ROTW??

[fkach]

TGJB,

I don\'t want to discuss CA figures because I think it would be fruitless, but it has been obvious for a very long time (I\'m actually talking decades now) that when CA horses ship to NY they are extremely dangerous. And, if anything, the opposite is true when they go in the other direction.

There are certainly some trainers that excel at bringing them here when they are ready to peak, (Baffert being one), but over the years many have been excellent at it.  At a certain point I think you have to ackowledge that reality and upgrade their chances regardless of whether you think it\'s a figure issue, trainer issue, synthetic to dirt issue, or some less tangible aspect of racing.

[JR]

That said, why would you conclude in the analysis that \"she\'s not a strong contender?\"

[covelj70]

What exactly is the point of a message like this?

Would you prefer TG not put up a race of the week or have you never thrown a horse out that has gone on to win when you cap it yourself?

Nothing irritates me more than stupid messages like this.

I pick stocks publicly for a living and so, like Jerry with the race of the week, I never have the luxury of getting something wrong in private.  Any mistake I make is out there for the whole world to see.  Based on my experience at work, there is nothing more infuriating than armchair quarterbacks who never publicly make predictions but who are quick to ridicule others who are willing to go out on a limb

Here\'s a suggestions for you Alm,

Either shut up or start putting your picks up on the board so we can all criticize you when you are wrong.

[miff]

Cov,


Agree picking is tough especially in advance of odds, weather, scratches and possible track profile. Yesterday, most dirt races were won by horses close up. Actually, never read any TG analysis pertaining to possible race shape/bias.The only things focused on is weight and the sometimes over rated ground loss.

One thing which has been confirmed and reconfirmed is that you can almost throw out the slowish Cali figs when those horses ship.Don\'t have records handy but another new top for a Cali shipper,this time Tough Tiz\'s Sis. Most of the Cali shippers do not look to be sitting on a top type performance either.


Mike

[Jacimo]

I think Alm\'s point involved circumstances in which there were a good number of accolades for a winning selection, without a winner. Tough Tiz was vastly superior.

covelj70 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> What exactly is the point of a message like this?
>
> Would you prefer TG not put up a race of the week
> or have you never thrown a horse out that has gone
> on to win when you cap it yourself?
>
> Nothing irritates me more than stupid messages
> like this.
>
> I pick stocks publicly for a living and so, like
> Jerry with the race of the week, I never have the
> luxury of getting something wrong in private.  Any
> mistake I make is out there for the whole world to
> see.  Based on my experience at work, there is
> nothing more infuriating than armchair
> quarterbacks who never publicly make predictions
> but who are quick to ridicule others who are
> willing to go out on a limb
>
> Here\'s a suggestions for you Alm,
>
> Either shut up or start putting your picks up on
> the board so we can all criticize you when you are
> wrong.

[covelj70]

Mike,

Good thoughts.  It\'s very constructive to do a post mortem and think about what we could consider better next time, whether it\'s picking horses or picking stocks. I also agree that the Cali shippers have been good this year.  I have been playing that trend as well.

As I know you agree though, just being a wise guy and saying \"great call\" for a pick that didn\'t wind up being right has no purpose.

Just like my stock picking, when I get a call wrong, I appreciate when a client offers some constructive post mortem thoughts as you do here about what I might consider next time around.

Thanks man, good luck today.

[covelj70]

I don\'t think Jerry would argue that he nailed the race.

To the contrary, he posted that he didn\'t hit it because he didn\'t use TTS on top.

As Mike just did in his response though, it\'s always more helpful to offer some constructive thoughts as oppossed to just being a wise guy.

[mlnolan00]

All can say is Tiznow is on a roll, and at this time of year you have to consider ALL of his offspring when they\'re routing.
Beyer guys gave her a 113!?!?!

Time to watch New Approach kick some booty...

[miff]

You can \"pickle\" all wet track figs which are way out of line with a horses norm. TTS will never see a TG neg -3ish again (113 beyer) on a dry track ever.Put a bulls eye on this ones back next time on dry dirt or synth/poly/pro ride etc.


Mike

[miff]

\"As I know you agree though, just being a wise guy and saying \"great call\" for a pick that didn\'t wind up being right has no purpose\".


Cov,

I agree completely. I can pick every winner AFTER the race. Some posters object to those who try to heap praise or shill for the product or team TG when it\'s uncalled for.I\'m sure they don\'t need or want it on such occasions.

Anyone who read the analysis and collected deserves it.


Mike

[fkach]

>That said, why would you conclude in the analysis that \"she\'s not a strong contender?\"<

I didn\'t do the analysis, but that was my point. I mentioned in another post before the race that the winner was very usable (even if you keyed on the 2nd place finisher as the best value). To me, the TG figures were almost irrelevant because there were so many reasons to think she would run faster than that.      

Figures are an indespensible part of handicapping. But if you allow them to dictate every single betting decision and ignore clear cut evidence that suggests other possibilities, you become \"a man with only a hammer\". To a man with only a hammer in his tool box, everything looks like a nail.

[jimbo66]

Thisisn\'t a redboard posting, as I didn\'t have the winner yesterday, I thought Copper State was a good play, especially at 13-1 WITHOUT Indian Blessing in the race (I might have taken 13-1 with Indian Blessing in the race).

