DISTANCE BETWEEN WINNER & PLACE HORSE

[Tom]

IMO, Mind Your Biscuits is a Grade 1 caliber sprinter. The thing is, Grade 1 caliber sprints in general are not as high quality as Grade 1 caliber routes. There are exceptions, but that's the generality. They are lower quality races and even the purses reflect that.

This I agree with 100%
Sprints do not demand all the attributes of class - mainly speed.
Routes, the longer the more so, require stamina, heart. This is why I look for power sprinters, G1 or G2 winners at a route who have sprinter speed, when they cut back.

A lot of what you need to know about class will be found in the figures.

[classhandicapper]

Originally Posted by cj

I didn't really think he'd run fast enough around two turns to be a contender in the Classic. The TimeformUS Race Rating, which you know all about, was 132. These were his route races. I like the horse and was hoping after the Churchill race he had a shot, but I just didn't see it even from a figure perspective.

That analysis is perfectly fine.

On the flip side, he had a good enough Beyer off his Lukas Classic and finished strongly enough there to think he fit and was a major contender. So depending on whose figures you were using you might have a different opinion.

If you look at Beyer, Timeform, TG and RAGs you'll see that all the time. They disagree all the time and no one gets them all right.

I am coming at it from an entirely different direction.

Without figures I could look at the quality of the horses he was facing, the trips in those races, and how he was doing relative to them and conclude he wasn't good enough to beat the horses in the Classic. Of course, that doesn't mean I am always right.

I real life I DO look at the figures, but I also know there are accuracy and qualitative issues that impact the figures over and the obvious trip stuff. So usually, all I want to see is that the horse in question "fits" on figures and then separate them qualitatively.

[classhandicapper]

Are you presuming that he knew that he was competing in a higher class race and just quit in deference to his superiors?

I am presuming that there's more going on in races than the paces and trips we can easily measure.

When horse "x" has good figures, moves up in class, and doesn't run well, the standard excuse is "he bounced", "he went off form". Sometimes that happens. But what also happens is that the horse could not duplicate his figure when faced with tougher competition and conditions.

All else being equal, horses that run similar figures are not always actually similar. Some of them have deeper reserves of speed and stamina that are only called upon when the conditions are tougher (overcoming a less than ideal pace, running against a bias, getting good position in a bigger deeper field, battling with another horse etc..)

These are actual physical differences in horses that are NOT always apparent in the speed figures.

Stick 2 horses in the same kind of soft spot and they might both run a 100 Beyer.

Stick the same 2 horses in a tough spot, one of them will be able to run the 100 again (or close) and the other will get outrun, fold, etc..

Also, you can't always know what the horse has in reserve until it's challenged by tougher horses.

1. Some will hold their own.
2. Some will fold.
3. Some will show they are capable of running even faster.

#3 is rare, but it comes up among very lightly raced well bred horses all the time. That's what makes those races so tough. You know how fast they've run against other maidens and limited winners, but you don't always know who will beak out and who will fold when you throw all the best ones together and it's a much tougher race.

[bobphilo]

Originally Posted by Tom

This I agree with 100%
Sprints do not demand all the attributes of class - mainly speed.
Routes, the longer the more so, require stamina, heart. This is why I look for power sprinters, G1 or G2 winners at a route who have sprinter speed, when they cut back.

A lot of what you need to know about class will be found in the figures.

Class just means a horses' ability at a given distance. All races demand a proportional combination of speed and stamina. Sprints involve a higher ratio of speed and and distance races more towards stamina. Unless one assumes the premise that stamina is more important than speed, a top sprinter is just as classy as a top distance horse at it's distance. I know from my own running experiences that it takes just as much "heart" to keep running in the stretch in a sprint after setting hot fractions, as in a distance race where you've gone longer but slower. The short 5 furlong dashes in horse racing are pure speed but but a 6F race demands the ability to carry that speed. The stretch run in 400 meter extended sprint in human track is just as agonizing as the stretch run in a mile race. I've run both. The only argument that can be made for the superiority of distance races is that the purses tend to be higher for distance races which draw more talented horses and make them more competitive.
Nothing to do with some intrinsic superiority of stamina over speed or "heart". Just the result of popularity.

I do agree that most of what you can know about class is in the figures since the classiest horses are the fastest ones. True at any distance.

[Tom]

We will have to disagree.