Belmont Card Finals

[richiebee]

pizzalove Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Andy Beyers speed figures are still a good tool to
> use.  But that is all they are, a tool.  Even
> Beyer says you always have to look at how a figure
> was earned.  Same with TG.  More incredible
> information than anything I have seen but some of
> the areas that are measured like weight and wind
> speed, ground loss etc.... are hard to always nail
> exactly.  So you need to look at how fig was
> earned.  


This is at least the second time you have marginalized \"weight\" as a factor in
one of your posts. I will not make you review years of handicap racing, only
ask that you ask yourself why an apprentice, such as young Eric Cancel at
NYRA, bursts on the scene against stronger more experienced riders and enjoys
such success.
 
> I have only been using Thorograph since like 2006
> so I don\'t know how some of these negative figures
> compare.  I will say that if American Pharoahs
> negative derby figure would place him in the top
> 10 percent of derby winners according to
> Thorograph well that is crazy.  I was there.  I
> saw the speed favoring track, I saw the claiming
> horses in the first run faster than the derby
> horses.  I saw the slow, slow, derby fractions and
> the dawdling trip home.  

You are mixing soup and nuts. Why don\'t you study the Archive and you will
probably be happy to find that many Derby winners were faster than AP. But I
thought we were talking about the Triple Crown, so while in the Archive answer
my question -- how many 3YOs put up a negative TG # in each of the three TC
races?

> And you are right when you say that the horses in
> the derby that ran with him in the Preakness had
> nothing.  Exactly.  He ran against nothing.  Verve
> was second.
>
> One thing the beyers will tell you is that horses
> that run loose on the lead can run their highest
> number (see bellamy road).  AP was loose on the
> lead in the Preakness and the Belmont and ran a
> 102 Beyer and a 105 Beyer.  

I do not know if this is fact, assertion, opinion or some hybrid. The way I
have usually seen this stated is that a Beyer figure for a runner who was as
you say \"loose\" is somehow inflated, but talk is cheap and I have not seen the
definitive study on this, so I will continue to look at the Beyer for a
blowout winner with some skepticism.

> Let me close by saying this.  If you just looked
> at last year.  I would say without a doubt that AP
> WOULD NOT have beaten California Chrome.  Without
> question.

This explains a LOT. A Chromie. A fan of the least qualified HOY in recent
history. There will always be a sucker for a flashy chestnut.

TVG threw up a graphic a few months ago saying that CalChrome was the first
Kentucky Derby winner since Secretariat to win a G1 turf race as a 3YO. This
really made the phlegm come up, because while Secretariat defeated two very
tough international fields of older horses (setting a course record at Belmont
for 12 furlongs which stood for decades), CC defeated an overmatched Canadian
3YO filly in a race where the graded status was very questionable (this was
the renamed resurfaced Hollywood Derby).

[TGJB]

You\'re not going to find MANY Derby winners who got a better TG, either.

[richiebee]

Yes, my mistake, for some reason negative 2 was stuck in my mind for AP\'s Derby.

Sorry forgot one fast one

This Century KY Derby:

BIG BROWN      -4³

AP             -3

Barbaro     -2²

Orb            -2

Street Sense   -2

Others:

Chrome          0

[mjellish]

Pizza, I\'m trying to understand your comment about Chrome would have beat AP no question.

If you go straight off the TG figures, AP would have dusted Chrome in last years Derby by many lengths.  And based on everything we have seen thus far from both bodies of work for these two, if they race later this year, perhaps in the BC Classic, assuming both are healthy, 100% ready and on a neutral track, AP will dust him there and probably pretty easily.  I base that mostly on the numbers they have run to date, which is really the only empirical form of measurement we have.  And AP has more upside.  He\'s only 3.

[pizzalove]

Lol I deserved that.

[pizzalove]

I did not check the archive.  But if you say that a majority of horses that won the derby were faster than AP then that makes me feel way better about the TG derby fig for AP.

[richiebee]

If you read ALL the posts you will see that as best as I can reckon only one
Derby winner was faster than AP in this century.