Rail bias at Pimlico Saturday?

[cj]

Seeing a lot of people convinced there was one but after re-watching all the dirt races I'm not buying it. I'll lay out why I think so a little later, curious what others think.

[dilanesp]

Originally Posted by cj

Seeing a lot of people convinced there was one but after re-watching all the dirt races I'm not buying it. I'll lay out why I think so a little later, curious what others think.

I can't necessarily get it from the other races on the card. The results were pretty logical.

But the Preakness itself really looked like it, with the winner coming down the rail, the impossible longshot getting to the rail in the stretch and rallying to finish second, and all the horses on the outside looking like they were running on a treadmill.

So it could be. Maybe the logical horses in the other races were also bias-aided.

[Tom]

I posted in real time yesterday a couple of times, that inside posts were winning everything, dirt and turf, other than 5 furlongs. I see this morning that Dahoss pointed out at Byk's site that all the winners but maybe one were 1st or 2nd choices, so that diluted my opinion a bit. I have to look at the charts and see how the other close up finishers looked.

I was noting PP and BL only throughout the day, so I may have had a blinders' view of reality. Inside may have been good but not as much as I thought.

That is why chart reading over a 20 oz coffee a day later is important.

[Fightingirish51195]

The inside was good. Not just the rail. It was confirmed after the 11th

[lamboguy]

i'd say the track was anti wide. in the Preakness the horses that ran on the rail finished 1-2. OWENDALE looked like he went by the second place horse hung a bit off the wide trip.

[classhandicapper]

People have different definitions of biases (or how extreme things have to get before they'll call one) and people have different views on the impact of ground loss.

IMO, yesterday at PIM, it was more important to try to save ground and be in the inner couple of paths than on the typical day at the typical major track in the US, but I don't think any bias was strong enough to dictate the results.

I planned on betting the Preakness for a pace collapse. I was already suspicious of the track going into the Preakness. So I pulled my bet. I didn't want any horses I thought were going to have to rally far outside on the turn even with that advantage. Normally, I'm not worried about that as long as I get the setup. As it turned out, I was right about the pace. It was pretty fast and the race kind of fell apart.

The exacta was two horses that more or less sat inside a lot of the way and closed.

Other horses that fit the race well that also should have benefited from that pace but raced wide did not do much running other than Owendale who saved some ground early and couldn't even beat Everfast. Even Laughing Fox saved ground early and didn't come wide until late on the 2nd turn into the stretch. The only speed to hang around was the inner most.

That was the exact kind of result you'd expect if saving ground was more important than usual.

[classhandicapper]

The inside was good. Not just the rail.

Yes.

i'd say the track was anti wide.

Yes again.


It was not that the rail was golden. It was that it was harder to rally outside the first couple of paths than on the typical day.

[GMB@BP]

I bet the 3, and given the fractions it felt like the track carried him as far as one could reasonably expect.

He may have ended up with the top timeform in the race.

[cj]

Originally Posted by classhandicapper

The only speed to hang around was the inner most.

I'll get to more later, but the other speeds were a hopeless horse that was was outside the leader contesting a fast pace and a mild contender that was four or five wide around the turn (given that the leader not on the rail) contesting that same fast pace. These horses should be expected to collapse IMO.

[Fightingirish51195]

Originally Posted by classhandicapper

Yes.



Yes again.


It was not that the rail was golden. It was that it was harder to rally outside the first couple of paths than on the typical day.

I think the rail was the best lane of all though

[metro]

Thought the rail helped in both dirt sprints and routes. Thought it was good for turf routes as well. Turf sprints seemed more neutral.

[classhandicapper]

Originally Posted by cj

I'll get to more later, but the other speeds were a hopeless horse that was was outside the leader contesting a fast pace and a mild contender that was four or five wide around the turn (given that the leader not on the rail) contesting that same fast pace. These horses should be expected to collapse IMO.

I agree that all the wide speeds were up against it no matter what, but the way they ran didn't do much to dispel the notion that those were not the best paths.

This sort of gets into why I created that ground loss thread.

I watch dozens of races from all over the country every week. On the typical day at the typical major track, imo, being wide on the turn is a disadvantage, but not near the disadvantage as the literal number of feet the horse loses.

IMO, if a horse loses 50 feet and you add that much back to his figures, you are probably overrating him a lot of the time. Horses either find it easier to handle the turns when a little wider or those paths are often a little faster or both. So it narrows the actual impact.

I didn't think that was the case Saturday at Pimlico.

Horses that were outside on the turns were at a more significant disadvantage.

I don't know if you want to call that a bias or not. For my notes I try to distinguish between what I view at typical and what Pimlico was Saturday. I don't think they were the same. But I don't think that's the way most people think about rail or inside biases. They want to see horses on the inside moving way up or practically no one being able to rally outside.

[cj]

Twitter

Good listen.

[cj]

I looked at all the dirt races and found 15 horses (based on the chart comments) that didn't spend any time in on the rail or in the two path. I then looked at the speed figure they ran on Preakness day and compared it to what they an in the the prior race and also the best ran in the prior three races.

Using the last race, what happened to the horse's speed figures on Preakness day:

Average: +1 (horses ran one point fast while outside)
Median: -3 (horses ran three points slower while outside)

Use the best of last three:

Average: 0
Median: -2

This tells me there really wasn't an issue with being outside. I just didn't find a lot of horses under performing that weren't inside.

[dilanesp]

Originally Posted by cj

I looked at all the dirt races and found 15 horses (based on the chart comments) that didn't spend any time in on the rail or in the two path. I then looked at the speed figure they ran on Preakness day and compared it to what they an in the the prior race and also the best ran in the prior three races.

Using the last race, what happened to the horse's speed figures on Preakness day:

Average: +1 (horses ran one point fast while outside)
Median: -3 (horses ran three points slower while outside)

Use the best of last three:

Average: 0
Median: -2

This tells me there really wasn't an issue with being outside. I just didn't find a lot of horses under performing that weren't inside.

What's your explanation for Everfast?