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View Poll Results: Which best describes your view on ground loss
Critical part of trip handicapping. I spend a lot of time on it 49 25.00%
I look at it, but it's somewhat overrated 35 17.86%
I never pay attention 42 21.43%
I only pay attention on biased days 5 2.55%
I only pay attention when it's extreme 26 13.27%
I only pay attention when the horse is being used hard 8 4.08%
Option 4 and 5 6 3.06%
Option 4 and 6 2 1.02%
Option 5 and 6 6 3.06%
Option 4, 5 and 6 17 8.67%
Voters: 196. This poll is closed

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Old 04-29-2019, 09:37 AM   #31
classhandicapper
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I used to have a large pile of papers on my desk that I called UPO's. Unidentified Piled Objects.
Sounds like my garage.
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Old 04-30-2019, 10:55 AM   #32
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Originally Posted by deelo View Post
I refuse to use any figures that incorporate ground loss into their algorithms. Any credit given or taken from a performance should be at the discretion of the trip handicapper.
One of things I haven't tested but have more or less learned from experience is that it's a bad idea to adjust speed figures for ground loss when the figure maker doesn't consider ground loss when he's making the figures.

Let's say for example we have 3 horses that typically run speed figures of around 100. The 3 of them all get hung out 3-4 wide and finish 1st, 2nd and 3rd within a length of each other.

a. If you don't consider ground loss you may assume they ran a figure of around 100 again when you make your projection.

b. If you do consider ground loss you may assume they ran a figure in the mid 90s + ground loss = 100.

If you use approach "a", on a day when a lot of the contenders were wide, you will kind of build ground loss right into the figures to some degree via the track variant. So if a handicapper adds the ground loss in when the horse comes back, he'll be double counting some of it.

It's similar to pace.

If the figure maker doesn't consider pace, he can build some of it straight into the figure via the track variant.

Let's say the same 3 horses got into a duel but still finished 1st, 2nd, 3rd and the race looks something like this.

110 pace
92 final time.

The reason they only ran a 92 speed figure was because they dueled in a 110 pace. But if the figure maker doesn't consider pace, he's liable to project that they ran their usual 100 via the track variant. Then when pace sensitive handicappers upgrade that 100, they are double counting it.
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Old 05-02-2019, 10:16 PM   #33
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IMO, ground loss is much more important in grass racing than dirt racing. It's never good to be wide on the turf; but on dirt, there's plenty of times where the better footing is several paths out from the rail.

I also think ground loss on first turn is more important than ground loss on the second turn. This is one flaw with Trakus; it just lists overall feet traveled.
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Old 05-02-2019, 11:51 PM   #34
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I also think ground loss on first turn is more important than ground loss on the second turn. This is one flaw with Trakus; it just lists overall feet traveled.
You can get around this a little by looking at the 4F point in most two turn dirt races because that covers the 1st turn.
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Old 05-05-2019, 10:56 AM   #35
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This may be a good chance to discuss the ground loss in the Derby.

Game Winner ran 103 feet more than Maximum Security and 119 feet more than Code of Honor and Improbable. Depending on the number of feet per length you want to use, that's over 10-11 lengths further. So with a ground saving trip would Game Winner have totally demolished this field?


http://tnetwork.trakus.com/tnet/t_Ch...&DisplayType=1
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Old 05-05-2019, 12:27 PM   #36
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Originally Posted by classhandicapper View Post
This may be a good chance to discuss the ground loss in the Derby.

Game Winner ran 103 feet more than Maximum Security and 119 feet more than Code of Honor and Improbable. Depending on the number of feet per length you want to use, that's over 10-11 lengths further. So with a ground saving trip would Game Winner have totally demolished this field?


http://tnetwork.trakus.com/tnet/t_Ch...&DisplayType=1
You really believing that ground loss on Game Winner? I'm not. I'll have to watch again but I think they messed up a lot of horses.

I suspect there were problem with Trakus during the Derby as the chart didn't come up until well after the races were finished at CD. Races 13 and 14 were on the site right on time as usual. I think somebody went in and did some manual stuff. Buyer beware.

I'll go check it myself later on, hopefully some others will check it out as well.
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Old 05-05-2019, 12:52 PM   #37
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You really believing that ground loss on Game Winner? I'm not. I'll have to watch again but I think they messed up a lot of horses.

I suspect there were problem with Trakus during the Derby as the chart didn't come up until well after the races were finished at CD. Races 13 and 14 were on the site right on time as usual. I think somebody went in and did some manual stuff. Buyer beware.

I'll go check it myself later on, hopefully some others will check it out as well.
I haven't even begun to do the trips on that race. Doing Derby ground loss manually usually requires that I be in a very good mood.

I assumed it was correct, but after I check, I'll let you know what I think.
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Old 05-05-2019, 01:36 PM   #38
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You really believing that ground loss on Game Winner? I'm not. I'll have to watch again but I think they messed up a lot of horses.
My paths might not be same as some people. I assume a little room between horses.

