PA Derby - Why?

[jimbo66]

An informal poll of views on why Love of Money ran away with the PA Derby.  Curious as to what people think.  Which one (or ones) of the following makes most sense?

1.  Every horse in the race \"x\"-ed except for Love of Money.

2.  Dutrow filled the horse full of drugs that moved him way up.

3.  Love of Money is a super horse and really is 10 to 20 lengths faster than the other horses in the race.

4.  Love of Money caught great circumstances in that several other speed horses in the race didn\'t get out, he got to the rail and relaxed on an uncontested lead, breezing through a slowish 3/4 mile on a track that had an inside speed bias all day long.  Thus exaggerating his margin of victory.

I vote for #4.  However, that explanation relies on the existence of two handicapping principles that JB and others don\'t believe exist.  The first being that biases don\'t exist, at least not in the short term.  No such thing as a golden rail or outside path bias (which most would argue exists most of the time at Belmont).  Second, speed horses racing alone on uncontested leads don\'t run faster than if pressed through quick fractions.

I would like to hear if JB thinks that Love of Money would have won by open lengths if Wimplestilskin pressed him through a 45.1 half, instead of a 46.4 half.

[fasteddie]

OK, I\'ll bite....what you need to understand here is that no matter what methodology one subscribes to, horses are not machines!

That being said, watching the Pa. race was like watching War Emblem\'s Derby; a speed horse no one respected, and thus the presser/stalkers let him go and paid the price.

Handicappers have to come to understand that no  method can accurately quantify POTENTAIL. TGJB & co. do it as well as anyone, and I say this as a player who subscribes to a \"pace is the race\" philosophy.

He opened my eyes to pattern & potential, to go beyond raw numbers, and to look at how the race \"shapes\".

Do I have issues with how he does numbers? certainly! Same as with Beyer, Bris, etc...

Look at todays\' Form article in which Dutrow clears 35k on this race; he states he was inspired by Society Selection\'s stretch-out move. Could be a simple case of a fresh horse catching a stale group at the right time!