Originally Posted by mountainman
For the most part, last year won't serve as prologue because (due to covid) few tracks had been open at the time we resumed racing in late May, thus invading horses held no ostensible fitness edge vs Mountaineer lay-overs. That will be different this season as more ship- ins will have raced recently.
Still, a potentially repeatable trend , or two, did emerge as invaders showing a race in 2020-even as far back as Jan (some 4 months before our opening night) FAR outperformed those absent since the previous year. Also, Mahoning horses won significantly more than their share, and this WOULD continue LONG after Mountaineer runners got fit.
As to Mnr lay-ups, these runners performed abysmally during the meet's first two weeks but, interestingly, began to knock down some purses after that (and I don't mean Mnr runners showing a prep race). Which implies that barns taking more time to prepare comebackers saw those returnees far outperform Mnr horses rushed into the entry box right off the bat. Trainer Eddie Clouston's stock well-exemplified this, as the further our meet progressed, the better his comebackers ran.
Over the years, though, certain constants hold true during the initial stages of our season: 1) Invaders SIGNIFICANTLY outperform Mnr runners competing off the bench.. 2) Mnr layups post a lower IV, but also pay much better prices..3) Certain barns will come out FIRING, and predicting which outfits will hit the ground running constitutes guesswork as it varies from year to year. Last year, for example, James Barker (a more than competent horseman to begin with..) enjoyed great success right from the gate, while, several years back, Steve Larue, a more generic and lower-percentage trainer, dominated our first few weeks.
I hope this will be helpful.
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