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Originally Posted by pandy
Mark, I agree with your post, early speed rules today. Except one thing, if a horse shows strong closing power recently, such as a fast last quarter, and in the past has shown the ability to leave the gate, that is a good sign and the driver is probably going to send the horse as soon as he gets a spot where he thinks he can get the lead. A lot of standardbreds are not one dimensional, they can leave or finish and those are actually the best horses to bet on.
So basically what I'm saying is, just because the horse hasn't been leaving lately doesn't mean it isn't leaving tonight.
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As you are aware, Bob, there are very few completely one-dimensional front runners in the sport. Almost all leaving types have the ability to sit a pocket or close up. Only the very few rank and borderline-insane
must have the front end in every race.
On the other hand, leaving hard into a fast first fraction and surviving to finish well is something of a specialized talent which accrues to the horses who do it frequently. That's why you'll very often see normally good-closing types curl up and die when they get involved in a high-speed bid for the front. They just aren't set up to handle the oxygen debt that hits them under these circumstances.
The Meadowlands is something of a specialized case in that horses leaving are very frequently given a hole in which to tuck. This is due to the fear that drivers have of a stalled horse outside of them who can prevent them from getting into the outer flow. They'd rather just let the hung animal in so as to get him out of the way. So leaving with a non-leaving type is far less risky there than at other venues.
But on 5/8 and 1/2 mile tracks, it's much more difficult to decide to just leave with your non-leaver. And when you do, the results are generally not very good. The infrequent leaver is much more effective from inner posts where he can use just enough early speed to protect a close-up position without hitting breaking-point early speed levels.
