Super Saver and Rule

[ajkreider]

DRF reports Uh Oh Bango is out of the Derby.

[jack72906]

I would agree with this but if \"it\'s a game of percentages\" he has the fewest amount of question marks and a lot of said percentages in his favor.

I\'ve cost myself a lot of money in recent weeks looking for \"chinks\" in the armor of favorites. Unless his workouts are lousy he\'s the key. Yes, I know anything can happen in a 20 horse field, but again playing the percentages has me keying this horse and finding the value underneath.

[sekrah]

Who exactly has Eskendereya defeated to warrant this excitement?

Jackson Bend, who was destroyed by Stanley Gold running an outrageous 2-year old campaign?  

Aikenite, whose lone win is a 6 furlong Maiden race last August?

The only half-decent horse he beat in the Wood was Awesome Act who threw a shoe at the gate and went wide-wide under a stranglehold.

Who exactly has this horse beaten?

[Lost Cause]

sekrah Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>>
> Who exactly has this horse beaten?


Who has any horse beeaten on the derby trail?  The question is who has done it the way Esky has..That I can answer..

[Old Mr. Boston]

Although I have not seen the SA Derby numbers, I am inclined to like Setsuko to be on the ticket. He should run all day and comes from good connections. He just needs a couple more defections to get in.

[jack72906]

Yeah. Definitely a question mark, but can we ask the same for any horse on the Derby Trail?

Not saying it\'s you, but it\'s funny when I read certain people say that this horse hasn\'t beaten anyone and then read that this crop of 3yo is poor.

Who he\'s not only beaten but run into the ground in his last two races is irrelevant. If that\'s a strong enough angle for people to play against him then be my guest because IMO there a lot more relevant and important angles in his favor.

[mjellish]

Sekrah,

First, to answer your question about who ESK has beat, he has beat the Gotham Stakes winner by nearly 12 lengths, the Florida Derby winner by 12 lengths,the Lane\'s End winner by 34 lengths, the Ocala Sophomore Stakes winner, and he has beaten the 3/3 winner of Florida Stallion series by about 9 lengths twice in a row.  He is 4/4 on the dirt and he is annihilating his competition.  I haven\'t seen Sidney\'s Candy final # yet, but regardless of what it is I am confident in saying that ESK\'s last number would have beat SC and any other three year old in any race so far this year, by a lot, and I think his number before that in the FOY would have also been good enough to beat any other race run this year.

Now that doesn\'t mean you have to like him for the derby, but this is a speed figure board, no?  So if you want to poke holes in ESK, poke them in another place.  Tell us why he is going to bounce or regress.  Give me something real to ponder.  But don\'t tell me ESK hasn\'t beat anyone, which implies he can\'t run very fast, because he has run fast.  Very fast.  As a matter of fact, he\'s got Big Brown type numbers.  And according to those numbers, that makes him fast enough to beat every other three year old that has run so far this year.  That\'s what we are up against if we play against him.  

Now I happen to be in an ok position with a future bet down on this guy at 60-1, but as far as betting more money on this year\'s derby goes I don\'t like the fact that ESK is such a stick out anymore than you probably do.  But it is what it is.  And I\'m not going to write a bunch of nonsense about him not beating anyone, or that Super Saver is going to get the 1 1/4 better, or yada yada just to make myself feel better about betting against him.  Let\'s wait and see how he trains.  See if he shows any sign of a bounce coming.  Or at least tell me why the trip is going to kill him.  

Don\'t take this personally, but it is becoming hard for me to take you seriously when you keep posting so much nonsense on this board.

[Wrongly]

Well stated.  I have him at only 22/1 but that doesn\'t mean he can\'t bounce to the moon or just suck up for third while Sidney\'s Candy wires the field.  Strange things can happen.

[richiebee]

Will be nice to see the final #s for this years field going in.

In terms of comparing Eskie to BB (and to be fair I seem to remember BB being less
than sound of hoof throughout the Triple Crown campaign, edge Eskie) a pure
analysis of the numbers (and I do not believe in patterns established on the
Derby chase) might lead one to look at how fast Eskie is in terms of separation
from his competition and review BB similarly.

