Best Performance by Riderless Horse

[bobphilo]

My reward for "Best Performance by a Riderless Horse" has to go to Simmy in
todays 7th race at Aqueduct. After a stumble slightly after the start caused her to lose jockey Alan Garcia, she recovered and shot to the lead and, despite her outside #8 post in the very short run to the 1st turn in the Big A's inner track mile races, had the rail by mid-turn. She then went on to extend her lead so much that he was out of camera range for the rest of the race in which she finished way ahead of the field and official winner. It was only on the head-on view that one could really see her performance, and note that despite the tendency of most riderless horses to either head back to the barn or drift badly. Simmy cleverly got to the rail and hugged it through the entire race and held her big lead to the finish, despite the lack of guidance, rating or urging from a rider.

Yes of course, being the best horse(9-5 favorite), and especially having 118
less lbs to haul around were the big factors here, but I was still impressed
with the young filly's professionalism. It's always a pleasure seeing a horse
doing what it was bred to do, all by itself with such gusto.

Clearly a horse I intend to follow since the details of today's exploits will
only be listed as "lost rider" in her PPs. (Perhaps this part might make it appropriate to also put this post in the Handicapping Forum - PA can decide that)

I also have a related question regarding how the fractional and final times were recorded, given that the timer is supposed to record the time of the leading horse, whether it has a rider or not, did they just turn the timer off until Simmy past it and reactivated it for the rest of the field at each call point? The times were rather slow and clearly reflected the offical leader's times rather Simmy's fast pace. What do you guys think?

Bob

[joanied]

I assume Garcia is fine? You know, horses are creatures of habit...but the loose ones do generally take themselves to the outside, even if they continue on with the race...this Simmy really learned her lessons well...I'd love to see the video replay.

[deathandgravity]

2-6-8 Tri Box... ugh
at least still had the Ex

Garcia was fine - walked off

[bobphilo]

Originally Posted by deathandgravity

2-6-8 Tri Box... ugh
at least still had the Ex

Garcia was fine - walked off

Glad Garcia is OK.

My sympathies on the bad beat. Congrats on the handicapping, though.

Bob

[Hanover1]

To answer the posters question-are not the fractions of frontrunning horse recorded as ran, along with the rest of the field, with notation of lost rider/DQ? After all, you cannot assign a speed figure to a horse that is not actually run?

[joanied]

Happy to know Garcia is fine

[bobphilo]

Originally Posted by joanied

I assume Garcia is fine? You know, horses are creatures of habit...but the loose ones do generally take themselves to the outside, even if they continue on with the race...this Simmy really learned her lessons well...I'd love to see the video replay.

The problem with the side view replay is that it shows nothing of Simmy after she gets the lead. The head-on keeps her on camera. Don't know if the NYRA site shows head-on views. Hopefully someone who has it will post it on Youtube.

Bob

[bobphilo]

Originally Posted by Hanover1

To answer the posters question-are not the fractions of frontrunning horse recorded as ran, along with the rest of the field, with notation of lost rider/DQ? After all, you cannot assign a speed figure to a horse that is not actually run?

In tracks with Trakus, each horse's time is recorded at each call, so it would be no problem just taking the first horse after Simmy as the offical leaders time.

With most other tracks including Aqueduct the only time recorded is the first horse to break the beam at each call point, disqualified or not. I was guessing that the only way around that was to turn off the timer until Simmy had past the beam and then turn it back on at each call to record the offical leader. Beaten lengths would reflect distance behind official leader. In effect, riderless horse would be taken out of all data, including beaten lengths. Otherwise, if one uses the riderless horse as the leader and calculates beaten lengths off of it, we would have the offical winner possibly beaten by several lengths.

The only problem I'm seeing with turning the timer off and on again is in a situation where the riderless horse is only about a length front, which would not leave enough time to turn the timer off and on again.

Actually, the more I think about it the more that the timing is just based on the leader, disqualified or not, and that would also be the basis of beaten lengths. It just seems odd that if this is so, in situations like today, the officail winner would be beaten by several lengths, but I guess that's the only way to do it.

The only other way would be to handtime the offical leader at each call, but I doubt they did that since the times were posted to 100th of a second, which indicates electronic timing and not hand timing.

Bob

[johnhannibalsmith]

Most teletimers have a manual override where the operator uses a plunger to "trip" each internal split. It is plausible that if the operator was quick thinking, he/she could change the split inputs to manual and "trip" each fractional by hand but still give every impression to the viewer that it was tele-timed.

[bobphilo]

Originally Posted by johnhannibalsmith

Most teletimers have a manual override where the operator uses a plunger to "trip" each internal split. It is plausible that if the operator was quick thinking, he/she could change the split inputs to manual and "trip" each fractional by hand but still give every impression to the viewer that it was tele-timed.

Now that I know that there actually is a manual override, as I suspected, I believe that that is what they do when a riderless horse is leading at any call. They don't have to turn it off and on again at each call, but just put it all on manual as soon as the riderless horse gets the lead. As you say, they just record the offical leader's time and in effect cancel out the riderless horse. Beaten lengths are based on the official leader. It would be manual timing done elctronically.

Bob

[Steve 'StatMan']

From what I've heard of some timing systems, each point has its own switch that can be turned off and on, and is hopefully monitored for things like nearby birds, loose horses, outriders, etc.

[bobphilo]

I suspect that replays of the race will be posted at the NYRA Trips and Traps site at Youtube.

I checked the chart of the race and it seems to confirm that they went with the manual override of the electronic timer. Simmy was listed as last at each call with the DNF designation for beaten lengths. What is significant about this is that a DNF horse plays no part in either official times or beaten lengths at that call, while a Disqualified horse could. Stargetta, the next horse after her at the pace calls, was listed as the leader and beaten lengths at these calls were based on her. The same is true for Beboblues Art as the winner at the finish and the basis of final beaten lengths as well.

Since each horse's official time, and for speed rating purposes, is based on the leader's and/or winner's time and beaten lengths behind them, it's obvious that these 2 other horses times were taken as official leaders and these had to be triggered from a manual overide of the timer. If the automatic timer had been left on it would have recorded Simmy's time as the official lead time and she would have been the basis of the beaten lengths, which the chart shows she was not.

Bob

[ruffian75]

The best performance by a riderless horse? Hands down...California Flag! My boy set the track record both ways.

http://eclipsesportswire.spitfirepho...=2&imagepos=34

http://eclipsesportswire.spitfirepho...=20&linkpage=2

http://eclipsesportswire.spitfirepho...=2&imagepos=32

http://eclipsesportswire.spitfirepho...e=1&imagepos=1

[ruffian75]

Actually, here are all of the Breeders Cup California Flag pix I have. Amazing he ran as hard as he did two days before and still won the race laughing...

http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=cali...29684545%40N04