Holding Beyer's Feet to the Fire/ Beyer Beware

[richiebee]

Interesting exchange on Steve Crist\'s blog from Sunday\'s DRF:

Rich P (no relation to Richiebee) made the following comment:

\"So Beyer is telling us that Munnings [Pletcher first time starter]who ran 6
furlongs easily in 1:09.4 in race 2 [Saturday]ran a 90, but that Abraaj, who 6
races later ran 6 furlongs all out in 1:10.1, received a 109?? Seriously? How
do you explain the track changing by that much?

Steve, please shed some light.\"

Steve Crist replied:

\"Rich P

I\'m unclear what your objection is to splitting [Saturday\'s] variant. Do you
really think N1X allowance winner Acai (1:50.42 race 3) is within a length of
Commentator (1:50.23 race 10)or that statebred N1X winner Benny the Waiter
(1:09.74 race 1) deserves a better figure than Abraaj (1:10.23 race ? This was
one of the most dramatic but clearcut split variant situations you will ever
see. I don\'t know precisely why the track slowed down so much the second half
of the card, but it clearly did\".

Another Whitney controversy (remember how many different \"official\" final times
there were for last year\'s Whitney, won by Lawyer Ron?). But the fact is that
Commentator\'s time of 1:50.23 is 3.59 seconds slower than LR\'s track record of
1:46.64, yet Commentator was apparently awarded a BSF of 120.

Mystifying, and enigmatic, but no more so than the slow and thoroughly
outclassed Forever Together taking the Grade I Diana. And no I am not accusing
Long Jon Sheppard of being a \"move up\" trainer.

[miff]

There was an obvious split variant on the day but this day, the projection methodology rears it\'s head. Beyer/TG will take their normal creative license  when doing the figs but Rags will be another interesting story.


Commentator, at a Beyer 120, is app a neg -5 TG(if Jerry agrees with Beyer) which is absurd.The problem is the other route to compare(Ginger Punch race) was so slow paced that the final time was very slow, as was the whole race, a Grade 1 joke.

Mike

[fkach]

The track was very fast in the early part of the day. There was some routine maintenance done just prior to the Abraaj race, but nothing out of the ordinary. The weather also started changing a little before that race. You could tell that it might rain. So perhaps it started getting a little more humid.

Why the track changed speed AS MUCH as it did prior to the sprint is somewhat mysterious (at least to me) because the conditions didn\'t change that much, but some change makes perfect sense.

I don\'t know how Beyer or anyone else will handle the Go for Wand and Whitney, but the rain almost certainly changed the track speed between those two races. In addition, the slowish pace of the Go for Wand could also easily have had an impact on the final time of that race. I think it makes no sense at all to tie those two routes to anything else on the card.

If I were making the figures, I would assign the Whitney figure in isolation using the projection method. (it would probably be less than a 120 Beyer, but it would be a fast race).

I wouldn\'t even make a figure for the Go for Wand because IMO it\'s virtually impossible to seperate the impact of the changing track speed from the impact of the slow pace.  It was probably a slow race, but not necessarily a bad performance by the winner because she didn\'t do much running until she finally got clear in the stretch and had no pace before that.

[marcus]

I didn\'t like that horse in the Whitney , those inverted type of borderline \"near\"  0 2 X patterns in the negative scale haven\'t exactly been a good angle is my personal observation - but wouldn\'t be surprised if ran another big effort like a -5 neg . If the track variant changes radically throughout the card ( as in the Go for Wand if that was indeed the case ) and can be quantified , why would separating \"pace\" factors from \"track speed\" be an issue - imo it would seem the big challenge and tipping point is keeping those two items apart ...

[NoCarolinaTony]

Would anyone else also want to comment on the front end bias for Fri-Sat? I am not so sure Sunday could be claimed but nothing has been closing. If you were not on on near the lead at the top of the stretch you didn\'t stand a chance all weekend.