I read the thread and if you weed out the postings criticizing the ROTW and focus on the questioning of the California figures, I do think it points out a problem.  I certainly can\'t agree with FKACH and say this has been happening for decades (jerry screwing up the california figs by having them too slow).  I have only used the product for 8-10 years now, so \"decades\" is beyond what i can comment on.  But I do see a problem/challenge for TG users that has materialized in the past 12 months or so.  The synthetic figures are more \"bunched\" than the dirt figures.  They seem to mirror turf figures in that respect.  I know I have posted this before, but mathematically the scale comparison of dirt to turf doesn\'t work.  We say \"a 3 is a 3 is a 3\", on any surface.  Not that the horse can necessarily translate that figure to another surface, but the performance marked by a \"3\" on dirt, equates to the performance marked by a \"3\" on turf\".  Well to me, that doesn\'t hold up at all, mathematically.  The top of the scales are too dissimilar.  The fastest dirt horses run negative 6, while the fastest turf horeses run 5 points slower.  This happens not because the fastest turf horses are slower, but because the \"beaten lengths\" on turf are less than that on dirt, in general, thus affecting the scale.  Well, the same thing happens with synthetic figures.  The synthetic figures are more bunched, so the faster synthetic horses are not getting as fast a figure (in general), than the faster dirt horses.  And since the top figures are \"off\", all the other figures are \"off\" as well.  I have seen way too many California synthetic horses come east and run on dirt and run \"eyeballs out\" and run figures that they should not have been able to run.  And we can see postings from our California posters about this showing the West coast horses being \"under-rated\" and we can see the pedigree people point to the \"dirt pedigrees\" as the reason, but this poster feels that this is because the synthetic figures are mostly useless in forecastinig how horses will run on dirt, because the scale is completely different.

The problem I have is that this is the way the game is headed.  This is not a short term phenomenon that will go away.  Granted, I can\'t prove I am \"right\" about the above, I can only believe what I see and having decided to believe it,adjust my gambling accordingly.  But other than abstaining from races where any horse has a significant amout of synthetic races (like the Baffert winner yesterday), there isn\'t much to do about it.  If you follow this policy, you are likely restricting yourself to betting claiming races, where most of the horses are local based and you won\'t get many grade 1 stakes races, where horses ship to run.  Which is not an appealing thing, at least to me.

Anyway, off my soapbox for now.

Jim

[ronwar]

Tend to agree with you Jimbo66, although I think the west coast thing was there before the synthetics.  At the time I thought the racing was just different.  Even the way they train is different.  I would never see blistering works from the east coast tracks. In any case, your thoughts make sense, at least to me.

[miff]

Hi Jim,

I\'ll add a little something. At the very beginning of the synth/poly thing I posted here that I felt that dirt horses were not able to run the same TG figs as on dirt. I saw it in the Beyer figs and talked to their people who agreed then. I felt that then and know it now, for most horses.

I recall JB jumping down my throat when I suggested this and he pointed to his  expertise in nailing track speed. The painfully slow raw times at Del Mar were out of the norm but \"adjusted\" I was informed and the horses were running their norm.Turns out that many horses do NOT perform at equal levels dirt to poly/ synth or whatever and there is no question in that regard.

It is also worth pointing out that in spite of the adjutments made to these surfaces early speed is STILL not nearly the edge it is on most dirt tracks.There is still a general anti early speed bias at most of the poly/synths but not as bad as it was.

All these fake tracks were garbage then and garbage now. Incidentally, for the poly loons, 5 breakdowns during racing at Del Mar and 0 at the Spa.Thats 2 years in a row that dirt had less breakdowns at NY tracks.


Mike

[Jacimo]

Polyturf has certainly complicated things. There are \"race shape\" scenarios within the body of each race that are different from Dirt races. Two recent big race winners shed some light on the phenomena.

The Travers saw a Tiznow colt named Colonel John come in with inferior California numbers and he won a nice stretch duel.

The Ruffian saw a Tiznow mare come in with generally inferior California numbers and she won going away.

In each case the winners were certainly better on dirt than their Polyturf figures represented. The public backed each with more conviction than the Polyturf numbers would appear to warrant also.

To my eye Tough Tiz Sis was a good wager. She had run at Belmont as a filly in the Gazelle, finishing a close third to Lear\'s Princess and Rags to Riches, earning a 3. She came into the Ruffian as the Highweight and conceded significant pounds to Copper State who was a 1 or 2 mare. However, Copper State was coming off those top races and Tough Tiz\'s Sis was positioned to return to her 3YO top at Belmont and/or improve upon it with her added maturity and that proved to be what happened. The distance and one turn of the event didn\'t hurt either.

miff Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hi Jim,
>
> I\'ll add a little something. At the very beginning
> of the synth/poly thing I posted here that I felt
> that dirt horses were not able to run the same TG
> figs as on dirt. I saw it in the Beyer figs and
> talked to their people who agreed then. I felt
> that then and know it now, for most horses.
>
> I recall JB jumping down my throat when I
> suggested this and he pointed to his  expertise in
> nailing track speed. The painfully slow raw times
> at Del Mar were out of the norm but \"adjusted\" I
> was informed and the horses were running their
> norm.Turns out that many horses do NOT perform at
> equal levels dirt to poly/ synth or whatever and
> there is no question in that regard.
>
> It is also worth pointing out that in spite of the
> adjutments made to these surfaces early speed is
> STILL not nearly the edge it is on most dirt
> tracks.There is still a general anti early speed
> bias at most of the poly/synths but not as bad as
> it was.
>
> All these fake tracks were garbage then and
> garbage now. Incidentally, for the poly loons, 5
> breakdowns during racing at Del Mar and 0 at the
> Spa.Thats 2 years in a row that dirt had less
> breakdowns at NY tracks.
>
>
> Mike