Beyer Serling Woodward Talking Horses
 

Nice to see Andy Beyer. it's on *NOW* if you're reading this

One of the best editions of TH that I've seen...

Valuable insight from both parties. Special treat to see Beyer on his game again.

Also a fairly good betting card, sun is shining here... OK not a bad day :coffee:

In the 10th at Saratoga today, Beyer was extolling the stretch speed of Get Explicit compared to Serling's preference for Santa Monica due to that one's far more difficult trip.

Beyer, essentially: "Get Explicit outfinished Santa Monica on equal terms".

Serling: "She outfinished her because of the trip".

Today Get Explicit draws the outside post, albeit in an 11 furlong race, and the trip scenarios could potentially be reversed.

Or so Beyer might have stated when he wrote his last two books.

at first glance, both had a case...
 

I have to watch those races again to really have a competent opinion, but I think Serling's general point was the correct one.

I thought that Santa Monica? IIRC may have 'hung' a little bit. And, that would be a 'fundamental flaw' rather than something that was actually trip related, yet significant to the 'finishing' ability of the racehorse, -but I'm going by memory and short replays on TH.... I could be way off.:ThmbUp:

After watching that race, Santa Monica was much the best. Get Explicit was fine, but did very little running.

A rare bad ride by Jose Ortiz, and you had the other-Chad w/ Castellano aboard, who was up near the pace, but there was no quality pace for him to try to collapse, and aptly-named Fool's Gold 'inherited' a great position and trip.

r10 :4: SANTA MONICA flat and disappointing stretch run...

r-12

:8: really getting pounded.

Most likely winner and an underlay at the same time. These can be interesting over the long-term, where the occasional 'busts' can pay well, but I'm not gambling on it happening today.

I watched that one live at the track and haven’t reviewed it yet, but it looked to me like the winner made several moves inside and Santa Monica moved WAY too soon very wide. It was almost as if Ortiz was worried about the eventual winner getting the jump on him inside and hurt himself with that move. IMO SM ran well even though she didn’t finish really well.

I think it would be pretty hard to argue the winner wasn't best. She was loaded the entire race, was just a matter of when she was getting out. Santa Monica ran better than looked but at this point I think we know what she is, a G2/3 type on her best day.

Winner ran a solid race, definitely 'best'.
Was lucky to guess-use her in Doubles to the Woodward, as I was sitting on some lean multi-race wagers which had singled Santa Monica, and I had a late thought as far as 'who in here has "potential" upside..?'

It's probably fair to say that Santa Monica has some 'hang' in her.
I can't speak for Beyer, in terms of the earlier interpretation of the mini-debate about that race. He may have felt a similar way about the finishing-ability of Santa Monica, or he may have simply had stance related specifically to that trip, where I would side more with Serling.

Whatever the case, things happened to play out a certain way.

Horseplayers (myself included) are very vulnerable to 'survivorship bias', 'hindsight bias'(i 'knew-it-all-along'..), etc, and a mixture thereof...

easy to have a false sense of confidence and underestimate the complexity and the randomness that went our way, especially when we feel we were 'right':coffee:.

My original point was simply Santa Monica vs. Get Explicit, and that Beyer, if he ever truly embraced trip handicapping race in, race out, would never have preferred Get Explicit over Monica Saturday, based upon what he called a kindergarten-level judgement (ground loss) in the early eighties.

It could be that Beyer has indeed "embraced" trip handicapping...but not to the point of exclusion of his other, more "natural" handicapping techniques.

Yes, I think the marketing of speed figures cements his focus on the technical aspects of figures themselves, rather than on the inner dynamics of a horse race that produce the figs.

I'm belaboring this, but I hadn't seen Andy B. interpret a race in quite a while, and it was odd for me to witness Andy S. talking the language of "how was the figure earned" in opposition to Andy B., who wrote his last two works essentially on that topic.

To Andy B's credit...he did admit that he had to be "persuaded" to accept the 'how the figure was earned' mentality. And, if we are honest with ourselves...we would all have to admit to having certain "blind spots" of our own as we try to expand our horizons in this ever-maddening game. No matter how "well-rounded" we may think we are as horseplayers...we all have certain "natural" handicapping tendencies which bias our supposedly 'comprehensive' handicapping and betting decisions.

I tend to watch Talking Horses and track the picks as the day goes on.

It was kind of nice to see both Andys show a flat-bet profit on win wagers for the day. Small one for Beyer, larger for Serling. Hope it resulted in an enjoyable day for some new people.