Keeneland Figs and BC Handicapping

[michiken]

Typically in past years, I have downgraded the numbers earned at Keeneland.

This years KY Derby comes to mind when many posters fell for the Sinister Minister Trap.

How are you going to treat the figures earned on the new polytrack surface?

Will you be cautious when applying them to the 2006 BC ?

[sjk]

I haven't actually made any Kee figs yet. Maybe I should get to work on that and see how unusual they seem to be.

Any pars are based on a very few races and are suspect. Projections are suspect if you think that horses may move up or back based on how they respond to the surface or that extreme biases are playing havoc with the results.

Makes you wonder how playable the entire CD meet will be.

[sjk]

The daily variant projections seem normal to me.

Perhaps others have a point of view.

[JustRalph]

This years KY Derby comes to mind when many posters fell for the Sinister Minister Trap.

yeah, what a bunch of Rube's huh? Dumbass PA Posters........wow.... you are so superior......... :lol:

[46zilzal]

This years KY Derby comes to mind when many posters fell for the Sinister Minister Trap.

How are you going to treat the figures earned on the new polytrack surface?

Will you be cautious when applying them to the 2006 BC ?

ANYONE worth their salt knows NEVER to apply speed ratings from one track exclusively to another. If a horse has speed and ability, it will show up from various races and surfaces so if one took the new Keeneland lines with suspect regard, there would be other past performances that would over-ride them.

agree with you as Sinister was the easiest to toss.

[Tom]

I won't use any figure earned at Keenland at any time for any race not matter what. And it will be a long time before I do. If a horse has no other race good enough, I will throw it out as fast as I threw out Sinister Minister, who I considered to have no shot in the Derby at all. Rube that I am.;)

[BIG49010]

I think if you check, horses running and working at Turfway did rather well at the Spring Churchill meet. Many of the BC horses are training and running at Keeneland, if you throw them all out, good luck to you.:bang:

[cj]

I don't think anyone is saying throw the horses out. However, just drawing a mental line through any Kee running line has served me well in the past, and I'll do it again this year. I'll just evaluate the prior races.

I made my biggest BC score ever on Unbridled Elaine using that method, and a few Oaks and Derby scores as well.

[Valuist]

I don't think anyone is saying throw the horses out. However, just drawing a mental line through any Kee running line has served me well in the past, and I'll do it again this year. I'll just evaluate the prior races.

I made my biggest BC score ever on Unbridled Elaine using that method, and a few Oaks and Derby scores as well.

Absolutely, except for their turf races. I caught the Thunder Gulch/Tejano Run exacta in the 1995 Derby as both horses struggled to close wide against a slow pace and a rail biased track in the Blue Grass.

I do think that from a conditioning standpoint, it moves horses up a bit. I've noticed that speed horses who tired over the TP Poly have held together longer when shipping to Hawthorne or Hoosier.

[classhandicapper]

I don't think there's a rule for this.

Let's compare 2 horses.

1. Usually runs figures around 100.

2. Occasionally gets just above 100 to the 101-103 range.

All else being equal, most would prefer the second horse.

Now let's say the second horse is coming off a terrible race over Poly at Kee.

Do you still prefer him?

I think that's a tougher question because you have the weigh the probability advantage that his very small edge in the figures gives him vs. the probability that it wasn't Poly that caused the bad race. Maybe he just went off form.

I think weighing these probabilities is more of an art. It might depend on how deep into the campaign the horse was, who the trainer is, how the horse has been working since then, how versatile the horse has tended to be, how consistent the horse has tended to be, how other horses coming off Poly have been doing etc....

Finally, after you weigh these things, you still have to look at the odds.

I think this issue should be handled very similarly to when horses have occasional superior/poor off track and turf performances and you can't be 100% sure about their form. It's a mistake to indiscriminately throw them out 100% and it's a mistake to just use them 100%.

The public tends to weigh these things a bit on the board. You can see it often where if you just throw the horse's last race out he looks like a 4-5 shot, but he goes off at 6-5 because no one is sure.

You just have to weigh it better to determine who the overlay actually is because you can never be sure.

[Valuist]

I don't think there's a rule for this.

