Breeders Cup Preview

[jimbo66]

Sorry, but this is one of your dumber posts and that is saying a lot

Does the smiley face make it nicer?

Does anybody even know what you are saying.  Some horses with \"visual\" reserves, wouldn\'t have them, if they were forced to run faster earlier.  Geez, brilliant.  If a horse runs faster earlier in the race, he won\'t have as much in reserve at the wire.  You should patent that one.

But others with reserves actually do have those reserves and you can tell the difference by pedigree and connections.  

I think you should sell your picks because you are clearly much smarter than the rest of us on this board, excepting Chuckles, of course.

He was definitely being geared down. The jock looked over both shoulders. Given the horses in that race though, you could come away it from it saying WOW. I don\'t think it was a WOW. I think it was a case of all the other serious contenders not running as fast as had been expected. We probably agree, just communication.

CTC,

>lol...they are gonna kill you Class.

Hey, I don\'t give trainers the benefit of the doubt either. But I have empirical evidence on that. <



I knew I was heading into dangerous territory making those comments on this message board. Plus, I agree that just having a good pedigree or \"name\" trainer isn\'t going to tell you how good the horse really is.

However, given two lightly raced horses with equal speed figures that both won wrapped up last time out, I think I\'d prefer the one with the better pedigree, from the better connections, that\'s been outworking better horses in the mornings and that\'s visually more impressive to me over the one out of JOE BLOW, trained by JOE WHOISHE, that looks like a battle scarred claimer.

Without the proof on the track, I\'ll go with the probabilities.

The betting value is another matter.


 

[Michael D.]

tough one to put a # on. how fast was the surface for the first two or three furlongs? how do you know? LM, FA, GR, and the rabbit didn\'t run. not much to go on there. sun king, well, he didn\'t want any part of 10f, but how bad was he? suave might have done his thing. then there is borrego - how fast COULD he have run. good luck with this one.

jimbo,

LOL.

I am suggesting that two horses can both run the same fractions and win with what appears to be the same amount of energy left in the tank without actually being very close in ability.

All this idea requires is an appreciation of the impact of pace and the reality that to a large extent horses use each other as prompters during the running of the race - usually waiting to cut loose until the latter stages.  

If the pace is slow because of lackluster competition, it can carry a stamina weak horse to an easy win in faster time than it usually runs.

If the pace is slow because of lackluster competition, it can prevent a horse with deep reserves and more ability from achieving its best possible final time.  

Same pace, but having a different impact on two different horse because of their different relative abilities.  

Both would appear somewhat similar to the naked eye and run similar final times because they wouldn\'t be all out through the stretch. Even if they were all out, the difference in final times could be somewhat minor because even cheap horses can come home very fast if the pace is slow enough and not all horses have the same late brilliance. Some are more even paced.

>I think you should sell your picks because you are clearly much smarter than the rest of us on this board, excepting Chuckles, of course. <

Not smarter, but maybe a little less closed minded (except for Chuckles who may be out of his mind). (just kiddin CTC)

By the way, even on the assumption that a wide variety of my theories are correct, it doesn\'t amount to all that much in terms of winning percentage or value. Someone that doesn\'t know a darn thing can open the DRF and produce 25%+ winners in the first week just looking at DRF speed ratings and track variants. He wouldn\'t have a clue about what was going on and would often be betting horses that he thought were overlays that were actually underlays (he just wouldn\'t understand why they were making another horse the favorite).  

On the assumption that you were just trying to pick the winner, almost everthing that moves you from 25% towards 30%  or slightly higher is already largely reflected on the board. You keep getting better and learning more, but the value returned is similar. Even some of these pace things are already reflected to some degree. I see it all the time when no one picks a horse I like and I think I have a hidden insight but the horse opens up the favorite.

It\'s tough to seperate real value from \"you\" (me) just not understanding/knowing something.  




 

[jbelfior]

BORREGO\'s race is starting to remind me of when APTITUDE blew out the JCGC several years ago. The BC was at Belmont that year and you couldn\'t find him with a lamp that day.



Good Luck,
Joe B.

[Saddlecloth]

if you want to see how slow the leaders were moving look at how grand reward cruised up to the lead just before borrego, this is grand reward we are talking about and he blew by them all before tiring.  They came to a crawl.

>if you want to see how slow the leaders were moving look at how grand reward cruised up to the lead just before borrego, this is grand reward we are talking about and he blew by them all before tiring. They came to a crawl.<

Great point Saddle. I remember wondering who that was during the race and was shocked when told.  

[Chuckles_the_Clown2]

Grand Reward is a bit of an enigma. He was right there just headed by Borrego in the Santa Anita Handicap. Thought he stole the Oaklawn Park Handicap on pace, but he beat some good horses there.

The extra weight on those two back efforts hurt him Saturday, but he appears to be suited to 8 or 9 marks, which is about where he chucked it. Its very hard to guage how fast they were running and its hard to go by the Beldame for a number of reasons, but that distance appeared more tiring for them. Maybe it was because they all bounced to the moon again. Maybe theres a bounce trend this year.

That was the type of race Lukas could win in 1999 or earlier. The horsemanship Lukas does have has been eclipsed by the chemistry boys and its much harder for him and a bunch of others to win on what they do know. Which is not to imply Borrego is fixed. Tend to think he\'s clean.

