First of all, MJ has the figure making stuff right. For more on some of that anyone who hasn\'t already can check out \"Changing Track Speeds\" in the Archives section of this site.
Any time you look to do figures for a race/day the question is what\'s the most likely possibility. And with the two turn races on Fla Derby day at GP there were only a couple of ways to go and concerns with both of them. And as I have said here before, if you take DOJ out of the day they are eliminated doing it the way I did it, which has the variant for all the routes within 1 1/2 points. Which is not to say I\'m comfortable giving DOJ that figure, I hate it. But I hated giving those figures to Quality Road and Midnight Lute, too.
A few things--
1-- In all four routes the way I did it the winner gets a big figure, one or two others get decent figures, and a lot run from not that well to really bad. These are all top stake horses. If you make the track faster you are giving out one really big figure (DOJ still gets one, obviously) a few pretty good ones, and a LOT of bad to really awful figures to very good horses. It\'s just unlikely that high a percentage of good horses would pick the same day to run bad.
2-- There is no scenario where Orb\'s figure is more than 2 points worse, and only maybe a 20% shot at absolute most it\'s not right as is. The way I did it the only other new top in the race is the 100-1 shot who ran fourth, he got a 2 point top. (Everything else aside, logic indicates that if a 100-1 shot beats 6 horses and only loses to 3 in the Florida Derby he probably ran a new top, that simply pairing his last wouldn\'t have done it). If I were to add two points to the race those last 6 horses, who already get bad figures, would get truly awful figures, completely inconsistent with their histories. One of those, by the way, is Frac Daddy, who came back to his top two weeks later to run second in the Arkansas Derby.
And there is no way on Earth to add more than 2-- much less than a 1% chance.
3-- The older male race (Skip Away) is rock solid. The winner ran a big new top, but nobody else ran a new top, and only one other even paired his top-- again, in a graded stake. Can\'t make it worse.
4-- The FM stake is the same thing-- one new top, one pair (both Pletcher), and all the rest running at least 4 points off their tops. You can\'t add to either this one or the Skip Away unless you\'re prepared to give out a real lot of bad figures.
5-- So the problem is the DOJ race-- but only with her in it. The way I did it, the second filly goes back a point, third filly pairs, and everyone else runs at least 5 points off their tops. I disagree with Jimbo\'s idea that Emollient runing big a week later makes more sense if she ran even worse at GP-- historically those who have gotten big figures on short rest (like Dutrow and Jerkens) have mostly done it off good efforts, not bad ones. I don\'t think Emollient running big affects the thinking about the GP figure much, but to the degree it does at all it\'s a positive.
Which leaves DOJ. As I have said before, there are some ways to put that performance in perspective. One is that she ran 12 points better than the second filly-- my guess would be that Rachel\'s Oaks is the last time something like that happened in a graded stake, and not too often before then. Again, if she had won by 10 everyone would have been oohing and ahhing and she would still be the Oaks favorite-- well, she ran SIX POINTS BETTER than that.
My sense of it, as I said before, is that other figure makers chickened out, all because of one horse on the day. I may post the sheets for these races later today.
