Beyer swipes at spacing theory

[justwin]

could be right. looked at 2001-present. all winners ran in derby except bernardini on 3 weeks rest and Rachel on 2 weeks rest. How many quality horses ran in this race that had over 3 weeks rest is the question. This stat wont change my play which I think will be social.

[TGJB]

The stat is totally meaningless, I\'ll post when I get back to the office.

[TGJB]

Okay Mike, I was going to give you a pass, but noooo......

The clearest pattern I\'ve seen is you ignoring anything that doesn\'t fit with your world view re \"Kool-Aid\". Prior to the Derby I asked how you explained the differences in Thoro-Patterns-- how two horses the same age, both off the same number, even when both were off a top, would have patterns that showed a much different chance of running well the next time, OVER A LARGE SAMPLE, based on how they got to the number (i.e. the Kool-Aid pattern). You said you would take a look at that.

Then in the seminar, there was more Kool-Aid-- we showed clearly that horses that came into the race off a pair of tops (like California Chrome) had a much better chance to run well than those with other patterns, over a large sample size. And that horses with 5 or 6 weeks rest and/or just two preps (like Commanding Curve) had a much better chance to run a top or new top than those with less rest, again over a decent sample size. Not a peep out of you.

We have never claimed that proper rest makes a horse faster, just that it gives him a better chance to run his best-- the study, as all of them, was not based on winning, but percentage of tops, etc. If you want to break down the past Preakness runners by spacing, give me a list by recency, using the same time breakdowns we used in the seminar, we\'ll take it from there. That way we can compare horses to themselves, which is the question-- not to other horses.

By the way-- not to scoop my own Preakness comments, available soon, but many of the horses that ran well in the Preakness were coming off non-efforts in the Derby. And I do mean many. I listed just nine, because I didn\'t want to list the many others.

[miff]

JB

Ahem, you are backing into sheet theory AGAIN.You infer that certain studies prove that horses with more rest do better than horses with less rest ..pure unadulterated bullshit which is disproven every day at every race track over many thousands of races.

So, extra spacing is relevant in the derby but not in the Preakness, got it.Nothing to do with the individual recuperative powers and resiliency of each individual.

Kool Aid for everyone, on my tab.

Mike

[TGJB]

You did actually read that, right?

[miff]

You love to drift off point, you do it well.The point I raised is that more spacing is not better than less spacing over years and years of data, and thousands of races. This FACT, backed by data, flies in the face of sheet theory which you convieniently ignore.

Please address the 0-70 record of \"more rest\" for Preakness runners the last 13 years.... Should be good.

Of course, you can cherry pick a sector of the game that backs into sheet theory but on the whole of the game there is zero evidence that 4 weeks is better than 3 and so on.....none!

[TGJB]

Read it again.

By the way, re \"backing into\"-- how do I give those horses with 5-6 weeks rest better than they deserve, without also giving those with less rest in the same race better than THEY deserve? How do I do that with the horses that show up in the Thoro-Patterns? Or the ones off pairs in the Derby, vs. the ones not?

Man, I would have to be juggling a lot of variables to be able to do that. I\'m smart, but I\'m not that f----ing smart. Nobody is. That would be about a thousand times harder than just making figures. Makes my head hurt just thinking about it.

[smalltimer]

Meanwhile, Post Positions have been drawn.

[TreadHead]

TGJB, since I promised not to respond to any of MIFFs posts, I\'ll respond to yours instead.  Not only is he not reading or understanding what you are saying, the statements he is making (not backed up by any data he has provided) are statistically false and it is downright laughable to state there is no statistical data to back up the fact that horses with more rest perform better OR win more often, whichever way you want to slice it.

here\'s a study Dave Schwartz did of nearly 200k races that breaks out recency of last race and shows stats like %win, dollarnet, and impact value.  Highest win % was in the 32-56 days off range and highest dollarnet is found in the 57-69 days off range.

http://thehorsehandicappingauthority.com/horse-handicapping-episode-3/

I\'m sure there are any other number of ways to bend a statistical study to make a different point, but to state that there is zero statistical evidence to support more rest is simply laughable.  It might be a debatable point, but there is certainly statistical evidence to support it.

[miff]

just say that one can\'t be too bright to read those stats and come away with anything but that there is marginal difference in any category from the shortest to the longest spacing,that\'s without any filter.

A huge filter would be in the 28-35 day range where most of the highest level races(and most talented and consistent horses dwell) vs the cheaper maiden/claiming level that run in the much shorter spacing categories.

[moosepalm]

Okay, because I got rained off the golf course, and wanted to give the wife the appearance that I was busy doing some important work, I went back ten years on TG Preakness numbers to bust out some numbers on the over/under three weeks rest issue.  Here\'s what I found:

Under 3 weeks:  21 moved forward, 19 paired (1 or less, either way), and 26 regressed.

Over 3 weeks: 5 moved forward, 13 paired and 29 regressed.

As for strictly Derby horses, 17 moved forward, 17 paired, and 21 regressed.

I was too lazy to break them out as far as who X\'ed, other than Derby horses, Not sure where that line\'s drawn, but 3 horses backed up between 5 & 10, and 2 horses backed up more than 10, plus Barbaro.  On the plus side, there were 9 Derby horses who moved forward 5 points or more, including some dramatic 15, 20 and 21 point jumps.

Obviously, these numbers are unfiltered.  The first caveat one should make is that the majority of horses coming in with more than 3 weeks rest did not have the class of the Derby horses.  Sorry to use the word \"class\", but I don\'t know any other way to describe it.  Be that as it may, if you\'re looking for something positive from them, pairing up is your most likely outcome.  And, as these are just raw numbers, they don\'t consider pattern, though I don\'t know that any pattern would account for the kind of rebounds we\'ve seen with some Derby horses, other than they didn\'t like Churchill, they didn\'t like the conditions or they prefer crab cakes.  

I\'ll save conclusions and deductions for those more savvy than I which is a number that needs no filtering.

[smalltimer]

I imagine the next progression in these numbers would be those horses with 2 preps prior to the Derby and those with 3 preps prior to Derby.
I would guess there\'s a correlation in the overall numbers of the forward/paired/regressed results, may show the difference between the large forward moves and the large regression moves.
Seems too time consuming to break this down now, but would be a worthy project after the race Saturday.
That\'s good work moose.