Visualize Whirled Peas

[jimbo66]

CtC,

I have seen you post this before and I have to disagree.  You mention that you don\'t think it is very viable to use \"pace\" to figure out how to bet a race before it occurs, but rather to explain how pace affected a previous race.  I agree with the part about pace explaining a horse\'s performance in a previous race, but I definitely disagree that pace is built into the price in most cases.  There are races every day where I see public DRF handicappers talking about a \"wire to wire\" chance on a horse I am 90% sure is not going to make the lead.  The \"public\" often bets on horses that show speed at longer distances but are shortening up against other horses who may not have been on the lead but were pressing quicker fractions in sprints.  Also, horses with good speed that may have been compromised by wide posts in previous races or they raced against \"speedballs\" and thus couldn\'t make the lead.  Of course there are races where the pacesetter is obvious, as are the pace pressers.  

I remember the War Emblem pace scenario clearly.  In case I would forget, I have several friends who would remind me of it every year at Derby time, because of the writeup I did of that race.  I wrote something like \"there is very little speed in this race with two possible exceptions.  One is War Emblem, who has never faced tough competition and classifies as \"cheap speed\" and the other is Proud Citizen, but he often breaks slow and rushes up.  With two suspect speed horses, don\'t look for a quick pace, but since they are both \"cheap speed\" the key to the race is to figure out who has the tactical speed to sit about 3rd, behind the quitters.  That would be Medaglia d\'Oro.\"

Of course we know what happened....

[Michael D.]

man o man, Md\'O and the 2002 derby. what a perfect example of a horse that was taken out of his game early and never had a chance. we discussed this at length after that running, and a few here argued that Md\'O was not affected by being in tight early and getting shuffled back, because he could use that \"conserved\" energy\" later on in the race and everything would equal out. no way, that was a fast one paced animal, that had to be on the engine the entire way (either on the lead, or stalking close to it) in order to run his best. i put perfect drift and Md\'O in my pre race analysis that year. PD ran a decent third at 8-1, but i still think Md\'O never had a chance...... if only bailey had the mount that day.

[Chuckles_the_Clown2]

I think TGJB has a tenent that pace is more or less built into his final figures. (I could be wrong about that) If I interpret that correctly, I agree, which is something entirely different from saying a horse will run the same figure if (for whatever reason) the horse \"alters/is compromised\" in his pace style in a race. I can\'t get technical because its not a technical issue with me. It\'s very simple \"How does the horse like to run, is that style likely to produce a good outcome today\". And in answering that question there are a score of other variables.

I think pace is critical both for determining how fast a horse just ran and how his next race is liable to play out. The important question is, \"how will they run today\", but you can\'t address that question without determing: \"how fast has the horse run before\". With TGraph you\'re in a superior position to answer that initial inquiry. These are Jerry\'s tenents, I\'m pretty sure they coalesced in my head about the time I was buying his product everyday. Pace and Performance figures have a relationship is all I\'m saying.

I\'m going to end my participation in this thread. If anyone has any further inquiries, the host should answer them.

CtC

Michael,

We agree again completely.

This gets back to \"brilliance\" and \"acceleration\" as a qualities that not all horses have in equal quantities even when they are similar in overall ability.

>in general ClassH, when i see a turf race where the pace looks to be very slow, i kind of picture the race in my handicapping mind as shorter than it actually is. since part of the race might be wasted while the horses just lope along, i might handicap a 10f race like a 9f race. i admit, this sounds like a crazy concept, but i have seen many front running horses who lope along on a slow pace win 10f races, and beat other closing type horses with faster 10f figs (sometimes horses who have run right by them in past 10f races with faster paces).<

jimbo,

I think in general the clear cut \"only early speeds\" and the clear cut \"likely duels\" are recognized by the public. The betting tends to reflect the increased or decreased chances of the horses.

However, if you have some subtle insights into a situation like you mentioned, that would certainly have value.

If I recall there were bunch of articles written prior to War Emblem\'s Derby suggesting that Derby paces tend to be fast because the fields are large, everyone rushes for decent early position, and there are usually a few middle distance horses in there that will move early. A bunch of Derbies had developed that way in those years. There was a general consensus that that year\'s pace would be fast too.

However, obviously it isn\'t a certainty and your analysis was correct.

There was at least one other speed horse in there who also took back. I can\'t recall who, but he was CA horse (Came Home?).

I think there\'s value in going against the grain when everyone thinks the same the thing and builds it into the odds no matter what I think. I think sometimes they go way overboard. That\'s the key to my thinking.

Sometimes I think the pace is going to be fast yet I STILL BET THE SPEED because the odds are assuming a duel is certain (which it never is) and vice versa.



Post Edited (11-23-04 09:23)

[Chuckles_the_Clown2]

I have to break my promise to not add to this thread in regard to War Emblem. To my mind, that horse did not steal that Derby on pace. He was an accomplished figure horse and TGraphs numbers bore that out. He did get to run on the lead and that was his prefered style. He was just a good horse at that time as his Preakness and Haskell attest to. However, there were plenty of handicappers that foresaw a front end effort for War Emblem, TGJB among them. War Emblem was an ouchy horse, Baffert knew that when they bought him, and later in the year against older horses his pace style was compromised and he was over the top of his cycle.

CtC

[Michael D.]

i\'m not sure about this, but i think TGJB posted on this board that a little birdie told him that WE would be rated, and would NOT be on the lead. baffert stole this one, not WE. he fooled a lot of people into thinking that he was not going on top with WE, and nobody worried about the horse. Md\'O getting shuffled back early also had an impact on the outcome (in my opinion).



