Breeders' Cup Day

[TGJB]

Full sheets with the figures they ran should be up later today, probably in ROTW for now, archives later.

This was a brutal day, featuring wind (small changes mean a lot when there is a long straightaway), and a dead rail on the inner turf (I would feel surer about this if there had been a second race over it, but you will see that every filly that was on the rail for at least one turn ran terrible). The only water added all day came right before the seventh (grass race), first dirt race after that was the eighth (Pleasant Home), and I took off quite a bit more from that one than the surrounding dirt races. That race also featured a shorter run-up than the other races.

The corrections for the dirt races overall were within a point either way, which means basically the same speed (especially considering the wind)-- except for the first (Sport Page) and eighth (Distaff). I took off more for those races, but not as much as I could have, as you will see. I also could have been more aggressive with the 2yo fillies, but finally decided against it, the thinking being that with the surrounding races tying pretty close together and no identifiable changes in conditions, it was more likely that the hot pace (into the wind) caused many to spit it out. If there had been a very clear alternative way that had lots of horses running about what they had been running I would have gone that way, but there was not.

I\'m sure there will be lots of discussion about this, I\'ll join in tomorrow. I\'ll also post sheets and comments about the California figures sometime tomorrow.

Dirt Corrections

1-- minus 3
2-- plus 1.3 (one and a quarter points)
3-- minus .3
4-- plus 1.2
6-- plus .5
8-- minus 3.8
10-- minus .3

turf

5-- (inner) plus .9
7-- zero
9-- minus .5

[shanahan]

Brutal Day...like Derby Day sort of, eh?

TGJB,

\"I also could have been more aggressive with the 2yo fillies, but finally decided against it, the thinking being that with the surrounding races tying pretty close together and no identifiable changes in conditions, it was more likely that the hot pace (into the wind) caused many to spit it out.\"

For what it\'s worth, most pace handicappers would agree with you.

\"(Pleasant Home), and I took off quite a bit more from that one than the surrounding dirt races. That race also featured a shorter run-up than the other races.\"

That\'s consistent with the fact that the pace \"looked\" and was expected to be (at least by me) faster than the fractions suggest.  

Is there any way to quantify how much the shorter run-up cost (very rough would be fine)?



 

 

[TGJB]

Run-up for the Distaff was 28 feet, for the other routes it ranged from 50 to 76. Differences in run-ups make a bigger difference at the lower end (because of the rate of acceleration), around 60 feet is average. for something like the Pimlico 6f races (average runup around 5 feet because it\'s backed up into the chute) I think we have a built in 3 or 4 point correction. My guess is that the run-up difference here might be worth a point or so.

[jimbo66]

Hard to even comment and draw conclusions from the figures.  

1.  Most of the 2 year old fillies went backwards, many severely.

2.  Most of the 2 year old colts paired or ran new tops.

3.  Pleasant Home ran the fastest fillie/mare race ever? (not sure if Sightseek ran this as well)

[Chuckles_the_Clown2]

TGJB, you do realize that Super Frolic has been a forwardly placed horse, at least this year, do you not?

He dwelt in the gate, that clearly cost him on the clock and you gave him credit for essentially his best. Additionally, the inside though not fatal, was NOT ideal.

With Perfect Drift you reached back to pull a figure he hasn\'t seen since he was four. He\'s Six years old now and though he\'s a tryer, there was some question about Belmont. I guess you concluded he relished it.

St. Liam had one other try at 10 Furlongs. He didn\'t handle it well. From outside, he did run far. He ran further than 10 furlongs, though he was on close to the ideal path.

My hunch is that you were dying to find a way to get Flower Alley back to his Travers \"figure\" so you started with that. These horses were 2 full points slower.

Now back to Leroidesanimeaux........his Breeders Cup Effort was right in line with where he had been running but for the Open Daylight Atto Mile. He had plenty of time to recover. Why didn\'t he stay a negative 2 horse? Why did he return to where he had been running all along as a six year old? The reason is...he never a negative 2 horse.

[Josephus]

GREAT JOB Jerry and TG.  As a former Rags user who was burned often on big race days, congrats to TG and JB on coming up big on another big day.  The figs all look like they make sense to me, including the Cal. stuff.  

[kev]

Sightseek had back2back -3\'s...........Is that right Arite got a 1.2 being 1w1w and Leroi got a 1 for being 5w3w?? He just lost by a short amount. Just wanting to know.

[kev]

Also that 0-X-2 pattern worked on Ashado, too bad I didn\'t cash that race, after throwing both fav\'s in that race out.

[pistol]

Do the runups vary from day to day or are the usually consistent for races of equal distance?  In others words, do 9f races usually have about 28ft at Belmont?

[Silver Charm]

TGJB Comment on Juvy Filly Fig,

>and no identifiable changes in conditions, it was more likely that the hot pace (into the wind) caused many to spit it out.

I agree. There was such a rush to rave on how great of a race Wild Fit ran, when Folklore was not only on the pace but for most of the opening quarter was setting the pace. Wild fit was a good ten lengths off the pressured 45 opening half.

Folklore still won with something left.

[TGJB]

CTC-- I would love to give SF extra credit, but I can\'t. I finally saw the head-on-- he broke with the field, then stumbled a couple of jumps later. I still think it cost him position, and enough for third, but very little in terms of distance-- our position has always been that energy not used is energy saved and used later. Obviously, others disagree.

It would be nuts to do a 13 horse race by trying to get one horse back to his top. Again, look what happens to the race if you do it other ways-- you can make PD look \"better\", but you will make a whole lot of other horses look worse-- you will end up with almost an entire field of stake horses not running their previous best. And by the way, things would have been a lot tougher if PD did not have those back figures.

You are placing an awful lot of weight on one race by SL at the distance, shipping to California, on short rest off a huge effort, where he spotted weight and raced wide, making the race look much worse to those not using TG. Which was why we said he was so strong in our seminar.

The rail on the dirt was fine. Check out the figures (not the finish positions) of the ones who spent a lot of time on it, like Pleasant Home. A lot of the faster horses raced outside, but it was clear from watching carefully during the day that the inside was okay, which is why I advised that SF be kept inside.

Leroy-- that\'s a joke, right? Horses are supposed to run the same figure every time? I guess I can get rid of the the graph, and just call us Thoro.

And that\'s aside from the shoe issue.

[TGJB]

Pistol-- I would have to go back and look at a lot of mile and an eighth races to answer the second one, don\'t know offhand, could very well average shorter since they are backed into a chute. If so, my corrections might show taking a little more off those races on average. They USUALLY, at most places, stay within a range-- the 1 1/16th on this day were 60, 50, and 56 feet. But sometimes you get the kind of stuff they used to pull at a certain Maryland track years ago-- one day the 6f would be 70 and the 7f  20, the next day it would be the other way around. Have fun putting those together-- you get the kind of apple/orange juice I talked about at the Expo.

All of this is why I make as few assumptions as possible. As it happens, the Classic fit tight with the day-- but if I had to add or take off 5 to get to that I would have, because every other possibility was much less likely.

 

[TGJB]

Kev-- right. Artie won on the trip. By the way, we don\'t count the chute partial turns on the grass at Belmont at full value.

[jimbo66]

JErry,

Excuse this if it is a stupid question, but what you are calling \"dirt corrections\", represent the variant adjustments for each race?  If that is correct, then you are using 7 different variants for the 7 different dirt races?  

And by comparison, there would be 1 variant for all 7 races when the Rags guys do their figures?