Lifetime best miles

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A couple prime examples of why you can't play older horses to win
off a "LTB" mile at the Big m is ......

In tonights 6th #3 Mr Apples a 6 YO on 5/8 had a "LTB" of 1:50.2
next week 2nd at 9-5.

In tonight's 10th #2 Pilgrims Toner a 6 YO on 4/24 had a LTB of 1:48.4
next start 2nd at 4-5 !

A few LTB horses are going tonight, most are ML long odds but in the 13th
#10 Irak Attack N a 9 YO is 7-2 ML and tied his LTB of 1:50.2... tonight ???

I use 5 year olds and up, figuring 2-3-4 year olds are still improving but I've
seen a lot of 4 YO go down too.

Why would you wan't to bet a older horse let's say 8 or 9 that took him or her
that long to set his record ? If you are a older person don't you feel more
tired if you exert yourself now than you did as a younger person ?
Same is true with horses....The older they are the harder they fall !
If you have some older charts check it out, you might be :eek: at how many lose
at short odds the next week, some do win and beat you, but if they are short
odds and a older horse bet against.

[markgoldie]

The concept of using LTB as an automatic re-bet angle is, of course, ridiculous. That's because in and of itself, it tells us zero about the animal's chances in a succeeding event. Additionally, final times are dependent, as we know, on many things, but most particularly: (1) track condition and weather, (2) the pace of the race, and (3) the individual horse's trip.

Even a contrarian form-cycle angle is not necessarily applicable to LTB efforts. For example, the argument might be that the great stress of producing an LTB effort is so high that the horse will tend to "bounce" following such performance, etc. But the stress or effort-level of a LTB mile may not be particularly high, again depending on the circumstances under which it was achieved.

While it is likely that a LTB effort indicates that the horse is at least in form vis-avis his particular ability level, even that is not assured. For example, a horse may be narrowly beaten in the 1:50 range, but after slipping off form, is relegated to winning in 1:51 and change which could be a LTB.

In short, I don't think there's much use in betting on or against this angle either way.

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If you have alot of old big M charts and some free time
you might think different. Alot of "LTB" horses in the next
start go off long odds, you might say that they were racing
against alot better horses thats why they lost. I would agree
on that point, but the ones that come back off a LTB and are
short odds either staying in the same class or moving up lose
more than they win. I don't follow the other tracks as much as
the Big M, so I'm just using this there and they must be 5YO and up.
If you can get past that "paper tiger" you think won't win then
everything is inflated esp the ex's.

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tonights program at the Big M showed 20 horses set a
new lifetime best from the 12 lines they show.
I will give credit for Pilgrims tone who had a earlier win
off a Ltb mile at 5-2 and 1-2 before losing at 4/5.

Tonights short one's were 10th #10 Irak Attack at 8-5 !!!
and if you want to count Auckland Reactor N QUA. LTB
he lost at even money !

[markgoldie]

On the other side of the forum, there was a discusion recently in which there was something of an argument over whether a researcher should proceed to attempt to prove the central thesis of a book author. This book author had proposed a theory of a way to make money betting favorites in certain situations (I won't bother getting into the specifics of it). Anyway, one respected poster said that there was insufficient logical theory behind the author's ideas to merit a long, hard research project. I argued that there was sufficient logical theory behind the assumptions and that the researcher should go ahead. However, this is beside the point, which is that the poster who said basic logic and theory are at least necessary before we devote valuable time (let alone money) to a given idea, is correct.

In that case and in this case, there must be some underlying reasoning sufficient to give a proposition serious consideration. If not, we may as well be researching the heart-attack rate in New York City when it's raining in Portland.

What I'm saying is that I don't see the necessary theoretical logic behind this proposition such that it merits full-scale research. I mentioned these reasons in my earlier post here.

On the other hand, there are some occasions when a collection of empirical data is so compelling, that development of the underlying theory or mechanism must follow undeniable nature of the facts. I don't think you quite have that here, based on a handful of anecdotal results from The Meadowlands. And, of course, I don't think this merits your time and effort to compile a comprehensive set of facts.

But then, what do I know? I'm still locked up here on the Funny Farm.

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I'm not going to post all the LTB next start losers at the Big m
for the past 5 or 10 years here. I'm not talking about "a handful"
of races, anything can work for a day or two.
You might want to take note of LTB horses the rest of the Big M meet
while capping the races and see if it might be worth looking into or not.

Good Luck