Takeout

[Valuist]

Takeout-

I was out of town so I didn't see your question re: key races until today. I won't go back to every race in a horse's career. I used to go back 1 full year but even that gets too time consuming. But I'll definitely go back 4 months or so, which can still be a fairly large number of races. Right now I'm going back thru March. Its pretty abritary and Mar/April is when some of the circuits (NYRA, GP start to change) If a horse wins a M20000 today, I'll go back and circle him in all those charts back thru March AND write in M20 next to the jocks name in the chart so I know what level the horse ended up breaking its maiden. Some races can get 6 or 7 graduates and the whole object is too determine the overall field quality. But what it works best for is maidens coming off a layoff. Some of those 5th beaten 8 lengths look a lot better when the horse finishes in front of a couple futures mdn graduates.

[takeout]

Valuist,

Thanks. I was a bit confused and that helped to clear it up for me.

I thought it interesting that you said you used to go back 1 full year. I recall a race in MD back around ’90 that produced several next-out winners as well as a big exacta and a couple of nice doubles along the way. The horse that finished 2nd in the key race came back to win its next start then ran once or twice more and then was claimed. He was held out for a full year and won his first start back at 10-1. He was sent to the minors after that (CT) and after a while won at all kinds of odds at several different bullrings. Two of his wins were at odds of over 50-1 although one of those was through a DQ. I think he also won at 18-1, 11-1 and like that, as well as a couple of times at some middle prices. He may have even had a 20 or 30-1 win stuck in there too. He was one of those that just kept surprising. Every time I would see his name in the PPs it would remind me of that key race that he was out of. I’ve often wondered how the rest of that group fared.