something after sponging up knowledge here for years.  

Sample size notwithstanding, the combined question marks are hard to ignore.