Checking the archives, in 08 Big Brown went in with the fastest TG, a negative 3
in the Fl Derby. Pyro was next fastest on the basis of a negative 1 he ran in the
goo as a 2YO in the BC Juvie. Smooth Air ran to a 0² chasing BB in
Hallandale;Gayego and Z Fortune were at negative 0¹and negative 0³
in the Arkansas Derby.

So in 08, throwing out Pyro\'s 2YO TG (remember he seemed to lose his focus after
what was supposed to be a conditioning run in the Blue Grass?), BB was arguably
3 TG points faster than his fastest rivals going in.

Will Eskie enjoy the same separation over his rivals in terms of TG # power? Out
of the 19 that will face Eskie in the gate, how many will have broken
negative ground? Is this too simple a way to look at the numbers (again I do not
believe in patterns as such in the Derby-- too much ground to be lost, engineered
regressions (obviously not in Eskie\'s case) and distance limitations (not Eskie
of course)).

Of course as MJellish will certainly remember, what made the 08 Big Brown Derby
memorable for some was that Pyro ran 9th in the Derby, Z Fortune 11th, Smooth Air
12th, and Gayego 17th. Big Brown, the fastest going in, moved forward; his
fastest rivals barely moved at all.

That\'s a great futures play on Eskie, bringing to mind Jimbo\'s bold future play of 09.

Maybe its wrong to say that Eskie hasn\'t beaten anything, but if you are backing
Eskie is it wrong to be concerned about the lack of resistance he has had in
winning his last 2 races, even if said lack of resistance is a function of his
superiority?

[jbelfior]

MJ:

You make great points. Sometimes, myself included, we tend to find \"chinks\" when we see the absence of value.


To the Remainder of the Derby Forum:

Rather than poke holes in the best 3 yo colt in the Derby (numbers wise), find the best value horse who you think will run better than the rest of us think.

Perhaps its Discreetly Mine, or Awesome Act, or Conveyance.

Then add value by hooking your \"sleeper \" with the likes of Esky, Sidney, Lucky, etc. Besides, your exacta will pay better odds than a win play,and you\'re scoring out even if you run second. (see Bluegrass Cat in 2006).


Good Luck,
Joe B.

[moosepalm]

mjellish Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I think you make some good points Jim, but to my
> eye Super Saver is toast at 1 1/4.  I understand
> your point about his pattern, but Pletcher tends
> to get his tops from a 3 year old 2nd out, not 3rd
> (you probably don\'t need to see the trainer
> profile to know that).


mjellish, one of the reasons I visit this board is to read exchanges between  knowledgeable handicappers such as what you and Covell are doing here.  In this instance, your post raises a question and an observation from me.  When you talk about Pletcher\'s \"track record\" with 3 year olds, and their 2nd and 3rd times out, how does that jibe with Eskendreya\'s 3 year old efforts, to date?  That\'s my question, and my observation is that, in the past few years, I\'ve developed a reticence about using the phrase \"can\'t get the distance\" when it comes to Derby analysis, because I have by-passed more than a few successful Derby entrants who have been labeled as such.  I can offer no theoretical underpinnings for this, and I am certainly no pedigree analyst, but, it has added one more layer of uncertainty to the mix

[mjellish]

My comment was meant to reinforce my belief that Super Saver was fully cranked for the ARK Derby.  

Anyone that really follows this game at the top level of racing probably realizes that Pletcher over the years can get red hot, suddenly, and his entire stable starts to go off and run new tops.  That is exactly what happened this year down in Florida.  And when you start to see that, a good player will pay attention and begin to wonder why.  

I wonder why.  And I wonder what it is going to mean under tighter testing standards come first Saturday in May.

[nyc1347]

I will always trust what thoro number you see with pattern.  It makes absolutely NO sense whatsoever for someone to think that a horse can get 9F and not 10F especially at this championship level...its just nonsense.  

