Pace handicapping

This is a silly debate. All the races count, but even on the most strongly biased days  horses can still win going against the grain. The idea is to look at the all the horses\' performances relative to what you would have expected given a neutral track.  If there\'s \"substanial evidence\" that a certain style or path was outperforming/underperforming relative to expectations the track might have been biased. It has nothing to do with how many winners there were even though that might be a typical scenario.

I didn\'t handicap that card, but I looked at the results for that day (and the day before) and based on odds and finish (not a detailed analysis) it sure looks like inside speed was an advantage in sprints.

[beyerguy]

CH,

First, aren\'t speed and an inside post always an advantage, sprint and route?

Second,I don\'t see an inside speed bias for sprints.  Where is the substantial evidence you say is necessary?

Race 1: favorite wins wire to wire
Race 3: a 3-1 shot hangs on by a 1/2 after opening a three length lead
Race 5: a 7-2 2d choice wins easily on the front, but the favorite runs a bad race as other off the pace types beat him easily
Race 7:  A 5-1 shot lays 2d, 1 1/2 behind, goes three wide into the turn and draws away from the badly beaten frontrunner, that was also 5-1
Race 13:  The longest shot in the field rallies from way, way back to win easily while widest of all
Race 14:  Another horse comes from way, way back, at 7-2, to beat the frontrunning favorite that fades to a badly beaten 4th

I think its very tough (impossible) to assess a potential bias without first handicapping the card, and further, I think most biases are figments of the handicapper\'s imagination.

HP,

I tried to be nice, but if you like to come off as an @$$, so be it.  I\'d rather you go ahead and base judgements on only the part of the card you happen to see or handicap.

[HP]

Beyerguy,

You start your post by pontificating -- \"A lot of frontrunners winning races is not pace handicapping.\" Then you proceed to amplify your points by posting (twice) about races I didn\'t even watch, let alone post about. This is you \"trying to be nice\" and I\'m an ass%$#@?

I \"based judgements\" on races I watched and handicapped. I\'m not passing any judgements WHATSOEVER on the races you\'re talking about, which took place HOURS later.

Hey, I suppose NOTHING could have happened (I\'m sure you have detailed notes on track maintenance!) that could change things between races 7 (4.40 PM) and 13 (7.07 PM). FIGURE MAKERS TAKE NOTE -- no change in variant necessary! Don\'t worry about harrowing or any changes taking place over an eight hour period of racing. Easy day to do!

And by the way, in your carefully reasoned analysis, you left out Race 9, where a horse wired them on the front around TWO TURNS. Which means 3 THROUGH 9 were won in what would reasonable be called \"front running fashion.\" The IMPORTANT thing is that closers won a few later in the card, so you must be right.

My judgement is this -- I thought the speed held up well for the part of the card I chose to handicap, and I think my judgement is borne out by the results. Congrats on your wins later in the day. You\'re too sharp for me. HP

[beyerguy]

CH said \"I looked at the results for that day (and the day before) and based on odds and finish (not a detailed analysis) it sure looks like inside speed was an advantage in sprints.\"

Note, sprints.  That is why I listed those particular races.  I didn\'t conveniently leave it out.  I would have also conveniently left out the 2yo colt race where the winner came from the next county.

Sometimes things don\'t come across in a forum post the way they are intended.  If you took my post as condescending or something else, I apologize.  It wasn\'t meant that way at all, it was merely meant to start a decent handicapping discussion.

I\'ll be sure not to reply to your threads unless I agree with you in the future.

Beyerguy,

I am thrilled to death you don\'t believe in biases. Please promote that point of view as often as possible because IMO it would surely benefit me at the windows if everyone agreed with you.

I agree that on an unbiased surface saving ground will be an advantage for most horses.

I agree that it is difficult to be certain about a bias without knowing the horses very well (which I do not in this case). That is why I was careful to make the point that I didn\'t handicap the races.  However, I looked at the charts for that day and the prior day and I believe there \"was evidence\" of a bias in the \"sprints\". I did not say \"substantial\" for the day in question. I said that in general you should be looking for \"substantial\" evidence.

You seem to have missed the major ideas behind my posts though.

1. Just because there\'s a bias, that does not mean that horses that ran against the grain can\'t run well or that every horse that runs with grain will win.

In fact, on many iron speed days, even when the winner wires the field, good closers will still get up for second and/or third. A superior closer might even win.

A biased track is simply a track that is impacting the results relative to normal - perhaps by as little as a few lengths (perhaps by more). I think of it like a biased roulette wheel, not like loaded dice.

2. Just because there\'s bias, that does not mean it will exist in both sprints and routes.  

3. I know most people tend to discount the performances of favorites (rightfully). However, even when it\'s all favorites going wire to wire, it is worth investigating. A shrewd crowd will eventually begin betting speed horses heavily if a bias is either strong or lasts for a few days. So what looks like logical results can in fact be illogical results that were bet appropriately because of the bias.

4. When there\'s a speed bias, the smart jocks figure it out fairly quickly and rush their horses out harder to get position. The faster pace often offsets the speed bias or WORSE.

I\'m not going to go back and handicap that card just so I know for certain how that track was playing, but one or two exceptions is not counter evidence.

[HP]

You don\'t have to agree with me. But yeah, I thought the first post was a little condescending. No big deal. We\'ll both live. HP

>We\'ll both live<

We should move on. Agreeing on as subjective a thing as bias is virtually impossible because we\'d have to almost totally agree on who should have won first in order to agree on whether or not there was the bias.

I\'m going to bring in things like the impact of a specific pace that offset the bias as part of the conversation and that would throw the whole conversation into a tizzy given some views about pace here.  :-)

That\'s what makes this a great game. :-)

[beyerguy]

I\'ve read most of your posts, and I think we share many of the same beliefs about pace.  I really don\'t disagree with anything you posted above.  

ps.. I do think biases exist, but most handicappers don\'t spend nearly enough time before deciding there was or wasn\'t one and jump to false conclusions.