Early Stab at Derby M/L, '17

[jimbo66]

Socalman2,

War Emblem vs Always Dreamin is an awful analogy.

War Emblem came in off paired \"1s\".  Paired tops.  The only \"reaction\" he had shown was he moved backwards in a turf race as a 2 year old.  Surface change.  Easily forgivable.

Granted, the paired 1s were at a whole new level.  I would have bet against him the first time after he ran the 1 (and I did and lost).  You could have said the pair would take something out of him and play against again, but he was over 20-1 and had paired tops at a competitive level.  I didn\'t use him.  Was in love with Medaglia D\'Oro that year, but pretty sure I remember seeing TGJB talk about a killing in that race, along with other TG users.  

Always dreamin has one figure, standing alone, 8 points better than his prior 2 and 6.5 points a new top.  And will be one of the favorites.  (trainer.....

I am pretty sure that when you see the seminar this year, you will see that horses coming in off pairs is about ideal for the derby.  

Jim

[TGJB]

Let\'s try and get this tied to reality before all hell breaks loose. War Emblem was coming off a pair into the Derby, not a jump, and that was (and still is) the biggest one race score of my life. AD looks absolutely nothing like him. If he pairs in the Derby, then there\'s a comparison.

[ajkreider]

sekrah Wrote:
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> I\'ve thrown out enough Derby winners over the
> years fretting over a horse coming in with too big
> of a top.  It\'s not the be-all end-all.  Until one
> goes backwards, they are very live to keep going
> forward.
>
> Many have won with 3-4 pt tops. This one\'s
> Allowance waltz shouldn\'t be judged on face value.
>  This was a much stronger horse than the figure he
> ran that day.  I brought this same point up about
> Arrogate prior to the Travers and that he had a
> massive move lurking.
>
> I don\'t know if he\'ll end up being my top choice
> here, but toss him at your own peril.

This.

We don\'t have a baseline for Always Dreaming to know whether the FD was the kind of over exertion that will result in a reaction.  Chrome\'s sheet has him going from a 12 to a 1 (6 point top) - a level which he stayed above for 5 more races.

The allowance was a total jog over a very slow track, and he still came home like a train.

[Topcat]

FrankD. Wrote:
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> Rich,
>
> What are you doing up so late? You\'re an early
> morning poster. I\'m hoping your not on suicide
> watch over that hockey team that plays on
> Chicago\'s west side?


I\'ll minimize this here, but . . . Preds were a TERRIBLE matchup for the McLaughlins.  With that goaltending, they could go a long, LONG way.

[FrankD.]

AJ,

This was discussed both the Tampa race and the specially written ALW race for him.
Say he could have run 5\'s in both of them with any effort? It\'s still a 6.5 pt new top in his last prep.

[sekrah]

> Sekrah,
>
> NOt sure what numbers you are looking at.  Don\'t
> remember a whole bunch of derbies with horses
> winning off of 4 point tops.

Gato Del Sol (4.5)
Lil E. Tee (4)
Charismatic (4.5)
Big Brown (4.5)

Side: Wasn\'t the last prep race, but War Emblem didn\'t react to a 7.75 top in the race before his final prep and moved forward in the Derby.

There\'s also a handful of them that have won coming in with 3 point tops.  

Sunday Silence (3.25)
Strike The Gold (3.25)
Mine That Bird (3)
Animal Kingdom (3.5)
Orb (3)


Look I know what the numbers are on tops, I see them every year and know what the rule is. I judge on a case by case basis.  In my method, AD didn\'t run a 7 point top.  More like a 3-4 pt top.

[Furious Pete]

If he pairs in the derby, you\'re looking at 2/1 at best to bet him again, even less if he wins with that number (and then he\'s coming off at least one real effort, perhaps two if Florida Derby took more out of him than it looked). I thought this game was about percentages.

[TGJB]

Frank-- Right.