A horse with nice rest and pattern with better thoro numbers will almost always run faster than a horse with slower thoro numbers who can so called \"get the distance\"... \"getting the distance\" is a bogus variable with handicapping until u compare the numbers together and see who is faster than who at a shorter distance (especially assuming most of these horses or all of these havent run that long yet).. at that point you can check rest, value and determine whether it is a good play.  At this level its all about the pattern and numbers these horses are running along with rest.  The saying of \"not getting distance\" doesnt exist because it HASNT existed before for all of these horses.. so we can only go by 1F or so and less to make that determination adn fair comparison..  comparing the thoro numbers for a slightly lowered distance is much better than saying a horse with a 5 going 9F is going to run out of his mind today at 10F because his pedigree shows that it can happen compared to a horse who has run consistent 1s and 2s at 9F..  makes no sense whatsoever.

[moosepalm]

mjellish Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> My comment was meant to reinforce my belief that
> Super Saver was fully cranked for the ARK Derby.
>
>
> Anyone that really follows this game at the top
> level of racing probably realizes that Pletcher
> over the years can get red hot, suddenly, and his
> entire stable starts to go off and run new tops.
> That is exactly what happened this year down in
> Florida.  And when you start to see that, a good
> player will pay attention and begin to wonder why.
>  
>
> I wonder why.  And I wonder what it is going to
> mean under tighter testing standards come first
> Saturday in May.

Thanks for the clarification, and yes, he was on quite a roll this spring, in Florida and elsewhere.  On the face of it, one horse lays over the field, yet there are some questions which won\'t go away.

[mjellish]

I couldn\'t disagree with you more on this NYC.  I don\'t want to come across like I know it all, because I don\'t, and I\'m pretty sure you aren\'t going to listen to me.  But I\'m going to try this one more time.  

I am glad you belive in pattern handicapping.  I think it can be one of the best ways to spot horses on the improve and therefore at good odds, and you seem to know your way around a sheet.  There are times when pattern handicapping is the key to making money on a race (provided you bet it correctly).  But there are also times when pattern doesn\'t matter at all, or when a horse will \"defy\" his pattern.  If you\'ve been using sheets as long as you say you have, you have got to know this to be true.

The saying about a horse \"not getting the distance\" is very, very real, my friend.  In fact, most horses have fairly distinct preferences, and many of them have hard limits.  You don\'t need to take my word for it, and we don\'t need to debate it.  Just ask any trainer, the people who actually work with these animals every day.  

Now when it comes to knowing how far a horse can optimally run, I agree with your earlier post that you can\'t just go by breeding.  Horses outrun their breeding all the time, just like many underperform their breeding.  Trainers can usually get an inkling about how far a horse is going to want to go based on body type, stride, conformation and how they train.  But sometimes they have to try horses at longer distances in order to know for sure.  They have to take their shot.  

I have gotten to know a few of these trainers over the years.  And I promise you, most if not all of them will tell you that there is a distinct diference between 9F and 10F.  Now you are right from the standpoint that a horse on the improve under the right circumstances can sometimes stretch his distance limitations.  And a horse can win a race at almost any distance if his competition lays down for him.  But very rarely will a horse deliver a peek performance at a distance that is either too short or too long for him.  And it usually takes a peek performance to win a Grade I at a 1 1/4 like the Kentucky Derby.  

Look at this way.  There aren\'t many track and field athletes that are just as effective in the 100M dash as they are at the 400M.  Same thing applies to horses.  Quite simply, the way horses are bred these days in North America there are now far more horses that can\'t deliver a peek performance than ones that can at 10F or longer.  Why do you think so few races are run at 1 1/4 or longer?  How many dirt races are there a year at 1 1/2?  

If you think all it takes is a good pattern at 1 1/16 or 1 1/8 to run well at the longer classic distances, especially at the Grade I level, you are going to lose A LOT of money betting races at the classic distances.  I can almost promise you that.

But like I said, don\'t take my word for it.  Just ask any trainer.