Sidebar

[thaskalos]

Originally Posted by cj

That race shape is in the minority of races run in North America, especially on dirt. I'm pretty confident that will prove correct. You have to keep in mind that the very nature of the quick opening quarter is already built into the figures. For example, the baseline I use for Belmont at 7f looks like this:

7.0     22.60     45.01       80.98

The raw times don't matter, it is the ratio of the fractions that is important. So in this case we are looking at a flow of fractions of 22.60, 22.40, then 35.97 (23.98 1/4 equivalent). The second quarter being faster than the first is something that is seen more often at 7f than at other distances.

I'll run a query later to see what percentage of races have the following patterns and how many are won by frontrunners.

Basically even, like 82, 81, 80

Descending, 95, 85, 80

Ascending, 70, 75, 80

The "Valley", 80, 70, 80

The "Peak", 80, 90, 80

We aren't talking about "race shapes"...we are talking about the independent running lines of the particular horses involved in the race. The "shape" of the race in general shows one thing...but the horses' individual race-shapes show something else altogether.