I have him as: cut over; 2+t1; out into back; 6t2; bumped; 8lt2; out 10

That means he cut over sharply towards the inside from his outside post, raced somewhere between the 2 and 3 path on the first turn; moved out as he was exiting the 1st turn; was racing 6 wide the 2nd turn when he got bumped; shifted to about 8 wide towards the end of that turn and exited in about the 10 path.

Trakus has him losing about 49 feet in the first half mile. That seems like too much compared to what I saw. But he did lose a ton of ground overall.
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Old 05-05-2019, 01:46 PM   #39
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Originally Posted by classhandicapper View Post
This may be a good chance to discuss the ground loss in the Derby.

Game Winner ran 103 feet more than Maximum Security and 119 feet more than Code of Honor and Improbable. Depending on the number of feet per length you want to use, that's over 10-11 lengths further. So with a ground saving trip would Game Winner have totally demolished this field?


http://tnetwork.trakus.com/tnet/t_Ch...&DisplayType=1
Other things being equal, he does. Of course other things are not usually equal. That's why one has to be comprehensive in their handicapping. However, that is a good starting point and there have to be a lot of other mitigating factors to not consider it highly important.
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Old 05-05-2019, 01:52 PM   #40
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Quote:
Originally Posted by classhandicapper View Post
My paths might not be same as some people. I assume a little room between horses.

I have him as: cut over; 2+t1; out into back; 6t2; bumped; 8lt2; out 10

That means he cut over sharply towards the inside from his outside post, raced somewhere between the 2 and 3 path on the first turn; moved out as he was exiting the 1st turn; was racing 6 wide the 2nd turn when he got bumped; shifted to about 8 wide towards the end of that turn and exited in about the 10 path.

Trakus has him losing about 49 feet in the first half mile. That seems like too much compared to what I saw. But he did lose a ton of ground overall.
The first turn is where I think it is wrong. I don't think this was calculated using the Trakus system as I said. He certainly lost a lot of ground but I think Trakus is exaggerating it.
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Old 05-05-2019, 03:04 PM   #41
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Hey, like the stewards, TRAKUS treated the Derby like a maiden claimer on Tuesday.
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Old 05-05-2019, 03:14 PM   #42
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Originally Posted by classhandicapper View Post
My paths might not be same as some people. I assume a little room between horses.

I have him as: cut over; 2+t1; out into back; 6t2; bumped; 8lt2; out 10

That means he cut over sharply towards the inside from his outside post, raced somewhere between the 2 and 3 path on the first turn; moved out as he was exiting the 1st turn; was racing 6 wide the 2nd turn when he got bumped; shifted to about 8 wide towards the end of that turn and exited in about the 10 path.

Trakus has him losing about 49 feet in the first half mile. That seems like too much compared to what I saw. But he did lose a ton of ground overall.
I should also add he got bumped at the start; but that's a non ground loss issue. It may have impacted his early position.
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Old 05-05-2019, 03:23 PM   #43
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The first turn is where I think it is wrong. I don't think this was calculated using the Trakus system as I said. He certainly lost a lot of ground but I think Trakus is exaggerating it.
Yea, good catch. Roadster was wider into the first turn, yet Trakus shows Game Winner having run 4 more feet.

The way this race was run, the combination of "failing to break"+"ground loss" kept Game Winner out of the exacta contention.

Doesn't mean that I loved his race or add a ton to his figure or whatever. Likely that Game Winner ran about the same ballpark performance, that the Game Winner we all know so well by now, was expected to run. It's just that he had to take a different route to get there and wasn't part of the exacta or tri.

Unlikely that he improved or declined, Saturday.

He didn't break.
Tried to save some ground early on the first turn.

Then coming out of the first turn, when you see guys like tentative-tyler starting to wrangle-back their horses while Saez/MS slow the pace down, the good jockeys and horses try to advance.

Rosario tried to advance.
Backstretch is only so long, and Game Winner got caught wide into the 2nd turn, while a horse like Country House, who didn't break horribly (like GW did), was close enough that he could capitalize on the slowed-down pace.

Prat did a great job, and he rode that like a turf race. Saez looked a lot like how Prado rode Glorious Empire in the turf routes(break, lead, slow down, herd), and Prat had the right horse and position to capitalize.

Rosario didn't seem 'horrible' to me. If Rosario decided to 'take back' or something own his own? - Yes, in that world we can agree that it would be incompetence.

But, In the world where Game Winner simply didn't break? Then Rosario did the best he could.
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Old 05-06-2019, 04:45 PM   #44
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Max Sec was in front when he came off the rail, and that ground loss put him back to 17th! Class has a point.....
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Old 05-06-2019, 05:07 PM   #45
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Remember however earlier in this thread we discussed how going wide cost more than the ground loss loss such as in position and energy expenditure. Extra energy expenditure can be exponential when going extremely wide, like Game Winner did, and position loss is fatal in a big Derby field. It's absurd to think that GW would be able to overcome all this and run his usual race which would have likely dusted this field.
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