We\'ll see, maybe Grand Reward will be back in the Classic and steal it for old times sake.

Saddlecloth Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> if you want to see how slow the leaders were
> moving look at how grand reward cruised up to the
> lead just before borrego, this is grand reward we
> are talking about and he blew by them all before
> tiring.  They came to a crawl.

[big18741]

Desite being under wraps Borrego ran his last quarter in 26 plus.That race completely fell apart.Aptitude ran a similarly slow last quarter in his romp prior to the Classic.

RHT had an easy prep-Mandella will have him all tuned up.Gonna be tough to beat on Oct 29th.

[TGJB]

Michael was right about the complications in doing the Gold Cup, but as it turned out, there was relatively little doubt what was right (could have added or subtracted up to 1/2 from where it ended up, but that\'s it). Borrego got a neg 3 3/4 h?, Suave got back to his neg 1/4, everyone else 2 or worse.

What WAS tough, in fact a bitch, was RHT\'s race. The day didn\'t tie at all to the two surrounding it, either in \"speed\" or sprint/route relationship, there were only two routes, one was 2yo fillies (most trying a route for the first time), and the 4 horse Goodwood. I ended up being conservative, pairing RHT to his previous top, and giving the other 3 off races. Could have given them 1 1/2 points better, which would have paired the 3yo and Choctaw, and given RHT a new top. Since three have better numbers to run back to and RHT could easily go forward next out for Mandella (as only a 4yo), this is one where we\'ll probably never know.

I\'m praying that St. Liam draws an outside post so I have more of a reason to take a shot against him than his subpar race in CA. It\'s hard to tell how much of that was the ship to CA and how much was outside post and the 10F, but it \"could have been\" a distance thing. I love RHT over Borrego in the Classic if they are bet similarly, but you have to get past St Liam.  

[kev]

So let\'s see SUAVE could be a horse ready to run big maybe in his next start. On the other hand he\'s moved alot over his life. BORREGO could go either way, I couldnt count how many times I\'ve seen horses run that big number and then pair it up and then the 3rd race bounce, like F.ALLEY did in his last race. BORREGO is the real deal.

[Chuckles_the_Clown2]

I looked very closely at the JCGC trying to figure out how you could make sense of the race. It doesn\'t appear you can make sense of it on final raw time. Early races were slow. The Vosburgh was fairish. The Beldame looked fast. The JCGC looked on the slow side again.

In the end, the only thing that made sense to me was the finish of Imperialism and Grand Reward. Imperialism departed slightly from his closing style and that may have marginally impacted his performance, but he reached his peak early and has remained about a 2 horse at distance. Grand Reward has run about 1.5 at the distance and with the additional weight figured to regress slightly, but all told his effort was not bad. Just head mathing have them in the 2-3 range, which obviously puts Flower Alley at a bounce. The issue is gonna be can Alley run as fast as his Tgraph Travers Figure on Classic Day? Even if he does, theres at least one horse from the JCGC faster than him now.

Everything else is the proprietary observations of Tgraph and calculating lengths, wide and weight and I can\'t comment on that. Tgraph said Suave came up a pair toting the weight this time. That was a very good effort. He reminds me of L\'Carriere.

Note that despite bouncing Flower Alley was passed by both Imperialism and Grand Reward, but ran on to wear them down. My personal feeling is that Flower Alley did indeed bounce, but there may be an issue as to how much.

For the horses coming out of the JCGC to the Classic, it was a tough race to figure, but you have to believe the figures assigned are logical and based on 10 mark race history.
 


best.-------------------------------------------------------
> Michael was right about the complications in doing
> the Gold Cup, but as it turned out, there was
> relatively little doubt what was right (could have
> added or subtracted up to 1/2 from where it ended
> up, but that\'s it). Borrego got a neg 3 3/4 h?,
> Suave got back to his neg 1/4, everyone else 2 or
> worse.
>
> What WAS tough, in fact a bitch, was RHT\'s race.
> The day didn\'t tie at all to the two surrounding
> it, either in \"speed\" or sprint/route
> relationship, there were only two routes, one was
> 2yo fillies (most trying a route for the first
> time), and the 4 horse Goodwood. I ended up being
> conservative, pairing RHT to his previous top, and
> giving the other 3 off races. Could have given
> them 1 1/2 points better, which would have paired
> the 3yo and Choctaw, and given RHT a new top.
> Since three have better numbers to run back to and
> RHT could easily go forward next out for Mandella
> (as only a 4yo), this is one where we\'ll probably
> never know.
>
>
>
> Edited 3 times. Last edit at 10/04/05 07:19PM by
> TGJB.

[NoCarolinaTony]

Class,

Revert back to Last year and RHT performance on the east coast particularly at Belmont. (Have to consider it was pre-Man o Mandella and as a 3 yo). RHT best races were all on the left coast .....so far. Borrego is now proven on the east coast. Other than Borrego & Suave, they all ran \"OFF\" in JCGC. RHT may be the bet, but we have to consider his past results back east.

Jerry do you have much data on Mandella running back east over the past few years? (ie KY, NY,NJ,FL)?


Very Weird Day, Very Weird Race.

NC Tony