Let's compare 2 horses.

1. Usually runs figures around 100.

2. Occasionally gets just above 100 to the 101-103 range.

All else being equal, most would prefer the second horse.

Now let's say the second horse is coming off a terrible race over Poly at Kee.

Do you still prefer him?

I think that's a tougher question because you have the weigh the probability advantage that his very small edge in the figures gives him vs. the probability that it wasn't Poly that caused the bad race. Maybe he just went off form.

I think weighing these probabilities is more of an art. It might depend on how deep into the campaign the horse was, who the trainer is, how the horse has been working since then, how versatile the horse has tended to be, how consistent the horse has tended to be etc....

Finally, after you weigh these things, you still have to look at the odds.

I think this issue should be handled very similarly to when horses have occasional superior/poor off track and turf performances and you can't be 100% sure about form. It's a mistake to indiscriminately throw them out 100% and it's a mistake to just use them.

The public tends to weigh these things a bit on the board. You just have to weigh it better to determine who the overlay actually is because you can never be sure.

I think in your scenario I still prefer the second horse. I love to bet horses who had good form but then a bad race due to improper distance or footing. And in a situation when I couldn't see the odds (P3/P4), I'd be more likely to use the second horse knowing the public tends to overbet the last race. But I think one still has to look at each specific case. Lets say horse # 2 in your example had come off a bad race on grass but previously ran well on turf. Lets say he had a good trip; favorable pace and saved ground so no excuse. Then I would view him negatively. Slop is a different matter. If a horse had previous good slop/mud form but threw a bad race on an off track, I'd be much more willing to forgive the pp than the good grasser who had an excuse free bad race on the lawn. I guess there's so many kinds of off tracks that I will cut more slack to that.

[classhandicapper]

I think in your scenario I still prefer the second horse. I love to bet horses who had good form but then a bad race due to improper distance or footing. And in a situation when I couldn't see the odds (P3/P4), I'd be more likely to use the second horse knowing the public tends to overbet the last race. But I think one still has to look at each specific case. Lets say horse # 2 in your example had come off a bad race on grass but previously ran well on turf. Lets say he had a good trip; favorable pace and saved ground so no excuse. Then I would view him negatively. Slop is a different matter. If a horse had previous good slop/mud form but threw a bad race on an off track, I'd be much more willing to forgive the pp than the good grasser who had an excuse free bad race on the lawn. I guess there's so many kinds of off tracks that I will cut more slack to that.

Exactly.

However, even in the extreme case where a horse has run on the slop 5 times and always run poorly, it's not 100% certain that he ran poorly last time out just because of slop. If I wanted 2-1 on the horse off his next to last race, I might want a tad above 2-1 because of that slighter greater uncertainty. (maybe 2.5 -1)

That's the way I am going to view many of these off Poly horses.

I'm going to draw a line right through the bad Poly race and decide what odds I want. Then I'm going to insist on more than that because I'm really not 100% sure it was Poly that caused the bad race. How much more will be dependent on some of the specifics we both described.

[kenwoodallpromos]

For Keeneland's track, I will treat them as I do any "cuppy" track!

[cj]

For Keeneland's track, I will treat them as I do any "cuppy" track!

What exactly does cuppy mean? Since no trainer has ever been able to tell me, maybe you can. Has a trainer ever said "my horse loves a cuppy track"?

[Valuist]

I think cuppy was number one on the trainers excuse list. That was until the word "bounce" became popular.

[kenwoodallpromos]

Deceptively holding? To me that is when there is just enough wetness on the track for the hoof to leave a temporary print, and the horse take a little extra effort to pick its hooves up as it runs, like running on a foam cushion.
What I see on some winners' PP's is lousy (fading) on turf, flashes of early speed, fast early leader fractions in a recent race, at least 1 month since last race and many off recent layoffs, trainer good at maintaining racinf fitness.
In other words, enough front speed to keep up and rested enough to last!

[classhandicapper]

I think cuppy was number one on the trainers excuse list. That was until the word "bounce" became popular.

:lol:

[Tom]

I hope I can find some horses with horrible KEE figures - I love to forgive excusable races and bet against the better looking horse - that's where prices come from.