Here\'s a generalization for you-- since the public wildly overemphasizes the last race, any time you are betting a horse off a big new top (assuming it is not concealed) you are getting the worst of it. Which is not to say none of them win, it happens. But they are inherently underlays.

And it\'s even worse when even pairing the effort won\'t necessarily win... a conversation I have had with Alan many times.

[Fairmount1]

jimbo66 wrote: Always dreamin has one figure, standing alone, 8 points better than his prior 2 and 6.5 points a new top. And will be one of the favorites. (trainer.....

Agree on all points here but must add that I can\'t believe no one has mentioned that AD\'s three wins all came in Florida and that the last two were at Gulfstream Park.  How have TAP\'s horses faired that ship from Gulfstream elsewhere as I forget???

I do recall him explaining in a long article about his Derby failures that his Derby horses just haven\'t liked the surface at Churchill.  I guess people believe this one will like the surface.......

[sekrah]

Furious Pete Wrote:
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> If he pairs in the derby, you\'re looking at 2/1 at
> best to bet him again, even less if he wins with
> that number (and then he\'s coming off at least one
> real effort, perhaps two if Florida Derby took
> more out of him than it looked). I thought this
> game was about percentages.


War Emblem was a toss in the Illinois Derby at 6-1.

[jimbo66]

Pete,

I am going to try and be nicer.  But part of the problem you are having is that you are out of your element in that with each post it is clear you don\'t fully understand a lot about sheets and such.  Which is OK, that is how many of us learned on this board, but you are using terms like \"no brainer\" while also not understanding what you are writing about.

For example, you are talking about betting against American Pharaoh his whole career because he moved forward 10 points second time out.  This is a really really bad statement (using \"bad\" to be nice).  First off, his second race as a 2 year old has little do with his Derby.  Secondly, horses jump up quickly when they are young.  Most of us don\'t measure a horse\'s \"level\" as a 2 year old until they finally either pair or go backwards.  For example a young 2 year old that has a line of 15 - 12 - 7 could just mean healthy development.  However, a line like 18-10-14-7 looks an awful lot like \"bounce\".  The first horse is just getting faster with racing, while the second has already shown he reacts to fast races.  

The second problem with your posts is that nothing is getting through.  You AGAIN using the Orb analogy.  McGaughey and Pletcher is an AWFUL AWFUL analogy on about 1000 levels.  One guy is hay and oats, with late developing horses who take time to get faster and then when they get fast, seem to be able to stay fast.  The latter gets his horses to fire early in their campaigns, usually their best shot right off the layoff, may NOT be a \"hay and oats\" guy and despite you personally choosing to ignore it, has already shown a steady pattern of horses running well in their last 3 year old prep and then going empty in the derby.  The sample size gets even more ugly and if you just look at his Gulfstream horses.

Those facts all matter.

Now, you want to \"guess\" that after 1 for 50 that Pletcher has figured it out.  That Always Dreamin will the one horse that wins the Derby with a line like his, and you want to take him as a top 3 betting choice to do so, god bless.

But don\'t be surprised when people who know this game really well are critical

Jim

[sekrah]

