Quote:
Originally Posted by thaskalos
I too used to trust a horse's speed figures when it was being non-competitive in a race...but I now consider this to be a very costly mistake. And if Andy Beyer were here, I think he would admit that he would have preferred not to have cashed that large daily-double ticket on Big Coach.
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Disagree, Thask. Andy talked a good trip handicapping game, but I never really saw him apply anything more than generalities to the trip approach. I'm exaggerating by saying the figs are his raison d' etre, but Big Coach was their desired effect.
I don't mean I disregard a top fig outright, even an outrun figure. I'm taking in GP casually today, gearing up for the weekend. Within the parameters of public percentages as I mentioned above, I compared my visual impressions of Macedonian (62-70 bris) and Merzaz (83) in the second race, hoping to downgrade the former. If you access their last race, my notes read:
Macedonian had easy outside speed, was passed by winner, gave ground 2T/3T pushing, 3ES weakened.
Merzaz 2/3 FT, restrained a few strides rounding, 3E backstretch, zoomed to stalk later B, 4T, bolted widest ES.
The latter clearly impressed, while Macedonian folded to a rival still under a hold, analagous to a driver pressing the accelerator losing ground to a car maintaining position in neutral. I was mildly concerned about the layoff- one doesn't improve upon Pletcher- and the subsequent drop, but the work on 11/21 was sufficient.
Much of the above involved watching the jockey's hands, etc. I first got the idea that this was significant when Beyer's "Charlie" was able to detect race fixing at Saratoga in '74 when applying his skills.
