Sidebar

[rmania]

Yeah, I'm talking about the race that produced the $143 winner, a $2K $1-exacta, a $33K $1-tri and a $257K $1-super.

Let it be known that I immediately cried FIX !!! as did 99.9% of anyone else who saw the race.

But, after going back and taking a closer look at the race. I've determined that it was legit. Just a lot of "resonable" things happened to create this perfect storm.

When I handicap races I usually look for patterns of regression or improvement using the speed ratings in the PPs (notice I said usually). When a pattern is detected I either adjust the last race running time to be consistent with the pattern or I pick another paceline consistent with the pattern. The result is used to predict a running time for this race.

So, after further review, this is how it all shook out. I'll just go through the field starting with the #1 horse. If you have a racing form from Sunday's card you can follow along..

And remember, this was all done AFTER THE RACE.

#1 - No real pattern and not really considered a contender off his last race. With no race over the track I used his last race and gave him a 2 length regression which IMO was resonable (turned out to be more).

#2 - Seen as a contender, based on his last at the same distance over the DMR surface and running an "even" race, I pegged him to regress 1 length. Agian, a resonable assumption.

#3 - With a pattern of Good - Bad - Bad - Good this one appeared to be sitting on Good. Rather than adjusting his last Bad race time I used his paceline from 3 back (his last Good race) and added a 2 lenght regression to it as it seemed that the Goods were becoming "less Good" in the pattern.

#4 - Though he managed to gain the show in his last start his final time didn't appear fast enough to contend. And, since he was losing ground to the winner at the end, I gave him a 1 length regression. Reasonable??

#5 - Was embarrassed in his only start and there was nothing to suggest that today would be any different. And it wasn't.

$6 - With only 4 races in the books there appeared to be no drastic swings in the pattern. His lowest speed rating was acheived on a slow surfare (track variant of 23) where he finished 2nd. However, there was a change in tactics in his last race when the jockey allowed him to settle early and then closed from off the pace. As a result of that race, I figured that a repeat was likely so I used his last race and showed no regression or improvement. A reasonable assumption since "closers" typically repeat more often than front runners.

#7 - This was the even money favorite... He was returning to SoCal after a super effort @ 1 1/16 m on the Fair Circuit. With that super effort he appeared ripe for a bounce and you didn't have to look too far down to find a race where he did bounce. It was his race just prior to the super effort. This was the paceline I used and it proved to be the right choice

#8 - Had the look of a contender off his kast race @ 1 1/16 m but the PPs seemed to scream the fact that this horse can't sprint. Using his best sprint paceline still put him in the back of the bus.

#9 - with a poor effort in his only start, I thought this one would contend with the addition of blinkers. In hind sight, a shorter distance may have helped his cause.

#11 - His pattern showed consistency and even though he seemed to have reached a new plauto with his speed ratings I felt he could basically repeat his last. But since his last wasn't really fast enough to contend I stuck him with a 2 length regression.

#10 - Here's your $143 winner and it was no easy task figuring out how he won but here's what I came up with. The most obvious thing was that he was getting lasix for the first time. And where many will point to this as the only reason, I think I found a few more. In his last race (1st career start) he was 17 lenghts behind after a 1/4 mile and 12 lenghts behind after a 1/2 mile. Using the exact same fractions against this group he looked to be 9 lengths back and 6 lengths back respectively. Now, if you do the math this may appear to be a 2 length exaggeration but I would credit this to the lasix. Even with the lasix and the better position after a 1/2 mile, he still had to shave off more than 2 seconds of his last race to win. Apparently not an unreasonable task.

Final order of finish 10-3-2-6 and apparently legit.