Those were good horses and it was a good race. Lava Man prefers to hear his hooves rattle and his fade was probably related to several factors. Bounce or Off race among them. Clearly in the Hollywood Gold Cup he caught a very fast surface. Obviously the Pacific Classic fractional battles played a role in the outcome, as did the increasing weight Lava was asked to carry.
If I was pressed, I\'d say the Pacific Classic was faster than Tgraph says it was. I wasn\'t in stern opposition to your comment that Super Frolic\'s race there was his best. Though, I think he\'s got more in him and more than he showed at Hawthorne.
classhandicapper Wrote:
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> CTC,
>
> The Pacific Classic is the controversial figure
> (not the Travers).
>
> I\'ve seen 4 sets of figures and made my own for
> that day and I\'m still looking
> for two people that agree on the pace and/or final
> final. There were only two routes that day (both
> late in the card) and obviously 10F is not run
> very frequently. So it\'s harder to get a grip on
> the pace on that track, it\'s impact (if any) and
> the overall performance of the horses.
>
> It looks like Beyer made the race faster than the
> other figures I\'ve seen.
>
> Another person made the race slower, but with a
> blazing pace that gave the pace setters good
> overall ratings.
>
> Another person made the race in between the above
> two, but with a \"moderately fast pace\" that
> primarily impacted the second tier horses and to a
> lesser degree Lava Man.
>
> One could come to very different conclusions about
> several horses in that race depending whose final
> time figures and whose pace figures (if anyones)
> you are looking at.
>
> I know what I think.
>
Actually Richie, I think Tgraph is far too professional to allow a known contestable figure to \"ripple\" effect for long. I\'m quite sure they factored the Hallandale one turn mile trying to figure the Travers. But, theres no doubt with the \"extrapolation method\" that a difficult figure can impact latter figures. Especially so when the difficult figure hasn\'t receieved the kind of scrutiny the Wood number has received. Though theres a human trait when you\'ve done your best to want to validate and that has to be overcome in the curing. And its still possible he\'s a world beater. He gets next year to settle it.
I do take this game seriously. Very seriously, but debating here is fun. You won\'t see me taking personal shots until I\'m swung at and even then I\'m laughing when I respond. Its a tough deal. You gotta figure how fast they were and which way they are going next. It ain\'t easy.
My personal bias in figure making is that numbers cannot be assumed to pair at different distances. Thats probably inconsistent with TGraph, but thats where I find debate.
You are clearly a knowledgeable race guy and I read all your posts.
Folks that made the Wood number want to believe it
richiebee Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Chuckles:
>
> I\'ve always appreciated some of your insights
> and enjoy the role you play.
>
> I take issue with your comment \"Horse racing
> has 2 seasons. The Triple Crown and the Breeder\'s
> Cup\". I would say without much pride that I have
> played the races, mostly NYRA, for the last 20
> years, week in, week out, 12 months a year, 3 or 4
> days a week. For the 7 years before that my
> position in life was such that I was on the
> racetrack about 350 days a year.
>
> Maybe thats the difference in perspective
> between you and me (and a lot of the posters on
> this board and the host of this board). To you,
> its play, and it gives you the chance to exercise
> your sometimes enjoyable argumentative skills; the
> rest of us may be taking it a little more
> seriously than you are, for better
> or worse.
>
> EDIT: Chuckles, by the way, I thought that your
> postulate that an inaccurate
> number assigned in the Wood could have resulted in
> a chain reaction or ripple effect creating
> inaccurate numbers later in the year was thought
> provoking. It
> may have been buried in dicta so I don\'t know if
> everyone caught it.
>
>
> Edited 1 times. Last edit at 10/03/05 02:29PM by
> richiebee.
I don\'t know. Seems to me its a serious issue for the board. It involves both substance testing and impairment. Maybe they take substance testing of ALL animals in Indiana seriously. The threshold was .05, thats a very low threshold if I\'m not mistaken.
Some folks are inclined to question. Some are inclined to take things at face value. Sure doesn\'t seem unreasonable that Saturday night he may have had dinner and a beer. One beer would probably cause a 113 pound jockey to blow over .05
Guess that means he shouldn\'t have had the beer. Maybe Braulio Baeza took money too. Just seems giving the benefit of the doubt until the facts are in is not bad policy when it comes to people\'s reputations.
jimbo66 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Class,
>
> Maybe you should apply for a job as Baze\'s
> counsel.
>
> So, you are now asking Jerry if it is possible
> that Baze went out to dinner that night and had
> wine, not knowing that they do breathalyzers.
>
> Jerry, do you have a track man at all the
> restaurants near Hoosier? Can you comment on the
> possibility that Baze had wine that night? Can
> you also notate it in the sheets for the horses he
> has ridden in the past 3 months.
>
>
> Sorry Class, but your post is a classic example of
> the inane stuff that shouldn\'t be on this board,
> especially with less than 4 weeks until the
> Breeders Cup.
