Wood

[BitPlayer]

Given how much distance he and Giant Oak put on the Illinois Derby field, I would not be surprised if Musket Man joined the \"0 or better\" club yesterday.  And he did it running between horses and taking dirt.  I keep thinking his Yonaguska breeding is going render him ineffective as the distances get longer, but it hasn\'t happened yet.

[analizethis]

Yonaguska out of a Fortunate Prospect mare. I can\'t see how he will get 10 furlongs but in terms of a consistent moving forward line that hasn\'t looked back you must pay attenion to him.

Maybe later for the Ohio or Pennslyvania Derbies he makes more sense but I think I\'m going to have use him in the exotics at least. Yeserday,in response to the pedigree question,his owner said he was a freak.

Maybe he is, it\'s happened before.

[Uncle Buck]

I like your bold stand Jimbo. I happen to agree with you 100%. I caught the race online and could barely see it do to poort quality signal but Durkin\'s call was good. Other than Afleet Alex\'s Preakness I would say it\'s one of the top two performances by a 3YO in the last decade. On the other hand, I can\'t help but draw a little comparison to Bellamy Road\'s blockbuster Wood. Who was the last Wood winner to win the Derby anyway? The race has not yielded much in the way of Derby victors this decade but none of that will matter if he holds together.

If he trains well, eats up and is dappled out on May 2nd, you can\'t leave the country\'s fastest 3YO out of the Derby exacata.

[Silver Charm]

TG has been dead on with this horse and he should be a poster boy for how to make money using their figures


I will be the first to attend the Seminar and sit in the front row as that pedigree and in the last, the 4 races in 3 mths or so, kept having me look the other way.

Giant Oak looked aweful in the lane and should not be running in the Derby.

[big18741]

Silver Charm Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Dunkirk WILL get in.

What a perfect weekend for him.
 
> OF must deal with QR and QR must deal with OF
>
> This is good for Dunkirk......

Maybe.Maybe not.The front end is shaping up a lot like 2004 with just two fast horses controlling things.Smarty Jones stalked LionHeart and they finished 1-2.Depends on the jocks.

[covelj70]

I think the pace scenario that everyone was freaked out about over the last 2 weeks is off the mark.

There aren\'t alot of need the lead types this year and with Pamplemouse now officially out, that makes this even more the case.

I Want Revenge doesn\'t need the lead as he showed on Saturday.

There are a number of horses who will sit right off the pace including

Old Fashioned
Friesan Fire
Quality Road
Regal Ransom
Charitable Man (if he gets in)


but as of right now, I don\'t see anyone who is going to set a blisstering pace in this thing let alone a bunch of them such that someone way back (ala Dunkirk) is going to get an ideal set up.  

Dunkirk has run two 0 negatives which given that he will need to come 9 wide in the Derby with his running style doesn\'t worry me too much.

I am willing to bet the race shapes set this thing up for someone right on the lead or just off of it.

[miff]

IWR gets a 103 Beyer(little light imo) for the Wood.The pattern guys will be licking their chops at the regression. TG should be in the 0 or neg 1 area, if they agree.Thought that the bad break and little running that IWR did in the Wood may delay the inevitable end of the line that they all suffer sooner or later.I would add that his racing foundation is strong and his previous 6\'s look way too light given his last two.A runner and a derby handful imo, in spite of the pattern he will take into the race.

Pioneer Of The Nile got a 96 Beyer(maybe a TG 2) and this horse will be dismissed by many as too slow.Couple that with Mott\'s comments about this horse wanting grass/synth and maybe not dirt. He\'s a better horse since Baffy got him and his last 2 wins have seen him completely out of his preferred comfort zone(pulling at early paces instead of making one late run)Not tossing until he works ugly on dirt.The big question is what commitment the Great Garret make re Pioneer or Dunkirk. Agent Anderson is a sheet reader who sees the figs and knows Pioneer is slow.

Mike

[Halo Fire]

Jim,

First, I want to wish you the best. Last year, someone on this board made a pretty nice score on this race and maybe now it\'s your turn.

FF\'s anxiety is an issue but I see it as a maturity one. After all, he did settle in behind horses once they hit the backside, took plenty of dirt, and went on to win. He overcame adversity and kept to his task. Now, he had a picture perfect trip in the LA Derby, but he relaxed in the early stages. Was this a sign of a maturing colt or the footing? I feel it\'s a combination of both but I don\'t feel it was ONLY the racetrack.

[TreadHead]

I think you have to include Chocolate Candy in this discussion as well.  I\'m betting he earned just as big a figure as POTN did, and with a better trip and/or more trip trouble for POTN, he could come out the better of the 2.  Either way, either of those horses are competitive if the synth to dirt explosion pattern plays itself out.

[jimbo66]

Halo,

Thanks for the wish of good luck.

You are right.  Maturity could be the issue with Friesan Fire.  Plus, I have to learn not to underestimate Larry Jones.  Seeing him interviewed two years ago the Friday before the derby has cost me a lot of money.  Like many TG users, I felt Street Sense was a very likely winner of that derby.  I figured Hard Spun one of maybe 3 horses that were likely finish behind him.  Then he worked him in like 34 or something a few days before the derby and I saw him interviewed afterwards and he sounded clueless.  The southern drawl and \"gosh darn\" type comments made me \"judge a  book by its cover\".  So I threw Hard Spun out.  Last year, I keyed Tale of Ekati and Denis of Cork.  40 to 1 and 28-1.  The tough part of the super.  The most likely winner won the race and the only horse besides Big Brown with multiple \"fast figures\", Eight Belles, was the 2nd place finisher.  I was \"sure\" that she was \"over the top\' and Larry Jones had run her too much and refused to put her on any ticket.

Anyway, have to respect that Jones gets his horses to run.  If he thinks 7 weeks rest and no races beyond 1 1/16 for Friesan Fire is the way to go, he is probably right....

[Cartman]

I\'m not sure I understand the theory for why you wouldn\'t want to adjust IWR\'s performance for being off slowly. I also don\'t understand why anyone would think he saved energy by being off slowly or by earning a slower figure.

There is a great fallacy in racing.

We do not time individual horses in the time it takes them to run the designated distance. The teletimer starts as soon as the fastest horse out of the gate crosses the beam after the run up. That means the clock has also started on any horse still stuck in the gate or that hasn\'t reached the beam yet even though they will have to run further as a result.  

To get an accurate time for each horse at the designated distance, the process would have to be changed so that each horse is clocked from the moment he crosses the beam as an individual. If we did that, a horse that was off slowly like IWR would be clocked in a much faster final time than he received because that\'s how fast he actually ran the 9 furlongs. It would also better represent the amount of energy he used. If you watch the replay, you can estimate how far behind he was when he crossed the beam and translate that into some kind of adjustment.

Of course, there would be difficulties with my proposal (some technical). There is also the issue that most horses are consistently faster or slower out of the gate than others. So as long as there are run ups, we probably want to time them the way we do and only adjust for the aberrations like good gate horses getting off slowly, an especially fast start for a horse that is usually a poor gate horse, and a horse beating the gate.

[TGJB]

We put op, op+ etc. next to the figure so you can adjust them yourself if you want to. In this case the right adjustment would be 1 1/2 points, maybe a half a point more.

The reasons that we don\'t adjust the figures themselves are a) trackmen sometimes overestimate the op (the other horses are accelerating at a faster pace for a few strides, it looks worse than it is), and b) horses that are op often do it again, making them sucker plays if you include the op in the figure. We would rather show the net and let the handicapper make his own decision.