A Fan's Notes

[Strike]

mjellish Wrote:
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> My two cents on clockers.  
>
> Too much emphasis on the work itself.  Not enough
> on how the horse comes out of the work, which is
> more important IMO.  If a horse has just an ok or
> average work and then comes out of it galloping
> better than it ever has, I would rather make a bet
> on that than someone who has a tremendous work and
> comes out of it seemingly worse for wear.
> Materiality comes to mind of late, to name one.
>
> It\'s also not about how fast they work, it\'s about
> how they do it that matters.  And this is more an
> individual thing.  Most of the time trainers and
> clockers are looking at how well a horse finishes.
>  But that\'s not always the whole story.  A closer
> who shows more early speed and maybe tires a bit
> late in a work can still be a sign of a horse that
> is suddenly waking up and moving forward,
> especially a young one.  Keen Ice comes to mind,
> of late.
>
> Lastly, it really pays to have a clocker that
> knows the horse.  For example, I would contend
> that Welsch is going to have better clocker
> reports over the winter in Florida than anywhere
> else because he is based there.  He gets to know
> the horses.  And that really helps you notice when
> they are doing something different than they
> usually do, either positive or negative,  Much
> more so than say watching Beholder work twice
> before the Breeders Cup when you\'ve never seen her
> work before.  Good horses generally work fairly
> well.  So how are you supposed to know when they
> are working better or worse than usual if you
> don\'t know the horse?
>
> And if you like a horse a fair amount, and are
> getting good odds, are you going to let a negative
> comment from a clocker who you don\'t know
> personally sway your opinion?  Especially if that
> clocker hasn\'t also told you in their report that
> they know the horse well and here is why this is a
> negative comment for this horse?  
>
> If you\'ve ever tried to clock horses, or been
> around someone who has, it\'s an almost impossible
> task to get to know them all.  It\'s very chaotic.
> Some trainers work from the 1/16th poles, there
> are very few saddle cloths, many are working at
> the same time, the renovation break can change the
> whole track, the trainers may be trying to teach
> them something or so something different, there
> are shippers in and out, etc...  Those are just a
> few of the variables.  Imagine trying to keep
> track of all of that, every day, and also being
> able to keep track of the jogs and gallops coming
> out.  I take my hat off to people like Bruno,
> Harrington, Welsch, and their teams.  And I think
> those services are worth it as another data point.
>  
>
> But unless I know they know the horse, I\'m not
> letting it change my opinion.  Better to pick a
> few key horses that may be racing on big days, say
> 40 of them, and make sure you have eyes on them to
> know how they are going day to day...  and
> sometimes pick up a few of the bonus ones along
> the way.

This is a very good post, MJ!
I get Harrington\'s report and he is good. Knows the local CA horses and trainers well. Gary Young is also really good but he doesn\'t publish a report. I also agree with Ring\'s comment about Harrington\'s employer.

[Littledog]

Back in the days before the powers controlling California racing elected to screw around with the racing surfaces Harrington was unbelievable.  You could cap out a card, by for starters, eliminating all C or C+ workers.  Weeks would go by without a C+ worker winning.  And when they did win most of the time either the horse was a turf horse with a dirt work or the horse worked subsequently and Harrington didn\'t catch the work.  Back then all you had to do is download Harrington and pick up the Simo book from Joyce at the Yankee Clipper on John Street.  Harrington would tell you who could not win and the Thorograph would tell you who among the remaining contenders could win.  From there it was simply a matter of going through the card and seeing what horizontal sequences made sense. That would finance a plethora of ill conceived plays throughout the country. Once Del Mar went to plastic the party ended.  The other two tracks were also required to go synthetic and the works became an extremely unreliable predictor of how a horse would perform in the afternoon.  The subsequent switch back to dirt did not \"restore order\". Sometimes it seems as if C+ is the new B+.  I have opinions as to why this is, but I have no proof.