Dialed In

[albany]

I recognize that most posters on this board have dismissed Dialed In as being too slow to win a Classic. I am having some difficulty completely tossing him out, however. Perhaps my reluctance to toss the Derby favorite can be traced to the fact that he\'s going for a massive payday and is trained by someone who knows how to point a horse to a single race. In any event, I have  a few questions that may help me deal with Dialed In:

1) I read that Dialed In\'s last half mile (47) was the second fastest in Derby history. Can anyone confirm this assertion?

2) To have attained a competitive number and/or establish a favorable pattern, how fast would Dialed In have to finish the last half of the Derby?

3) If the answer to question number 2 is a time that is impossibly fast, which I suspect, wouldn\'t his pedestrian Derby number be based on pace dynamics? Wouldn\'t this also explain finishing behind Romans\' horse who Dialed In beat in the Florida Derby despite a speed favoring track.

4) Would a contested pace in the Preakness give Dialed In a shot or is he simply too slow? Put another way, is there any interpretation of the numbers that would point to Dialed In as a real contender?

Thanks for any insights that can be provided.

Albany

[sekrah]

Albany,

There are others that\'ll disagree with me here but everything you said is true IMO.  Dialed In had an impossible challenge once those fraction times were put up.  The ride by Julian LeParoux was pathetic.  He didn\'t let the horse run, he automatically assumed it would be hot up front and tucked his closer in the back.

Compare his ride to the one by Corey Nakatani on Nehro who brilliantly had his closer right up near the front and unlike LeParoux, gave his animal a good chance to win the Derby.  IMO Nakatani is barnone the best pace-feeling jockey in the nation.  

The Preakness should be kinder for LeParoux to sit back with Dialed In and pounce.  But he\'ll probably overcompensate and foolishly push this one towards the front too soon.  He just needs to let the horse go out and run his 49 half mile.  If he did that in the Derby he would have been sitting in the cat-bird seat.

Dialed In\'s performance was a choke-job by LeParoux.

[jbelfior]

If I\'m Nick Zito, I run DI in the one turn Met Mile. He would get a huge break in the weights and get his ideal set up at his best distance.


Good Luck,
Joe B.

[Donut]

leparoux is not the right guy for that horse and u know he hates to bring his game inside on dirt. not sure if di is more than a miler w honest fractions, but regardless he was never put into contention for the better part of that race. that has to be the reason he had so much in the tank.  imo at a mile he is the most explosive horse in the land bar none.

[sekrah]

This horse beat the 4th place Derby finisher at 1 1/8.    He gets one horrific ride in a paceless Derby and that\'s the evidence he can\'t win a classic?

Not exactly convincing evidence.

Do you think if he was 10 lengths closer in the Derby and ran the first 6 furlongs in 1:15 instead of 1:17, he wouldn\'t have had the late kick he showed?

The energy depletion difference between 1:15 & 1:17 (with horses of this caliber) is almost nil.  These horses can click off 12 1/2 second furlongs all day and not blow out a candle.  How many Derby\'s have finished in 2:05 or slower?

If Dialed In was 7 lengths back instead of 17, he still would have been able to finish up in 47.

[APny]

It was one of the worst rides I\'ve noticed in a while and if you watch JL closely he rides like that more than not.  He has no internal clock and loves to take everything back.

[jimbo66]

All this criticism of Leparoux is pretty ridiculous.

I looked hard at the pre-Derby posts and I know that I was in the very small minority calling for a very slow pace and tossing horses that would be affected by it.  (the mistake was thinking Nehro was in this group).

This was the slowest derby pace in about 60 years.  Based on Dialed In\'s races and comments from trainer before the race, the plan was pretty simple.  Take back and make his run.  Not Leparoux\'s fault the pace was snail-like.  Nice job by those jockeys that did adjust, but not every horse is adjustable.  Not sure if Dialed In falls into that category.

Leparoux generally saves ground and saves horse for the stretch.  A current day\'s version of Pat Day.  By no measure he is not a top jockey.

As for Dialed In being a \"Miler\", you guys are coming to a pretty quick judgment.  I don\'t like him in the Preakness, but not because he I think he can\'t get the distance, more because he isn\'t fast enough to win and as the 2nd or 3rd choice, the price isn\'t right to get a 2 or 3 point new top.  There are several new shooters with similar tops to Dialed In that will be 12-1 or so, and not 5-1.

