Various

[TGJB]

Spacing-- nobody said that NO horses could fire on short rest, it\'s a matter of percentages, and they are more likely to fire with more rest. It\'s also a matter of percentages with the studies we pushed about 3yos coming off big efforts. There was only one horse that fitted the criteria of last year\'s study (3yos who ran a new top of neg 1 or better), and HS went back, though not much. There were two that fitted the second study (coming off an effort that big whether it was a new top or not), and one paired (SS), and one didn\'t (HS). What we should have done was broken the second study down into ones that had just run a new top and those that had done it before-- and if someone wants to take the time it would be interesting to see what that reveals.


So Cal-- On all patterns involving a top (\"0\"), what matters most is how you feel about the \"0\"-- whether it figures to be a knockout number, is one that the horse returns to often, one that is progressive, etc.

[miff]

There are those horsemen who will argue that a horse coming off of a big performance, who continues to thrive, is better with three weeks than say 5-6. As you know,sharpness is not something that a horse can maintain indefinitely.

No one knows for sure but it is definitely trendy today to give them more time, maybe because they are more unsound or maybe they do not breed horses with iron constitutions anymore.


Mike

[Perfect Drift]

The sports world also lives in an age where people are afraid to make mistakes; afraid to lose; afraid to take on a challenge.

Pletcher and Frankel will NEVER race a horse into shape, they would prefer to sit and wait on the sidelines until they can find a spot, with rest, and have the horse win.  They are very concerned about winning percentage - both of themselves and their steeds.  Hell, they have both scratched horses from Grade 1s, especially Frankel, because they felt their horses were assigned an extra pound or two.

Look at NFL quarterbacks... of the 32 teams, how many have starters would you rank above \"managing the game\"?  The NFL is now a league where a gigantic percentage of passes are < 10 yards, get a couple of first downs, then punt for field position. Brett Favre is now ripped for his style of play because he takes lots of chances and at one time he lauded for being a \"gunslinger\". Now, a TD/INT ratio of about 2-1 is an expectation.  

Remember Dan Fouts?  One of the great gunslingers in NFL history.  He AVERAGED over 300 yards/game... but his career TD/INT totals... 254 to 242.  Completely unacceptable in the 2007 NFL and the sudden rage in QB rating that is often broken down by quarter!

Remember Ferdinand?  8 wins out of 29 starts!  Boy, though, he competed in the biggest races and provided some great memories.... think Frankel or Pletcher would let one of their stars go 8 for 29?  Hell, how many of their G1 stars would run 29 times?

miff Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> There are those horsemen who will argue that a
> horse coming off of a big performance, who
> continues to thrive, is better with three weeks
> than say 5-6. As you know,sharpness is not
> something that a horse can maintain indefinitely.
>
> No one knows for sure but it is definitely trendy
> today to give them more time, maybe because they
> are more unsound or maybe they do not breed horses
> with iron constitutions anymore.
>
>
> Mike

[SoCalMan2]

TGJB -- Thanks for the comment.  Here is the follow up question though, if the \'0\' would normally look like a knock out (which would have been the case for the Filly in question -- Western Sweep), does the \"2-X\" following it change a \'0\' that would be a knockout to one that you would expect to get back to sooner.

Looking at Western Sweep\'s sheet, my view of her \'0\' changes based on the next race (which in this example was the all so important \'2\').  For example, if the 9.5 was instead a \'X\' (like a 12 or 13), then I am not so sure I would be expecting her to come back to the \'0\' or better in the race last Friday.  In the case of a 0-X-X rather than a 0-2-X, I would have definitely had her moving forward into Friday\'s race, but not nearly as sharply as the 0-2-x pattern caused me to believe.

Do you agree?

[TGJB]

Knockout number and number that figures to cause a bounce are not the same thing. For a spring 3yo, it would take a pretty extreme situation (like, heavily raced plus very big jump) to say a figure was one that a horse figured to be unable to return to within 3 starts. As a very broad generalization, healthy 3yos are running their top or a new top at least every other race, unless they jump to a big top, as was the case with the filly in question.

And yes, what happens after the top can also influence my opinion of what the top meant to the horse. But that\'s a double edged sword-- 0-2-2 is not necessarily better than 0-2-X, and might even be worse, again depending on how big the top is-- multiple efforts can also take something out of a horse.

Two other points-- first of all, if the X is really extreme, I don\'t like it unless the horse has extra time before the next start. Second, 0-2-X is similar conceptually to the pair and off race pattern- both are two efforts followed by an off race. There are situations where I would prefer one to the other, but that gets into case by case issues, and I don\'t want to generalize.

[fkach]

I still have trouble with the spacing issue, but I don\'t have the data to study it the way I would like.

I did an exhaustive study of NY racing that covered 18 months awhile back. I broke everything down by days between races, class, with or without workouts, distance, surface, how well the horse ran last out, and a bunch of other relevant info.  The evidence overwhelmingly supported the idea that if a very sharp horse came back quickly, his chances of winning and his ROI improved.

In reality, it suggested the longer the spacing, the more likely it was for form to CHANGE from the last race no matter which end of the performance spectrum the last race was at!

If a horse was coming off a win and was given a longer rest it would not do as well as those that came back quickly.  

If a horse was coming off a bad race and was given a longer rest, it would do better than those that came back quickly.

A friend of mine that generates figures of his own just tested his own database using his top figure for each race covering about a year and came to very similar conclusions. His top figure did much better if the horse was coming back quickly (both win percentage and ROI).  

The only way I haven\'t seen it tested is by just looking at the figures the horses ran and then came back with.

I think a lot of this issue comes down to performance extremes and things upon which people disagree when it comes to interpreting the performance (as opposed to just how fast it was). Also, it is clear that some trainers do better with certain spacing. Pletcher clearly does better with more spacing. But that may be a training techique issue and not a horse issue.

[alm]

This all makes sense.  Maybe Oscar Barrera was just a man ahead of his time.

[miff]

On spacing, Pletcher stated that RTR is ready to run now and he did not know if she would be as good if he waited for the filly race in two weeks.



Mike

[miff]

Hate the 0 off a poor foundation or extended layoff,and if the 2 follows, I\'m tossing for sure next start. Also don\'t expect a return to 0 in next start in that scenario.Have seen too many nice horses destroyed off of huge performances without foundation.


Mike