Good to see many of you this weekend.

NC Tony

[SJU5]

The only thing I noticed was that before the Vanderbilt they Sealed / Harrowed the track from the opposite direction. It appeared that that they sealed it and only gave it a shallo harrowing. (It that even makes any sense.)

It really didn\'t rain until just before the Go For Wand and even then it only really rained for about 5 - 10 mintues. I can\'t say that it really changed the conditions of the track at all. It started raining during the post parade / warm up for the Go For Wand and it stopped raining by the end of the race and the sun was out before the end of the race.

I noticed the REVERSE Harrowing of the track. I sat right next to the ABC booth with Kenny Mayne and hank Goldberg and I asked them if they had ever seen reverse harrowing in the middle of a card like today. They said no and they had their in box producer call over to the other announcer booth of Privman and Moss to see what their reaction might be but we didn\'t get their answer.

I though the track and trainers DID NOT want this reverse harrowing in the middle of a race card and discussed this with the track super in the spring at Belmont?

[miff]

The track was sealed and then back-raked which slows down the surface significantly. This track super Passero does his own thing, not fully comprehending how much his actions affect race outcome.Back-raking causes horses to go \"into the surface\" much deeper, hence the much slower raw times.Weather had little to do with the change in this case.

Another case of the clueless track management NOT informing it\'s customers of fairly vital info.This Passero does this back-raking quite a bit in NY and now here with any forecast of rain.


Mike

[fkach]

>why would separating \"pace\" factors from \"track speed\" be an issue - imo it would seem the big challenge and tipping point is keeping those two items apart ...<

Yes, you want to keep them seperate but sometimes it\'s very difficult. Changes in track speed impact all horses equally, but the pace impacts horses differently within the same race based on their individual ability and the fractions they ran. If both were a factor in a specific race, it\'s tough to know how fast they actually ran becsuse you don\'t know how much the pace mattered.

[fkach]

Interesting point. I noticed the harrowing, but didn\'t notice or even know that doing it in the opposite direction could be an issue. I simply noticed the change in track speed and would account for it.

[alm]

This is actually a response to Steve Crist\'s mystification at Forever Together winning the Diana.

ANY read of her past performances pointed her out...she had had 2 grass starts and they were startlingly better than her dirt form...the only thing that mystified me was why it took her connections so long to figure out she was a top notch grass horse.

As others have pointed out over and over on this site, good grass runners are often slow on dirt. This was an easy one for me: I started counting my money at the head of the lane.

This filly could be a female Cigar-in-reverse.

[milwmike]

Jerry was talking about this race before the seminar on Sunday and with the wide trip Student Council had and the gap back to the third place horse, SC might get a neg 3 and Commentator might get a neg 5.

[lfe2211]

So Student Council ran around a 111-112, about ten points above his lifetime Beyer Top? I don\'t think so.

[TGJB]

It turned out SC wasn\'t that wide, but I had it about right. It would be nice if we could get that race again in the BC Classic.

[P-Dub]

richiebee Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>> Mystifying, and enigmatic, but no more so than the
> slow and thoroughly
> outclassed Forever Together taking the Grade I
> Diana. And no I am not accusing
> Long Jon Sheppard of being a \"move up\" trainer.


Richiebee,
You\'re being a little harsh about this horse.  I thought her 2 turf races fit pretty well against the others.

There were questions regarding many of the other contenders.  I don\'t think this was the surprise you feel it is, relative to the TG figures.

[Flighted Iron]

Miff,

  I\'ve noticed in prior messages your comparison\'s with TG to beyer and your
approximations for respective figs.With respect,how do you formulate this? Essentially,I\'m trying to get to the root of beyer and his calculations.For example: Big Brown\'s TG #\'s for fla derb and KY derb(-3.5 & -4.75)with respective
beyers of 106 and 109,yet commentator receives a 120?

 Thanks,
  Flighted Iron