Quote:
Originally Posted by Mc990
I don't know about "measuring stick" but Bolt is the horse you're supposed to bet here... the exact same figures with a better narrative and he'd be vying for favoritism.... as it stands, his form is dressed down enough to throw some people off his scent
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I don't mind the "who did they beat" thing too much, it has a place in analysis, for me, more about how many horses of their crop they raced against and how many of those they beat. I mean, a horse can't be in *every* race.
Bolt d'Oro raced 54 horses and beat 50 of them.
Easy to do this for each horse in the field...it does yield some knowledge about how game a horse is, if they are a hard tryer, etc.
Then you have Magnum Moon and Justify....they beat everyone they raced, however, here's the problem: they raced the
least amount of other horses than anyone in the entire derby field. i.e. not warriors, harder to figure them as a result.
(next in that category of "fewer horses raced against" would be hofburg, noble indy, and audible...only about 30-something other horses they raced against in their career).
It depends on if you think the "hard knockers" who have raced a lot of other horses and beat a lot of other horses are declining in form, already peaked, etc. OR you might want to look at the # they beat versus raced as a %. More horses you race the chances are your % of beating others is going to go down a tad
Look at some of the horses in the field in terms of # of horses they "battled": some have battled it out with a lot of other horses:
Flameaway raced 86, beat 72
Bravazo raced 80, beat 54
My Boy Jack raced 92, beat 74
Free Drop Billy raced 78, beat 63
Good Magic raced 52, beat 48
and so on. Not gonna do them all, but Mendelssohn and Enticed raced about 60+ others horses.
It gives a different perspective to see the warriors who have raced a lot of others, IMHO