[sekrah]

jimbo66 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> All this criticism of Leparoux is pretty
> ridiculous.
>
> I looked hard at the pre-Derby posts and I know
> that I was in the very small minority calling for
> a very slow pace and tossing horses that would be
> affected by it.  (the mistake was thinking Nehro
> was in this group).
>
> This was the slowest derby pace in about 60 years.
>  Based on Dialed In\'s races and comments from
> trainer before the race, the plan was pretty
> simple.  Take back and make his run.  Not
> Leparoux\'s fault the pace was snail-like.  Nice
> job by those jockeys that did adjust, but not
> every horse is adjustable.  Not sure if Dialed In
> falls into that category.
>
> Leparoux generally saves ground and saves horse
> for the stretch.  A current day\'s version of Pat
> Day.  By no measure he is not a top jockey.
>
> As for Dialed In being a \"Miler\", you guys are
> coming to a pretty quick judgment.  I don\'t like
> him in the Preakness, but not because he I think
> he can\'t get the distance, more because he isn\'t
> fast enough to win and as the 2nd or 3rd choice,
> the price isn\'t right to get a 2 or 3 point new
> top.  There are several new shooters with similar
> tops to Dialed In that will be 12-1 or so, and not
> 5-1.


Jimbo, I realize the plan was probably sit Dialed In back, but he ran the first four furlongs in the neighborhood of :52.   That is a full two seconds slower than his fastest 4f split to date (that sluggish opening of the Optional Claimer race against Equestrio went :49.2).

LeParoux\'s internal clock is non-existant.  The pace was slow and he put a hold on him.  Nehro wasn\'t affected because Nakatani knows what the hell is going on out there.  He wasn\'t dumb enough to tank his horse to the back when he felt it not going that fast.  LeParoux\'s ride was indefensible.   It\'s not his fault the pace came up slow, but he has to be able to adjust on the fly.   These jockeys have ridden thousands and thousands of races, there has to be something ringing in his head that \"whoa, we aren\'t going very fast.\"

And I disagree with your \"Top Jockey\" comments about LeParoux.  He\'s a good jockey on turf where speed doesn\'t survive, but has no idea what he\'s doing on dirt.  His ROI for both surfaces reflects this.

[mjellish]

I have to disagree here with DI getting a bad ride.  Some horses run the way they run, and the jock just doesn\'t have much to do with it.  I can\'t say this is the case with DI for sure, but it sure looks like it to me.  The horse is going to drop back, then make one big run.  I don\'t care how fast his last 1/2 mile is if he\'s got to make up 20 lengths or whatever.  Hell, if I run a 12 minute mile I can run a pretty fast final 100 yard dash at the end of it.  But it\'s not going to help me catch anyone who does the mile in 5 minutes.  And if I try to go the mile in 5 minutes my final 100 yard dash time will be much worse, if I even make it that far.

DI final 3/8ths in the FL Derby wasn\'t especially fast, but he won anyway because the rest of the field staggered home, including SHAK.  But SHAK was able to re-break when he saw DI coming, which shows how game he is.  And he did the same thing in Louisville when he saw Nehro coming.  Bad rail or not, he has a tendency to hang when he makes the lead in the stretch, and I think 1 1/8 is about his limit for a top effort.

But back to DI.  Saying he lost the KY Derby because of the jock is ridiculous in my opinion.  He lost because he wasn\'t fast enough coming into the race anyway, and he didn\'t improve.  I will concede that the slow pace didn\'t do him any favors, and that the Preakness pace should give him a better set up.  But he still isn\'t fast enough to win IMO.  And from what I hear he looks like a sore horse.  You can\'t baby these horses into winning the classics.  He\'s a toss for me.

[sekrah]

mjellish,

Did you just compare your energy left after a 12 minute mile to what you would have left after a 5 minute mile.   Are you serious?

There is almost no difference between 1:15 and 1:17 of horses of this caliber.   horse into a position to win.  LeParoux did not do this in this race.  HE RAN A :52/1:17 !!!  $10k claimers run that pace and have tank left.   4f time is 2 seconds slower than his slowest and the 6f time was almost 3 seconds slower than his slowest.    

The jockey gave him 0% chance to win.  ZERO.   You win races by putting your horse in a position to run his best time.  The defense of LeParoux here is downright scary.   He went into the race with an idiotic plan and he gave his horse no chance to win after it blew up in his face.

A piss-poor ride by LeParoux in a slow-paced derby is not vindication for your \"rumor\" that you spread that Dialed In is lame either.  That lame horse spotted the field half a pole and still beat most of them.

[mjellish]

Sek, I get what you are saying.  But if you get on DI or if Nakatani gets on DI in the KY Derby and asks him to run early I think he is going to be dead in the lane.  Some horses have running styles, period.  My analogy was simply that.

