Louisiana Derby

[spa]

Bobby thinks he\'s being clever when he makes pre-race comments like this. He\'s a butt head who\'ll get his one day. I make it High Limit/K.C.Boy

[TGAB]

JB will explain about Declan\'s Moon when he gets back.

I\'d bet Frankel knows exactly what he has in High Limit. Whether he can do at 3 what he did at 2 remains to be seen, but I\'m on record as thinking he can--we\'ll see.

Jimbo66--I think Storm Surge and Wallstreet Scandal are the intriguing horses in terms of potential jump ups and Sort It Out is solid with a good chance to pair his last.

[mikemd]

high limit runs a negative.

[Chuckles_the_Clown2]

Yeah, I tend to agree with you Allan...I think he intends to put everyones guard down and try and wire this one. This is a go go horse. I think hes gonna get the lead and its gonna a question of how hard K.C. Boy wants to go after it. I think Bailey will get a bit more out of Storm Surge but he\'ll make his move later if hes able to.

The closers success will obviously depend upon the pace and how the track is playing. Scipion doesnt have to win here for his effort to be progressive and I\'m not projecting a bounce. If Frankels horse runs a 2 or 3 with the ground saving issue, he figures to be very tough. I\'ll be surprised if hes more than about 3-2.

jimbo,

I haven\'t studied it TG/Beyer relationship carefully, but I am 100% certain about the phenomenon I am describing and have seen a couple of instance where I disagreed with the TG figure. I have no opinion on High Limit\'s figures because I am not familiar with the horses he beat.

My opinion on High Limit is this:

1. He beat nothing so far.

2. He got a route with a loose lead in a  slow pace against nothing.

3. He\'s coming into this off a 4 month layoff. Even though Frankel is good with layoffs, there is difference between getting a horse ready to win off a layoff to beat inferior horses and having him ready to run close to his peak when a peak effort at this point would be a monumental training mistake if you are trying to prep for the Derby.

4. He could be anything because when they win that big and that easy, you really can\'t tell what they have until they\'ve been challenged and asked. Some go forward and some come up very empty no matter what their speed figures against nothing.

3 out of the 4 are negatives. I rarely take less than 3-1 on horses when I can\'t find anything wrong with them. So I would never even contemplate a wager on this horse at that price. I am much more inclned to bet against him if he goes off at very short odds. If he winds up being a champ I won\'t be surprised. So be it. Some are, but most aren\'t.    
 
We don\'t even need to ask Jerry what he thinks about my pace theory because I already know the answer. He thinks I am wrong. We discussed of couple of races last year.  

There are times when the margin of victory of the winner cannot be reconciled with the other horses figures. So as a figure maker you have to make a decision.

Did the winner run an incredible race or did all the other horses run slower then expected?

If you are highly sensitive to pace issues and understand its impact on final time, the answer is sometimes very obvious.

In those cases, the winner ran his normal speed figure and the weaker horses ran their \"usual race\". The weaker horses run a slower final figure because they are forced to run pace figures than are much higher than they would typically run when asked to run against horses of similar ability to themselves.

Expressed numerically:

Strong Horse = 100P 100F
Weaker Horses = 90P  90F

Race Shape =  100P 100F
Weaker Horses = 97P 83F.

When the margin is 7 lengths instead of the expected 4, a figure maker might be tempted to give the winner a 107 instead of 100. To a handicapper that is not sensitive to pace, it makes more sense that the superior horse ran faster than that several other horses suddenly ran slower.

By the way, I should add that when the track is very sloppy/muddy the margins between horses often tend to be much larger than is typical on fast tracks. That can also have a distorting effect on figures by overrating winners in order to make sense of the figures of the losers.



Post Edited (03-12-05 15:40)

TGAB,

>But I have a question for Ch--what about the closers who are aren\'t necessarily affected by the pace?<

Somtimes closers are impacted by pace and sometimes they are not.

Somtimes the impact is favorable and sometimes it is negative.

If the pace is very slow, they are often strung out anyway because of the number of horses and run even slower than normal early. That can impact them negatively.  

If the pace is slow for the first quarter and then gets extremely fast in the middle (which does happen from time to time), it will take a toll on the frontrunners. However, it can also take a toll on the closers that are trying to make their usual position improving move during the middle of part of the race. So even though they are off the pace, they are being used hard to get into contention, keep or improve their postion etc...

On the flip side, if the pace is extremely fast early and the middle slows down, when the closers do start their move (even though they will be further back than usual in terms of lengths) they will encounter less resistance than is typical when they do catch up because all the front runners are totally exhausted. That would tend to help them.

There is no hard fast formula for all this because all the horses are different (different levels of brilliance, stamina, acceleration, ability etc...)  The impact is also not limited to quarters or to what is happening on the front end. It could be an 1/8. Different levels of ability between horses in the same exact race can also mean that the same exact fraction could be fast for one competitor in the race but easy for another.  

If you think in terms of human athletes, use common sense, watch races very carefully to see who is being used hard, who is not and when etc.., have a good set of pace figures to supplement your visual skills (or study the fractions closely), you will feel like a blind man that can see. That\'s what happened to me at least. IMO, it often makes all the difference in the world when interpreting results.



Post Edited (03-12-05 15:44)

[jimbo66]

Early money is interesting.  High Limit and Scipion are 3-1, with Kansas City Boy at 7-2.

Vicarage is a wild card in this race, not necessarily for the win, but he will mess up the pace scenario.  He is quick, quick enough to either set the pace or push High Limit and/or KC Boy.

I am thinking High Limit over Storm Surge and Sort it OUt.  I thought they would be very chalky, but they are paying 52 and 59.
Not bad.

Odds are interesting.

I \"would have liked\" to bet KCB because I think he could be sitting on top of a big one. I like that fast WO coming in. However, the outside post and the \"potential\" for ground loss and being used early etc.. I think is a tad too much for me to get thrilled about at 7-2.

High Limit is not getting heavy action.

Maybe Scipion is a bit over bet.

Sort it Out is probably close to decent value from the rail. I wish I felt confident he was going to fire big today. I like to move to Baffert, but there\'s a big gap in workouts and his last was so much better than some of his other races, he may be less likely to run his best.

Unfortunately, it looks like another pass for me even though I think Scipion is a tad overbet here.



Post Edited (03-12-05 16:12)

[MO]

Scipion is the best looking horse in the post parade. Despite the fact that DRF has the race on ESPN2 (IT IS NOT - no wonder racing can\'t get new fans), I am making the effort to channel surf to watch the race.  Guess which channel has it...........?
Phone Bet TV in Philadelphia.

Too late to take a train and bet Scipion.....

[MO]

it is 4:22PM and ESPN2 decided to break away from BB to cover the race............

High Limit taking all the late money.

[jimbo66]

Well CH, what do you think of his \"false figures\" now?

[MO]

Someone said this was a $600K allowance race. They got it right. High Limit never changed leads - what a bunch of garbage cans..........Frankel laughs all the way to the bank. Glad I don\'t bet anymore....

[kev]

Just set a stakes record. High Limit....where to next for this horse??