Ask The Experts
General Category => Ask the Experts => Topic started by: vagrant on April 20, 2015, 10:23:31 PM
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Since 2001, horses that ran a negative number in their final prep races are almost three times more likely to win the Derby than those who didn\'t.
The negatives are 24-3-2-3: 13% win, 33% ITM.
All others are 241-11-12-11: 4.6% win, 14% ITM.
Winners: Orb, Big Brown, Smarty Jones.
Second: Bodemeister, Lion Heart.
Third: Musket Man, Curlin, Afleet Alex.
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Theory here will be two preps, pair of tops and 5 weeks rest best pattern. Preferably fast enough to win already. Not a rule of course. But fair amount of data behind all of that.
Would think that fits Mat, Star, Firing Line and Dubai horse to a tee. With only two of those being fast enough to win already though.
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Funny how the rest angle doesn\'t seem to help Pletcher at all. In fact, seven of his eight top-4 finishes came of three weeks rest.
With three weeks off, he\'s 21-1-2-2-2.
With 4+ weeks, he\'s 17-0-0-1-0.
He babies his horses into the Derby too much, imo. The three-week crew is tougher, tighter and clearly perform better -- no matter what their odds.Three of those 7 were 30-1 or higher. It\'d probably be 4 of 7 if Impeachment hadn\'t been coupled in 2001.
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Ah, we\'ve arrived back on Planet Thorough-Graph.
One of the toughest thins things this time of year is picking through the noise and figure out what\'s relevant and what\'s not.
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Isn\'t that mostly a factor of being the fastest horse? Even with the last couple years, a negative number in a prep seems pretty rare. With large samples, we should expect the fastest horses going in to win, a lot.