Look at Zenyatta.  Do you think she would have run better if her jock had put her closer to the early pace.  No.  She ran the way she ran.  And she overcame whatever she had to overcome, including slow early pace, and she still won every time but once.

If the Derby pace would have been quicker then DI would have been further behind if he runs the same fractions, so he still loses.  And if the jock puts him closer to the pace then he runs his last half slower, so he still loses because he is too slow at that distance.  Period.  Down the line, if this horse keeps racing, I think we will see him running nice, one turn 7F - 1 Mile races.

Not sure where you are coming up with me needing vindication of my \"rumor\" of DI\'s training before the derby.  My post on this thread had nothing to do with that.  We are talking about the ride and the pace, not the horse\'s overall health before the derby.

[sekrah]

mjellish Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> If the Derby pace would have been quicker then DI
> would have been further behind if he runs the same
> fractions, so he still loses.  And if the jock
> puts him closer to the pace then he runs his last
> half slower, so he still loses because he is too

Nonsense.  If it was quicker do you really think LeParoux clicks a :52 and is 28 lengths off the pace instead of 18?  Seriously?   LeParoux was going to position this one 15-20 lengths off the pace no matter what happened.   If the pace went quicker up front, he would have been a genius and been in good position.  

Zenyatta would have finished in about the same spot as Dialed In if she were in his horseshoes being 18 lengths back running :52.   In the Classic she was 15 lengths back of a :47/1:11.   Completely and totally different situation.   I do not give Mike Smith grief for his ride in that race.  If the pace were :48.3/1:13.2 and he was 15 lengths back he would have deserved to be crucified.

Dialed In doesn\'t have to run the same :47 half if he\'s 10 lengths closer.  He only needs to run about a :47.3  It\'s the same reason Blame didn\'t need to be faster than Zenyatta in the final 4 furlongs.  He was closer to the pace.  I\'ve sunk more time into pace/energy distribution than you could ever imagine.   I\'m absolutely convinced if Dialed In was 10 lengths closer with 4 furlongs to go he\'s right there at the wire with AK.  And again, I have no dog in this fight.  I disliked this horse going into the Derby and used him in underneaths and as a hedge.

> slow at that distance.  Period.  Down the line, if
> this horse keeps racing, I think we will see him
> running nice, one turn 7F - 1 Mile races.


Well hells bells.  These races only click off a half mile in 45 flat.   With the running style that you claim is ridged and unflappable, you do realize he\'ll be 25-30 lengths off the pace halfway around the turn in these 7 furlong races?   Since the great Julien LeParoux couldn\'t do it, no other jockey will be able to do otherwise correct?

Amazing that Dialed In didn\'t manage to fall 18 lengths back in that sluggish Optional Claimer against Equestrio.  He let the horse run his race without a pre-conceived plan and he was right there against an older horse that lost a graded stakes to First Dude by half a length.  He came into the Derby with a pre-conceived idiotic plan that depended on a fast pace.  If he runs this horse like he did in that Optional Claimer, he gives himself a chance in the Derby.

[mjellish]

Sek,

To me, blaming the jock on DI for losing the derby is silly.  He was too slow coming in, he was lightly trained leading up to it, he was likely to get a wide trip or trouble coming from the back of the pack, because of this he was going to have to improve many lengths to win, and we knew all of that BEFORE the race was run.  Even with all of that I still gave him a decent shot to run well enough to include him on my tickets.  But if you now want to blame his placing on the jock and think he is now going to suddenly improve a bunch and run a 0 or so to win the Preakness, then by all means go ahead and plunge at 6-1 or so.

Guess we have to agree to disagree.  Not the first time and won\'t be the last. But that\'s the nature of the game.

[alm]

Do you think you are discounting too much the relatively light training this horse had prior to the Derby...or the fact he was trained in a hothouse and skipped CD?   Look, I respect Zito a great deal so his handling of this horse said to me that he was working around a problem.  I still gave the horse a shot in the Derby, but primarily because of his connections...certainly it was not his numbers...they were slow.  And Leparoux may not be my favorite rider, but don\'t you think Zito would pull him if he felt as strongly about the ride as you do?

[Michael D.]

DI ran :05.80 and :05.91 1/16\'s from the 1/4 pole to the 1/8 pole. Ran :06.08 next, and finished in :06.37.

:12.45 is a good final 1/8 for a mile and a quarter race, but DI\'s final 1/16 wasn\'t blazing (4 others bested it). I don\'t know if he would have run faster if Julian had utilized more energy sooner. Possible, but no lock.