Quote:
Originally Posted by steveb
without taking sides this is a furphy.
running styles in the main are dictated by the rider or trainer.
if you had the data and could check it, you would find that no matter how fast or slow the race pace was.....
a horse will generally be about the same metric behind the leader at various race points.
ie: if it's 10m away at the 600m mark in a hot pace it will generally be about the same behind in a slow pace.
it's not usually horses that decide pace, it's riders and trainers.
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What you are saying is largely true. Horses due have preferred running positions though is is due to large part to the jockey. It is, after all, the job of the jockey to place the horse in the most favorable position. However horses have differing speed capabilities which must be considered. We have recently discussed the disastrous results which happen when closers are forced to lead. Similarly many speed horses resent being made to rate and waste energy or sulk if asked to rate. Still other horses are tractable and can be placed just where the riders feels best. I would say that it is a combination of horse tendency and jockey intent that determines where a horse ends up positioned.
I have recently been talking to cj regarding pace prediction and where he places horses relative to pace on his Pace Projector. He feels that while he previously placed the horses based on the horse's early positions and where they were placed in their previous races, he will now depend more on their speed capabilities based on their previous pace figures to improve the predictive ability of the tool.
It's a combination of rider intent vs. horse tendency as well as early position vs. pace figure in determining the the early pace and where each horse will run relative to that pace.
