Quote:
Originally Posted by Spalding No!
Another thing that confounds the issue is the presumption that the same top class horses at middle distances ought to be the top class horses at longer (or shorter) distances. That's what Classhandicapper does when pointing out that the also-rans from American Pharoah's Belmont all came back and improved their BSFs next out. None of them ran 12 furlongs in those starts, in fact, most cut back to 9 furlongs.
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I am aware of that being a complicating issue, but assuming these horses can't get 12F is just as biased as assuming they can.
I suspect that Beyer starts from the position that they CAN'T run as fast going 12F when he's interpreting results and making figures. Then when they jump up later he assumes they only ran faster because it was a shorter distance that they liked it better.
That COULD be true, but it could also be false.
It could be that his chart is off a few points at 12F on these deeper modern surfaces or that the 2 turn races should have been broken out by a few points on a specific day.
3 horses in the Pharoah Belmont came home in under 25 seconds. It was fast track and all, but that was no stagger fest. Maybe they were just a few points faster than given credit for.
