I would like to use this occasion to raise some questions I have about your figure making methodology and I would love to hear others input about the issues as well! I\'ll use examples from the sheets for this Breeders Cup as I do have spent a lot of time in them these last days anyways and I thought I should be man enough to stick my neck out up front; who knows, maybe we get some good bets out of it too! And if you get proven right on my behalf, that is perfectly fine too!
The questions really boils down to: Do you always use all horses in a race to project figures?
I\'ll provide you with some examples of the kind of figures I\'m talking about.
Stonetastic, obviously. I have noticed this a few times, that a horse that ran away with a lot got crazy figures, and by making figures myself over here in Europe I also understand well how it could happen. Races where everything can\'t possible make sense no matter how you do it. And it shouldn\'t be impossible to run big figures, either! But could Stonetastic really have ran that figure that made her to just about the greatest filly, ever? Here\'s what makes me even more skeptical. I see in the race shapes and by reading the sheets that Stonetastic has run two really great races in her racing career, both where runaways victories (neg 6,25 and 15,75 lengths to the 2nd place finisher, and neg 2,25 as a 3yo filly in august with 8,5 lengths to the 2nd place finisher). What I also see is that in those two races she ran INCREDIBLE fast first quarters, compared to herself! 21.16 and 21.06 is more than 4 lengths faster in the first quarter than she\'s ever done before or since (according to the race shapes). And since those fractions in the race shapes are adjusted for track speed, weight etc etc it means that she actually beat her quickest self by more than 4 lengths in two furlongs in those two starts were she earned those big tops. No matter the difference between the horses in such a race, if you watch a 2 furlong race they seldom finish 4 lengths apart and here she beat herself by 4. Something is weird. And the race should be threated weird, imo. Isn\'t it possible that horses (or/and jockeys!) in a race that have such a superior runaway horse in it in some kind of way just \"gives up the win and concentrate about becoming 2nd?\", with completely new tactics/herd dynamics? And which also, in a figure making kind of view, would mean they all ran \"off\" races? I don\'t like this race personally from a betting point of view and think I\'ll go soft on it, but I do anticipate a regression to the mean for Stonetastic which won\'t give her a piece of this.. And I don\'t like Fioretti! Let me get to that one.
I\'ll illustrate my problem further with a different kind of example that\'s up the same alley, and I\'ll use Fioretti. These ones I call \"sloppy figs\". Are you really sure that what happened was that Fioretti ran a more than 3 points new top in the mud last time out? These I see a lot, runaway winners at off tracks earning huge figures. It just seems so strange that these horses have waited all their lifes to race at awful racing conditions! Isn\'t it more reasonable to think that some horses don\'t thrive, but just don\'t hate the slop or mud just as much as others? Like the off tracks stat for Bernardini, Fioretti\'s Sire also indicates, they win 20 % of these races which is huge. (Can I just say btw, that the off track stat for different sires is worth the price of the form alone on off track racing days, it\'s the most incredible stat I\'ve ever seen!). So, in the cases, where a horse suddenly runs away from them and earning a huge new top, isn\'t it in those rare cases more likely that everyone behind ran poorly than a horse like Fioretti, a 5 yo at the end of a long season (11 races in 11 months), run a new top like that? And I wonder, what did you actually do to come up with that figure, did it come from using all the horses behind when projecting or did you turn around every stone possible to see if it would be reasonable to give every runner in the field off numbers in that race except the winner (so that Fioretti ran a 5 or a at least not better than a 4?). What\'s your policy in these cases? Greenpointscrusader is another one who fits this category perfectly, and this one will be heavily bet! I for one will bet against for the same reason as not betting Fioretti, I just don\'t buy it. And specially not at a short price. Those I will use for what it\'s worth is Conquest Big E and Exaggerator (whose pretty similar sheet I read completely different btw; didn\'t earn that figure by running away but was close to Brody\'s Cause and figured to run a good one either way (route distance, decent pattern; I like this one). Sire stat doesnt indicate anything special on off tracks either!)
Next category is the perfect set up-figures, let\'s use Keen Ice as an example and there it is pretty obvious what you did because we have Frosted and American Pharaoh in that race too. You paired up Frosted and I would say you paired up Pharaoh too (what he normally does). So, you gave Keen Ice that figure because he beat Frosted and Pharaoh who \"normally\" runs a neg 1 or thereabouts, that was expected. But my question is, instead of projecting with \"Pharaoh and Frosted\", shouldn\'t you have been projecting with a \"totally knackered Frosted and Pharaoh\", they collapsed and Keen Ice picked up the pieces and should not therefore have gotten a neg 3 indicating that he ran a faster race than Frosted has ever done or as when Pharaoh won the Derby and almost as fast as Tonalist has ever done? I thought that was the point, why do you still insist on using all the horses when making the figures for a race like that instead of concentrating on getting Keen Ice right and then let the others get what they get? I\'ll not be using Keen Ice in the classic, I think this race will go to either American Pharaoh or Tonalist and I will play the race as a spectacularly unspectacular boxed exacta, even though I ain\'t proud of it!
Another issue in the same kind of alley all though not exactly the same are the \"ground-loaded figures\", and I think there are some great examples of it on these sheets. I read Grand Arch\'s sheets, which I really like for this race and will be keying, and notice the X behind his last figure indicating the dead rail. That is fine and is one of the reasons I want to use him heavily in this years cup. But, what I becomes sceptical about is that I read on and find the sheets belonging to Tourist and Tepin. They too also ran on that same turf track that day and they both ran incredible well; in fact both earned a two point lifetop. That is completely possible, of course, but what troubles me is that they earned those figures by being wide throughout. Tourist made his insanely great figure of neg 1,25 by being 5w5w, while Tepin earned her great figure by being 4w3w. I know I have read somewhere on these forums that you do remove the railhorses from your considerations when you project figures on days with a dead rail, so there you have an exception to the rule, however, isn\'t it also possible that on these days where there is a dead rail also the 2path would be slower than the 3path, the 3path would be slower than the 4path etc and that the part of grass where \"noone ever runs\" would be the fastest part of the track? So that what is happening on these days is an \"inflation\" of paths in the figures? I know this is one issue that would be difficult to deal with in a good way anyway, you would probably be better off by go easy on the tops and meet up somewhere in the middle, but in any case, shouldn\'t a figure like that at least come with an annotation in the same way Grand Arch\'s dead rail comes with an X? I for one would love to know about when a figure has been in doubt. As I said I will use Grand Arch as a key in this race and I won\'t be using Tepin and I probably won\'t use Tourist either, but I would if he was drawn inside and by all of these examples I mention I think this is the one that is most likely to come back and bite me in the arse. I really like his pattern, even if the last one maybe was a regular 1 and not a neg 1. Still, a regular 1 probably make him come up just a neck too short here to have anything to do with the exotics, if they can\'t find a dream trip for him, that is..
I won\'t go into the cali-figures vs other track-figures, and the euro turf-figures vs US turf-figures as I\'m sure this is one spot where TGJB and the crew knows better, and that the differences can be related to other things, but I have one thing to say: It is hard to believe that being beat 1 length at a 75 k stakes race on the turf at Gulfstream without horrific ground loss should be worth 1 point better than being beat the same length in a 1000 k sprint at Meydan (where it\'s almost free to enter in the race and the sheiks seem to cover all expenses for owners and trainers; at least that\'s my impression!). We live in a stupid world, but THAT stupid?? Ah well, at least THIS is a spot where I can be proven right this weekend! (Go Green Mask!).
Good luck everyone,
And let me be clear,
I would never touch US racing without buying Thoro-graph first!
