covelj70 Wrote:
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> SoCal,
>
> I saw your post and I thought it was excellent. I
> started to type up a response after the race to
> congratulate you but the drug talk on the board
> has me so disincentived to post that I deleted it
> before I hit send.
>
> Either way, nice job. You read it perfectly.
>
> I love the tgs and obviously use them religiously
> but I don\'t play horses to bounce anywhere near as
> much as traditional sheet theory says one is
> supposed to.
>
> I used to 5 years ago but eventually got burned so
> many times leaving a logical horse out on a
> \"bounce\" that I realized that was fools gold.
>
> There can be many reasons a horse doesn\'t run
> his/her race and a bounce is one of them but
> horses are individuals and we have to treat each
> situation as it comes and not apply one
> overarching view to every situation.
>
> Now, maybe all of this is just wishful thinking on
> my part as my filly will come into next weeks race
> as the fastest horse on the tgs with a pattern
> that a hard liner would say looks like a bounce
> while I think she\'s set up perfectly for the race.
> So, maybe you should ignore all of my nonsense
> above!
Pardon my ignorance, but which filly are you speaking of? I would love to see her sheet and weigh in.
I agree with a lot of what you say. Forecasting a bounce is a very tricky affair. A bounce can be a beautiful thing. Big efforts make people fall in love with horses and bet a lot of money, and a wiseguy can take advantage of this situation by realizing that those people are making a mistake in their betting. Because of this, a lot of people like to force finding a bounce because then all of a sudden a race appears to present a rich opportunity.
I definitely forecast bounces, however, like you point out, I strongly prefer to forecast the bounce based on the particular horse\'s previous history rather than forecasting a bounce just based on principle. When I first started using sheets 25 years ago (the \"other\" product), one thing that was very strongly beaten in through those cassette tapes they used to sell was that you should never give a horse a bounce before it first gives you a bounce. That is very telling....you need to see what the history of the particular horse is telling you before deciding just based on a big last fig.
I really think that Palace\'s sheet is a very classic example of where blindly looking for jump up numbers to give bounces to can get you into a whole lot of trouble if you do not look deeper into that horse\'s sheet. Palace\'s first (and only) bounce was his first reaction point ever and that has a lot of important meaning that was glossed over. The new figure only represented a 4yo returning to its 3yo top not some new big jump up. Also, the first and only bounce was not a big bounce.
I would like to make a suggestion to our hosts -- maybe we can have specially designated threads in the forum that are like teaching threads....the only thing that goes in the thread are sheets of a particular type and discussion of the principle. For example, if we have a 0-2-X thread, then in that thread, we post sheets and discussion just about 0-2-X. I would nominate Palace\'s sheet for the thread called Bounce Traps (\"Traps\" because the sharp jump up figure, on the superficial inspection, looks like it is begging for a bounce, but upon closer inspection the horse\'s sheet shows that this initial reaction of applying the bounce principle is really a false positive).