Furious Pete Wrote:
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> But are you guys really so fixated on these things
> that it\'s impossible to look at it from another
> angle? That sure doesn\'t sound like a healthy
> approach. I would really like to have this
> discussion without all the the trashing and
> meaningless arguments because it could be really
> interesting.
>
> I mean, had AD ever been asked for it all I would
> see your points much better, but to my eye it sure
> hasn\'t looked like it yet. And why then, when you
> have \"all the data in the world\" (i.e a sample of
> 45 where Pletcher has had multiple runners in most
> of them and most of them again without any
> realistic hope), are you not even open to even
> consider that Pletcher finally does something
> right when he eases a horse into the Derby. How
> can you take those numbers so seriously then? I
> mean he\'s been out training until now and just
> happened to win them all, Florida Derby was the
> first time they ever wanted something out of him
> but still one was under the impression that there
> should be more left in the tank. And he ran that
> race in the fastest Florida Derby time since
> Alydar in 1978.
>
> It\'s silly IMO to use those numbers in a hunt for
> the perfect pattern, I mean did you also bet
> against American Pharaoh every time he raced
> because he had a 10 point jump second time out?
> (which he btw never regressed from). Why was Orb\'s
> 6,5 point jump so much better (after all he had
> given it all in many races going into the derby).
> I saw they were \"explaining\" that with lasix at
> the time in the seminar, but come on, how could
> you be confident in assigning causality to that?
> It was no reaction with 1st time lasix.. It just
> seems like you guys do a lot of cherry picking
> when \"validating\" your theories, and it\'s my
> humble opinion that one should always be open for
> looking at things in a different way.
>
> If AD wins this year Pletcher would be the co-most
> winning derby trainer this millennium.
>
> And no, I didn\'t say it should be a no-brainer to
> bet AD as the 2nd choice, I was responding to an
> estimate of 10/1, as 4th choice.
>
> All the derbies the last 5-6 years have been won
> by horses winning multiple races in a row going
> into the derby, AD is the only one that fits that
> bill, isn\'t that worth something? You have a horse
> in AD that ran a good number last time, visually
> very impressive, extremely impressive on the clock
> in a race that has been the best predictor of
> Derby success, and he also possesses the most
> successfull running style by far in Kentucky Derby
> this century. Isn\'t that worth something either?
>
> And he isn\'t up against anything else one could
> possibly have great confidence in.
>
> So am I really a silly, silly man for suggesting
> that he could be worth a bet at a price of 10/1?
> That is he needs to win 1 out of 11 times to break
> even.
>
> Jeez. Tough crowd!


I\'m with you Pete.  Rigidity in theory will shred you to pieces in this sport.  It was an expensive lesson for me a long time ago.  I\'ve stopped looking at numbers in black and white and I\'ve enjoyed this game more since doing so.  This is not a knock against TG figures, which are hands down the finest product in the world!  It\'s all in the eye of the beholder though.

Are there horses in this race that may be bigger overlays at bigger prices? Of course, there always is a 25-1 shot with a juicy explosive pattern lurking in this race.  But that shouldn\'t take away from the fact that this horse is a legitimate contender and should be given gravitas at a price such as 10-1.

[TempletonPeck]

Hi Jimbo,

It seems to me your positions on Always Dreaming and Practical Joke are somewhat inconsistent, perhaps you can elaborate or explain:

IIRC, in other threads you have said something to the effect of \"I know Practical Joke\'s sheet looks great, but he seems like a sprinter to me, and his family are sprinters, so I won\'t bet him in the Derby.\" (I paraphrase this as, \"In spite of sheet theory suggesting a bet, I will not bet.\")

Which seems to me at odds with the reasoning behind your suggestion to toss Always Dreaming (which I would paraphrase as \"Too much sheet theory working against him to bet.\")

Please do correct me if I have misstated your position, I don\'t mean to.

[FrankD.]

6 or 10 to 1, Let the public decide.

Whatever your view of value? I cannot assess this horse as having a 10-15% of winning in a 20 horse field, his trainers Derby record aside.

[Furious Pete]

I appreciate the tone in this, I really do. And you\'re right I don\'t know everything about sheet theory.

But I do know enough about figures that I think I\'m entitled to question WHICH figures to rely on, and to assume that not every number means the same. Are you really sure those figures you are reading when you are reading AD\'s sheets, has anything to do with the real world? If one made figures on training sessions, would you use them too to predict bounces?

Because I do believe in the bounce theory, but for them to even exist it must be some kind of physical explanation to them, i.e a respond to an effort that was bigger than a horse was ready for. The question I\'m trying to resolve before the gate opens on derby day, is whether AD\'s Florida Derby was one of these efforts or not. Well, guess what, I can\'t. That\'s why odds are important. And at 10/1 I\'ll play, if everything else seems fine.