Wood

[sighthound]

I\'ve never seen as many gate screwups as with the New York crew.  A legend race, and a non-starter has to be declared because either the gate guy was late or the starter was early.

[miff]

Absolutely, the worst crew of any major venue.

[miff]

Slow pace, slow race, marginally faster than 3 yr old fillies,and not the fastest ones.If you look at the filly race and tie the two together,the Wood is pathetic,figuratively speaking.

[Fairmount1]

Agreed about pace and final time.  Did you hear TAP after the race saying V tends to hang a bit when he strikes the front?  I need to rewatch his previous races I guess but I don\'t recall this from his Gulf Alw Romp or Tampa Bay Derby score.

Also felt V had a perfect trip today.

[miff]

The V\'s were wide off the far turn but had gone so slow, it hardly mattered.

[sighthound]

Verrazano is the real deal. Absolutely stunning stallion prospect. His stride is so huge, he\'ll need to be clear to not be stopped in Derby. He could win the TC.  Good race today, he wasn\'t used, but he had to pay attention in the stretch.

Vyjack IMO won\'t get the distance or last the TC. He should skip Derby for Preakness.

Normandy is improving at the right time and distance will be better for him. He\'s small, quick, he\'ll be able to work his way in and out of the disaster of stoppers that will be the Derby stretch.

[miff]

\"He\'s small\"

..certainly is Sight, wonder if he\'s got the physically to deal with the Derby.

[sighthound]

Valid concern, but I think he\'s tough enough. If Verrzano gets in a crowd he\'s done, he\'s so big-strided.

[miff]

Eyeballed him last year and this year, did not physically mature that much.Think Brown knew that and wanted only 2 preps to make sure he had a horse left by MAY.

[sighthound]

I think what you see is pretty much what you get.  Worry now is who\'s hoof can handle CD track surface.

[miff]

Beyer of 95 for Verranzano confirms another rather common prep.Verranzano may  get saved by ground but they crawled around that first turn,wide or not.Verranzano going backwards on Beyer 105, 101, 95.


And through the magic of projection voodoo the Gazelle received a Beyer of 88 notwithstanding it comes up rock solid 91.

[Fairmount1]

This really bothers me.  I am not a superstar figure maker but I have the general idea with the Beyer figures.    

I thought that Beyer Figures were completely based upon final time only.  But recently Dick Jerardi wrote that piece about the Fairgrounds when the Mineshaft, Risen Star, and Rachel Alexandra were all run.  It states their figures are not based only on final time.    

I thought the whole point of being an astute observer is that I\'m aware of \"How was the Fig earned?\"  Now they are using surface change and/or slow pace to adjust the Beyer Figs which I\'m not against a split variant when there is a surface change.  I suggested yesterday I thought there might have been one after the fifth race.  Following the last race of the day I wasn\'t so sure.  

Regardless, there were only two 2 turn routes.  I have the Gazelle and the Wood at .27 seconds difference.  I thought this was a 2-3 point difference on the Beyer scale.  I had Verrazano at a 96 plus ground loss and Close Hatches with a 93 and a 2w-1w trip mostly.  The other issue I have is sometimes they tie the two turn routes to the one turn routes to determine their variant and other days they don\'t as best as I can tell.

TGJB should be screaming from the rooftops that his figs are far superior to Beyer for reasons other than calculating in ground loss, wind, weight, etc.  How about just because of voodoo projection use as Miff says.  I understand their is a certain creative discretion the fig maker has but Beyers\' boys are not following the tenets he previously wrote about.  I know it sounds TGJB has a good working relationship with Beyer so he probably doesn\'t want to do that but....they are completely changing their method of calculating Beyer Figs and if readers of the form are unaware of when they use their \"voodoo\" it can cause incorrect judgments.

Last, Miff am I wrong about the 2-3 point difference on raw times?  If I\'m reading you right, you believe they upgraded the Wood for slow pace and downgraded the Gazelle based on previously assigned figs through projection.  Is this accurate?

[BitPlayer]

Isn\'t projection what TG does?

[TGJB]

The short version is there is no way to know how fast the track is without using back figures of the horses running over it. The long version is \"Changing Track Speeds\" in the Archives section of this site, must reading for a serious discussion of this subject (if I do say so myself).

[miff]

Fair,

Guess yes on Beyer adjustment, but no adjustment for the fast pace set by the Gazelle winner after the first split, which explains the crawl home.

Figure makers like things to fit,even sometimes when they do not. You  may hear \"how likely is it that the 3yr old fillies ran just as fast/faster than 3yr old top colts\" While true most of the time, they rarely buy it and start making assumptions as to why, and then back into what \"fits\" ergo,projection voodoo.

The clock is almighty as a starting point, and assuming no changes in track speed, should be the most influential determinant in making figures, not what one thinks or has preconceived notions about.In studying the top guys for a long time, only one seems \"married\" to the clock.


Mike