SARATOGA SEMINAR

[Delmar Deb]

OK, that\'s the last time I print out a thread and take it with me to read during a staff meeting!  

What\'s the penalty for \"out loud\" laughter in lieu of a smile or hiccup?  And do you think the real tears might have covered up the initial faux pas?

[NoCarolinaTony]

Kaspept,

I will be there this weekend. Hope to see the \"ANTI RAGGERS\" there.

One little favor..since I\'m doing the non Carb diet thing anychance to just get the cue?

NC Tony

[congaree1]

You couldn\'t have said it any better, the sheets players don\'t figure in anything but the number.The most obvious factor with the sheets is when a horse moves up in class, after running a big number, i feel most horses bounce when thet face this. Horses that run big numbers and are dropped down tend to run better.

[Kasept]

Tony..

No problem going \"roll-less\" with the \'cue...

Plus on Sundays, my pal Don Tessitore and I put on a little \'special\' lunch for friends that frequent the vicinity, and there\'s lots of options for the carb concerned. I\'ll leave it to Jerry, Bill and/or Julian to add any additional insight to the Sunday goings-on. (I left Alan off that list as he seems to have been the least \"cuisine-interested\" of the TG braintrust).

Look forward to meet CH, you and everyone else who visits... Weekend weather should be dandy.

Steve

[Saddlecloth]

can someone explain bounce to me, my interpretation is a performance that does not meet the typical effort a horse could give because the animal was not given the proper time to recover from his last race.

I mean if a horse ran a 1 on dirt then goes to the same distance on turf and runs a 5, did the horse bounce?  My inclination is that he did not like the surface.

Did a horse go 22 and 45 and fly home to run a 0, then three weeks later runs in the breeders cup sprint and goes 21 and 44 and runs a 4, did he bounce?  Maybe.

[TGAB]

Have to accept Steve\'s judgement here since our gracious host has observed the TG stable feed habits up close and personal from day one. But that\'s not to say I didn\'t enjoy the melon and barbecue first time around and look forward to more this weekend. See ya all this Friday.

I\'ll let JB respond to Saddlecloth\'s query.

[TGJB]

Saddle-- if you are asking what a bounce is by definition, it is a sub-par effort caused by a previous strenous one. If you are asking about when horses will bounce, it\'s complicated-- and while Andy Serling is a friend of mine, his comment on Pack\'s show, that anyone who believes in bounces is lazy, was moronic. Just using one example, Santana Strings went into the Amsterdam kicking down the barn, and ran his eyeballs out, running a new top. After which he lay down in his stall for a few days, and did not eat like he did before the big effort. He eventually perked up, and the King\'s Bishop was a GI, so we ran and hoped for the best. But sure enough, he didn\'t fire-- he bounced.

It\'s very complicated, and the Thoro-Patterns you can find on each sheet are an attempt to help figure it out. It\'s not simply a question of a horse reacting to his top, or to a new one-- other factors come into play, like age, pattern going into the big race, history off previous tops, severity of top, who the trainer is, time between races, etc.. Andy-- anyone who doesn\'t investigate bounce theory enough to understand it is lazy.

[miff]

TGJB,

You forgot to include sickness and infirmities that happen during a race which are unforseen going in.Bouncing is used too liberally by sheet players as an excuse for a poor performance.  As you said, there are many reasons a horse regresses but a few of them have nothing to do with their previous big effort.

TGJB,

Has anyone actually studied the ROI of bounce candidates - like older experienced horses that ran a sigificant new top last time out? Naturally you could always refine these kinds of studies a lot, but I\'d like to get a basic idea if they are generally overbet.

I think simple \"mean reversion\" and of course trip are both factors.

[kev]

Class I\'m the one who was doing the study of bounces on Ragozin sheets, I couldn\'t do ROI cause I don\'t have the results of the races just the next number\'s. Thing is people have to look at is, unless it\'s a 3yo early on, a horse will bounce a large % of the time, now it\'s up to the sheet users to bet or not to bet on many factors, like odds, number power, other horses lines in the race. When I do a study and I\'m going to be doing another one maybe on patteren\'s next time, I don\'t really care right now for ROI\'s I just want to see if a certain factor is good or bad. Just like the top 3 fav\'s in a race will win 67% of the time, but you can\'t make any money off those, but you have to deal with those horses almost in every race, cause of their high % to win a race. They will run 1st or 2nd something like 90 something %.

[marcus]

Excellent point on the different generations of race horse\'s , perhaps there is some vanity appeal associated that question . Specially now I don\'t get it with so many races and so little time to bet these days it becomes much too time consuming  ...  Also , an estute observation on the use of figures , too many people use them only to take into account the horse\'s  last race  or two or three with out considering  the overall pattern along w/ other numorous factors . Many  become ego involved - taking the I can crack this nut approach when the race is a pass or otherwise untenable . While additionally careless can be those functioning on auto-pilot  - while viewing a  sheet for a horse and thinking forget a number here , forget a number there , disregard that one , ignore the other and the horse dosn\'t look too bad etc . Alot of folks just want to have fun and I can relate to that . Cahing tickets if I\'m not mistaken , is a direct result of a very serious work-like approach to handicapping while taking everything into account and considering all the angle\'s as though one is in business for themselfs and investing thier own money .          

Thanks.  I\'d appreciate anything you come up with. CH

[littleandy]

I did not say that anyone that believes in bounce is lazy ( I looked it up ). What I said, basically, is that it is a convenient excuse used by people who are often too lazy to figure out exactly why a horse ran well one day and poorly the next.

By the way, did you say anything important or interesting on the message you left me, as it went on way too long and I deleted it after 12 seconds or so.