Post Edited (11-23-04 12:51)

CtC,

I think everyone agreed on the speed figure earned by WE in the Illinois Derby (the Beyer was also the top figure). I think a lot of handicappers thought he had an easy time on the lead in the Illinois Derby and would face the polor opposite pace scenario Derby day (for reasons I descrbed earlier having to do typical recent Derby race/pace developments). So they discounted his chances of repeating that fast figure.  

My own opinion at the time was that he was likely, but not certain, to face a much tougher trip in the Derby. If he did, he would not repeat that outstanding figure.

However, at the odds, it was worth a gamble because NO ONE can foresee race development with an extremely high degree of accuracy. Crap happens and trainers/jockies can read the DRF too. I took the price and hoped that they would either let him go, he would rate and still run OK, or no one would be aggressive. Had they bet him down to odds roughly in sync with his speed figure in the Illinois Derby I would dumped him completely knowing that he was far from certain to duplicate that Illinois Derby figure given different possible trips.

As it was I think the fact that Came Home rated, MDO was shuffled, and a couple of others rated was all that he needed to fire his best shot and win there. Had it developed differently (faster paced duel), I think he would not have run as fast and may/probably would have gotten beaten.

[Chuckles_the_Clown2]

I\'ve learned to dismiss everything a trainer says unless you can absolutely tell its a crock of bologna from the context. In that case you call him on the untruth, otherwise you ignore their comments entirely. If I like a horse and the trainer is high on him, I like that. I don\'t increase my bets cuz of it though.

Micheal, agreed. He had beaten a horse by a pole named Repent. I thought highly of that horse and felt WE was the real McCoy after that race. TGraph confirmed it for me.

CtC

[TGJB]

Since my name and War Emblem\'s were invoked in the same sentence-- as a guy who crushed that race (win bet, tri, super), a couple of points. First, the Derby seminar for that year is still on this site in the archives. Second, the big difference between us and every other figure maker was that we had the race BEFORE the Ill Derby as huge (he paired up in the Ill Derby). Third, you can still probably find the discussion before the race between me and Derby 1592 about WE, and whether his early speed was a plus or minus. Barring some crazy fractions (like the year before), early speed in a big field is almost always a plus. People tend to underestimate this because the frontrunner often does not win, but they fail to take into account the size of the field when working out what the % chance of winning should be (if the average field size is 15, frontrunners should only win one out of 15 times if there is no advantage).

Since I\'ve been around alone-- Bold Forbes, Spend A Buck, Winning Colors, War Emblem for sure. That right there would be more than you would expect statistically. Others that may have made the lead pretty early (memories fade)-- Riva Ridge (my first year), Seattle Slew, Affirmed(?), Sunny\'s Halo, Swale, Go For Gin.

Overall, people tend to underestimate the effects of ground loss in a big field.

And Michael-- I remember somebody saying something at the time about a birdie, but I doubt it was me. I expected WE to be on the lead, and you can find posts here to prove it (and I suspect I said so in the seminar, although I didn\'t go back and listen to it).

[Michael D.]

TGJB,
in your picks that you sold to the public for $25, did you hit the race? (i seem to remember everybody and their dog posting losing picks before that race, then half the guys coming back with huge hits after the race). i thought it was you who made the birdie comment. are you sure it wasn\'t you? if i am wrong, i apologize. for full disclosure sake, i picked perfect drift and Md\'O that year (did not like the winner), and collected nothing.

[TGJB]

We sold both the picks and the seminar to the public, and there was no way I could assume someone buying the picks could spread out enough to cover the play necessary to hit the exotics (I\'m pretty sure I used WE and PD in a box, but not Proud Citizen). But if you listen to the seminar (or print out the comments), look at the last paragraph, where I sum up the race. It should be pretty clear what I did with the $2,600 I put in for a syndicate in tris and supers-- I played it exactly as I laid it out.

Again, I remember something about a \"birdie\" reference, and I think Baffert said something to someone. But even if I heard that, it certainly wouldn\'t have made me stronger on the horse-- possibly weaker. All things being equal, I like front runners-- one reason I made Alan upgrade Abbondanza and downgrade WCH.

Wrong.

[Chuckles_the_Clown2]

I just listened to it with \"Real Player\". I had no idea the T-Figs themselves were superimposed upon the screen during the seminar. What an excellent feature...lol

I think Tgraph was all over Perfect Dread (3rd) and War Emblem. Good Analysis. However, I had to chuckle when the narrator said Farda Amiga had no shot to win the Oaks. Its easy to laugh in hindsight and an 8.2 going in did not look encouraging.

CtC

[Michael D.]

i had FA in the Oaks, a brilliant ride by chris mccarron if i remember correctly, wearing down the big fav in the stretch at huge odds. i think i was alive with three or four horses in the oaks/derby double for huge scores (none with WE).



Post Edited (11-23-04 17:15)

TGJB,

As far as I know you were the only figure maker to have the WE allowance race that fast.

A number of years ago I did a multi-year study on field size and pace using my own pace figures. I was not studying wire to wire winners. I was only interested in the average pace figure relative to par depending on field size.

There is a relationship.

The larger the field, the faster the average pace for same class.

Part of it is simply the larger the field the more likely it is there\'s going to be multiple front runners - which leads to faster paces. I believe part of it is that stalkers and mid pack horses tend to have to work harder to secure position in larger fields and thus press horses in front of them too.

Specifically in the Derby, there\'s been a  number of instances where speed sprinters and middle distance horses were attempting to stretch out and really screwed up other front runners that were contenders.

I do not know whether my insight into pace and large fields overides the disadvantages of position and ground loss that hamper closers, but I am certain about the \"average pace\".  

I am also certain that the thinking by some prominent horseplayers (including those at the DRF) was that WE was facing a much tougher trip in the Derby than in the Illinois Derby. I think it was a case of some people overweighting something that was fresh in their heads from the prior year. That\'s partly why we got the price we got.