California Horses

[TGJB]

Attached find the sheets for the horses that ran on BC day that ran in California at any time this year. Some ran well, some did not.

In general, when I\'m looking at this stuff, I\'m not just looking at the stakes horses, but others, and not just the ones that ship out of California, but into it as well. There have been a lot of horses that came into California from Calder and ran new tops (although some  were for Mullins), and Even The Score ran a new top in California for us at an advanced age.

Having said that, I\'ll keep an eye on it, and I\'m sure that some of you will have comments about the ones that ran in the BC, and going forward.

[Saddlecloth]

I thought it interesting that gotaghostofachance got slower when he went to california from the east (while running well out west) then got faster all of a sudden when he headed back to belmont.  also captain squire suddenly got faster as well.

stevie wonderboy wins and now gets a better figure then his last by 7 points.  the rest of the california horses ran like crap because they are terrible, Borrego is complete junk and always has been.  

[miff]

Jerry,

I would like you to isolate only the CAL dirt runnners who ran well in NY( much better than previously in CAL) and offer your thoughts/insights remembering:

1.The runners are off bute.

2.They shipped cross country to a quirky Belmont surface.

3.The normal\"projection\" methodology seems out of sync for their NY performances, ie, do not come up  in line (many lifetime tops)


Is it not possible that the prior CAL TG figs, of these suddenly improved performers, were more a function of you unintentionally \"cheating\" them out west?Thanks.

Mike

[TGJB]

Miff-- well that\'s why we\'re going through the exerscise, right? Here\'s what you do-- print out those sheets, take only the dirt ones, and put them in 3 piles-- the ones that ran better than their last California figure, those that ran the same within a point either way, and those that ran worse. Borrego goes in 2 piles due to the 2 numbers-- and illustrates the issues. If you only had the Gold Cup to judge him off, you could take the position that he was just running back to his California figures. But it\'s a little more complicated now.

Saddlecloth-- you are a real deep thinker. It\'s not about whether the horses are \"good\", it\'s about the figures they ran relative to their California figures.

[miff]

Jerry,

OK, it was not clear to me that there was an exercise going on.Thanks.

Mike

[TGJB]

Miff-- what I meant was, posting the sheets so that everyone could draw their own conclusions about that question. I do keep an eye on this, and I think the figures are all right even for this group, given that so many ran worse than their Cal figures. But a couple did surprise me, and I\'ll keep an eye on it.

[magicnight]

In the interview after the sprint on JCGC day (the Vosburgh?), Gary Mandella said that one of the reasons he brought Taste of Paradise out east was that he was a big guy who had trouble getting out of his own way on the CA tracks and would seemingly take to BEL\'s wide, sweeping turns. Even if you take all trainer comments with a grain of salt, those two big figures from this 6YO could well be due to a \"horse for course\" angle. FWIW.

[jimbo66]

Jerry,

THanks for posting so that we can reach our own conclusions.  Your \"open-ness\" on these types of issues is appreciated by this customer and I am sure others.

I am at a loss of what to make of it, to be honest.  The problem is that the figures you give in each race are projections and based on the previous races. So, it might look OK on a sheet after the BC but still be pretty off (potentially).

Let me give you an example.  I am having trouble with Folklore bouncing almost 5 points and still winning the BC.  But if I look at the second place finisher from California, her sheet now looks fine, she paired her previous top.  So, it looks fine.  But if your California figs are off, then she didn\'t really have a \"6\" in that California race and if her pairing that top was part of the justification for the rest of the figures for the BC Juvy Fillies, then it becomes \"bad on top of bad\".

By the way, the best way to swallow the BC JUvy fillie race and how slow it was is to give credence to all the pace handicappers out there and say that pace made the race there.  The reason I have trouble with that is because Folklore did not appear to running at a breakneck speed and was well within herself.  But then the time comes back slow, the fig is a five point bounce and she still wins pretty easily?  

jimbo,

\"By the way, the best way to swallow the BC JUvy fillie race and how slow it was is to give credence to all the pace handicappers out there and say that pace made the race there. The reason I have trouble with that is because Folklore did not appear to running at a breakneck speed and was well within herself. But then the time comes back slow, the fig is a five point bounce and she still wins pretty easily?\"

For what it\'s worth, pace guys like me spend a lot of time building charts that equate the fractions with the final times.

It\'s even more complex than making final time figures because wind can have an even bigger impact on the fractions than on the final times. Full races are usually part with the wind and part against it. The early fractions are sometimes all with or all against.

The early fractions of the juvenile filly race were very fast relative to the final time and relative to the other routes that day. Plus, they were \"against the wind\" in the backstretch. So if anything, the pace was even faster than looks based on the raw fractional times.

You make a good point about the visual aspect of the race. Sometimes the numbers and fractions don\'t seem to match up with what I seeing either. One observation I have made is that sometimes very fast horses look like they are running well within themselves even when they are running very fast. In other words, if a horse is capable of running 21.4 45 in a sprint, then it will look like it\'s just coasting when it runs 22.3 45.1 in a route, but it is still taxing to do so at a route.

I can\'t tell you what the correct final time figure is for that race, but from my perspective there\'s very little doubt the pace was fast enough to impact the winner and several horses that were near her at various calls. IMHO, she was much the best Saturday.

[TGJB]

Jimbo-- that race was a big problem, no doubt. I would have loved to give out better figures, but that would have meant breaking it out from races on both sides where the track was basically the same, and there just wasn\'t enough evidence to justify it. I waited on this one until I talked to Porcelli-- if he had told me they did anything at all different before that race (water, harrowing, not harrowing), a couple of points were coming off. But they did not, so we are left with only the scenario that the pace busted many.

But what all this does is highlight the need to look at large population samplings to determine a question like this (California/Eastern)-- this is an entirely different kind of question than determining the figure for a particular race. And frankly, while Wild Fit could be a bit of evidence one way or the other, it\'s only a small bit of a small sampling.

[Josephus]

Interesting that I read today that Wild Fit is going in a sale.  Maybe they don\'t think she\'s that \"fast\" or \"good \" either.

[NoCarolinaTony]

Jerry,

Thanks for being open to even entertaining the questions Cali vs Eastern. I think this is a significant enough issue to investigate. I am glad to know at least you care enough to look into this. Many others would stand pat.

All things aside, The Classic came up quite formful in the end with Borrego Bouncing. The top 4 were well within their comfort zone.

It\'s a little ironic that LITF ran back to his previous Belmont Fig as well.

Also was Pleasant Home\'s Fig the best Fig ever given to  a filly at distance? Or filly Period?



NC Tony