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46zilzal
03-20-2007, 06:01 PM
When you are around horses long enough, pattern recognition becomes part of your game. I have noticed one that repeats often enough to consider it a viable option whenever TWO big names come into a race. I call it the Jim Dandy syndrome based upon the colt of the same name's winning th 1930 Travers Stakes at 100/1. It involves the age old cocky stance of assuming that no one else has a chance; (remember the great line that Tony Burton, Appollo Creed's manager in Rocky told his fighter? "He doesn't know this is a game. He thinks it's a damn fight!")

As a review, the two leading three year olds of 1930 had ducked one another all season: Whichone from the West and Gallant Fox from the East. Most of the other colts listed for the Travers that year scratched except the very lighly regarded Jim Dandy. Well no one told his rider F. J. Baker that this wasn't a race, so while the other two riders worried about just when to go after the other, he ran off to win. LESSON? NEVER ASSUME!!

While it does not happen all that often, when it does the odds are tremendous. I found the same thing happened in the 1982 Travers when each of the Triple Crown winners battled (well not so much Gato Del Sol) and Ruanway Groom from Canada passed the tiring Conquistador and Aloma's Ruler to win at a good price.

I have seen the exact same psychology defeat Olympic athletes in the 1984 Men's Gymmastic all around when China's Li Ning and USA's Peter Vidmar were so worried about "not letting it all hang out" and go for it, Koji Gushiken, a veteran from Japan passed BOTH to win. At the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake this happened yet again when ice skaters Michell Kwan and Russian Irina Slutskaya held it back and the one that didn't think it was a game Sarah Hughes passed them both to garner the Gold medal.

JPinMaryland
03-21-2007, 01:58 AM
That clinches it for me, I'm betting Officer Rocket for the derby...

Dan Montilion
03-21-2007, 03:04 AM
I'm still spending my "Koji" money.

ryesteve
03-21-2007, 09:24 AM
Kwan and Slutskaya had bobbles in their routines... Hughes' gold medal had nothing to do with the two of them "holding back"

And Rocky lost that fight anyway...

JPinMaryland
03-21-2007, 10:12 AM
Yeah if you saw the Sarah Hughes effort the last thing you'd think of was having something to do with the favorites holding back. Her performance transcended everyone else's. YOu could tell from her muscle tone, her facial expression, just her look; that she was ON that day. My buddy and I were watching it and he could care less about women's skating and we both thought that performance was the best of the olympics. NOt a good analogy.

46zilzal
03-21-2007, 11:07 AM
Kwan and Slutskaya had bobbles in their routines... Hughes' gold medal had nothing to do with the two of them "holding back"


I contend, if you looked at the performances again as I did on tape, those bobbles were due to hodling back.

Hughe's performance was mutally exclusive to theirs.

ryesteve
03-21-2007, 01:22 PM
I contend, if you looked at the performances again as I did on tape, those bobbles were due to hodling back.
Uh yeah... and you watched Rocky again and decided he was totally robbed of the decision...

the Bid
03-22-2007, 12:09 PM
I can't speak to the Olympic sports but the 1976 Preakness is an example. Bold Forbes and Honest Pleasure battled early. Neither jock wanted to give an inch. HP's rider was under orders NOT to let BF get away. They finished 3rd and 5th to Elocutionist.

In racing when the top 2 assume that they only have to beat each other, they forget to ride the entire race. Of course, often enough the top two run their races and finish 1-2, like the Tampa Bay Derby.