AP and Big Brown

[beazley]

Mr Z looked like a good bet to pair or break through (per the analysis) but was too slow going in. He even has some trouble in KD as jock was instructed to keep clear of AP. He has run well on the slop.  He looked like he handled it okay yesterday too.  He was beat 17 lengths. Assuming he lost 2 lengths of ground, AP beat him by 7.5 on TG scale. Puts him -3 range again.

Dort clearly ran an off or X. If Dort is a point faster in SA Derby and a point slower in KY Derby (seems reasonable) he was primed to regress and did since he only finished a couple lengths ahead of Z.

It TB is 2 points faster Divining Rod has a nice line coming in (not choppy) and could have run a top yesterday.  If he ran a 2 that puts AP in -2 range which could be a pair of Derby if you had that a point slower.

Not obvious that AP went backwards at all in Preakness.

[miff]

Beazley

In that scenario Verve ran app a 10 point top....yikes! Verve did come into the Preakness in the TG 9 range on Beyer and Rags but still a huge move up to get to like a TG 2.

Ugly weather, track sealed, harrowed before Preakness then squeezed after, very tough to get a solid fig

Mike

[TGJB]

A wet track won\'t necessarily cause horses to run poorly, but in extreme weather circumstances like yesterday (when clearly some totally spit it out) I would be less inclined to give out new tops than usual. Second horse has to get a big jump no matter what, less inclined to give out others, but we\'ll see what it looks like. We\'ll post the day when it\'s done.

[Flighted Iron]

Calculate is more appropriate.yesterday would require some projection.

[beazley]

Yikes is right. No matter what he gets he should bounce in Belmont.  Agree weather was horrendous and impossible to make good figs.  But in that case we should be careful reading AP pattern and automatically conclude he backed up. I gave a couple reasonable scenarios that would have him pairing although I readily admit my amateurism in this area.

[miff]

At least 2 fig makers came close to pairing AP\'s derby fig

[TGJB]

Do they use ground?

[miff]

Was just talking AP\'s Preakness fig( no ground yesterday) No ground used but the adjustment to convert it to reflect ground is easy.

Tough to criticize any fig for the Preakness.Beyer actually had AP backing up from a derby \"performance\" Beyer of 111 to the performance Beyer of 102 in Preakness.

Pace adjusted Preakness fig from another service came very close to pairing AP\'s derby fig.AP set wicked early pace considering track speed.

Penciled you in for like a TG 0 assuming you would use 3rd place horse as main data point.

[TGJB]

You may mean this already, but if they don\'t use ground and had him pairing they have him going back about two ground adjusted. Which is not far from what you have Beyer.

[miff]

Yes,in one case, in the other the pace adjustment came up so strong that it coincidentally compensated for the value of AP\'s Derby ground loss in making the final Preakness figure. Actually AP backed up like 1 length there.

Strongly feel that type of pattern read Derby vs Preakness is a very slippery slope, on any data.

[Leamas57]

Of course, the rail might have been faster than the outside as well. Witness Verve on the rail most of the trip. Would explain a couple things....

Leamas

[Flighted Iron]

First look was at Preakness chart compared to TG. neg 1.25 is what it looks to be.

Secondly,it\'s very difficult to quantify the Preakness racetrack so each of us is going to supplement differently.

I could ask you if you\'ve ever spent months on the Pimlico backstretch followed by long days of handicapping at said track.Rainy days,cold days,cold
rainy days,warm rainy windy days...

I deleted my cheap shot and i have my boyz JCR and TKL to thank.

Their were some cool cats and cool dogs in town this weekend!

[Deadrockstar]

It seems like \"less solid than usual\" is being charitable when talking about the difficulties in assigning a number for the Preakness, especially when you yourself acknowledged that there was a 20 percent chance or so that you might have gotten the Derby 2 points fast.

[TGJB]

Dead-- Presumably you realize that the fact someone says they have quarter point accuracy doesn\'t mean they actually do. What we do is not \"objective\", after assembling and entering ground, wind, weight and beaten lengths.

After that it\'s judgment, and what \"rules\" (assumptions) the figure maker uses. As I have said before, the most important handicapping decision you make is what data to use.

[Deadrockstar]

I\'m not saying any other figure maker is going to be more accurate than you and I wasn\'t taking a potshot or siding with Ragozin; I\'m just suggesting that getting the Preakness right (or even especially close) is a crap shoot given the circumstances.  

(And, for the record, I don\'t use Ragozin unless attending Hardoon\'s seminars on a Spa weekday.)