Showing posts with label Preakness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Preakness. Show all posts

  • The case for Orb to win the Travers Stakes

    POSTED Aug 23, 2013 By Unknown
    The Travers Stakes is one of those races where there is an onus to have A PICK.

     When someone asks you, "Who is going to win the Grade 1, $1-million Travers Stakes on Saturday at historic Saratoga Race Course?" The convention is that you have a one-horse answer. I.e. hedging for value or pace or other bet types (e.g. "I'm playing an exacta with...") is not allowed.

     So here it is. My pick to win the Grade 1, $1-million Travers Stakes--a race for three-year-olds going 1 1/4 miles on dirt on Saturday at Saratoga Race Course is...

    There are plenty of reasons not to like Orb: The Preakness was dreadful, and he flattened in the Belmont before an 11-week break into this. That'd be enough to pass at even money, but I'm hoping for 4-to-1 against a competitive group. His Kentucky Derby remains among the fastest race of the year, and while it'd be easy to assess that to track condition and pace (both factors, yes), neither of those things were in play when he romped in the Florida Derby over eventual Preakness runner-up Itsmyluckyday.

    The other thing I like about Orb is his running style. He has the reputation as being a closer, but he's capable of making a strong move earlier in the race as needed--like in the Derby when he moved from 17th to 5th on the far turn.

     Given Moreno's suicide mission to try to win the Travers gate to wire (granted, the only way he can win), Verrazano and Palace Malice will be breathing down his back. It'll be interesting to see which stablemate moves first, but I can't imagine Joel Rosario will want either to be far away when they all turn for home. Those who think Orb is a deep closer do so at the risk of not realizing he might be in front by the eighth pole.
    Orb's Class Ratings, pace figures, & Speed Ratings
    Orb is one of four horses in the Travers who have run a 120+ E2 pace rating. This rating measures a horse's pace from the start of a race to the second call. Orb earned his 122 in the Kentucky Derby, which as a route means that figure represents his speed for the first six furlongs. Following that 122 Orb earned a late pace rating of 91, which is easily the highest LP figure of any of the 120+ horses. Verrazano posted a 126 in the Derby and came home with a 55. Will Take Charge did a 121-67 in the Derby, and Palace Malice went 129-57.

     Yes, a slower pace is expected here, which we certainly have seen can benefit Palace Malice at longer distances (he won the 1 1/2-mile Belmont with a 109-104-88 versus 127-129-57 for the Derby) and Verrazano at shorter distances (he's the only horse in the race to be above par at every point in call in a singular race, which he did in the 1 1/8-mile Haskell when earning pace ratings of 102-115-101), but the aforementioned presence of Moreno sets it up for the pop we saw from Orb in the Derby.

     So that's my case for Orb on top, but I think the best wagering opportunity is in betting against a 2-3-8 exacta box. That is, playing against two of Orb, Verrazano, and Palace Malice, respectively, to finish out of the top two. So for me, if Verrazano or Palace Malice wins that's OK as long as either of the Godolphin pair (#1 Romansh or #9 Transparent) sneaks in underneath, and I'll also put my thing down, flip it, and reverse it Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliott style.

     So 2, 3, 8 with 1, 9 and 1, 9 with 2, 3, 8 for $12 plus a $1 exacta box 1-9 for a little insanity insurance (plus my birthday is 1-9).

     I'll pay attention to the odds board, though. Orb is a play for me at 4-to-1. Given the big day and casual crowd, I think there's a better chance I get the right price on one of the big three than the others, and I think Orb is the most likely to offer that fair price.

  • Preakness 2013: Redemption for ‘Figure Handicapping’

    POSTED May 25, 2013 By Derek Simon
    In the days leading up to and immediately following the Kentucky Derby, all I heard about was Orb.

    Orb, Orb, Orb… I finally understood how Jan Brady felt.

    Frankly, I wasn’t that impressed with the horse and had trouble understanding what all the fuss was about — kind of like Nicki Minaj’s career. Even after he made me look foolish in Louisville, I still wasn’t convinced that Orb had what it took to be the subject of a future Disney movie, much less a Triple Crown winner.


    (Click on image to enlarge)
    Of course, I made this determination based on numbers: speed ratings and my own pace figures (speed rations) — and that’s where the trouble started. You see, I found out from racing fans and other media types that the data I’ve relied on to guide me through the perilous pari-mutuel waters for more than 20 years were, well, worthless.

    Beyer was (and presumably still is) an idiot; Tom Brohamer is a complete moron; Bill Quirin is a certified loon — and I belong in a padded cell for ever listening to and/or learning from these whakos.

    According to Orb supporters, the colt’s dominance in the Run for the Roses was a matter of will — not pace, not speed. Indeed, legendary turf writer Damyon Runyon was dead wrong when he said, “The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but that's the way to bet.” The way to bet, I was told, is to ignore speed and pace figures like the stuff growing hair in my refrigerator and focus instead on how a horse looks and how it behaves. Only by becoming an expert in body language can one hope to triumph at the windows, I was informed.

    Then came the Preakness Stakes… and complete and total redemption for figure handicapping.

    While Orb mania reached a fever pitch throughout cyberspace, I expressed concern about the condition of Shug McGaughey’s stable star on my May15 podcast, speculating that he was likely to regress in the Preakness and voicing concerns about his fair odds.

    (Click on image to enlarge)
    On that same broadcast, I also noted that I was impressed by the numbers on Mylute and particularly Oxbow, who I thought ran a bang-up race in the Derby

    (For a snippet of my pre-Preakness thoughts on Orb and Oxbow, click HERE.)

    When the race ran true to the numbers (at least my numbers) — Oxbow was the winner, Itsmyluckyday finished second, Mylute rallied for third and Orb straggled home a distant fourth — the “body language” crowd was quick to blame the Derby champ’s defeat on jockey Joel Rosario’s incompetence, the “dead” rail, the pace, George Bush (just a hunch), etc.

    As for me, I gave silent thanks to Beyer, Quinn and Quirin and collected my superfecta winnings.

    Monday Win Factor Reports

     Coming soon... I hope.

  • Oxbow's Preakness pace wasn't soft

    POSTED May 24, 2013 By Unknown

    Most of the discussion in the aftermath of Oxbow's Preakness Stakes victory involved either explaining away why Orb lost (dead rail) or downplaying why Oxbow won (easy pace). Even if you agree that both played a factor in the outcome, the absolute nature with which some convey these details does a disservice to the science of handicapping--inexact as it can be.

    For Joel Cunningham's part on Triple Crown Insider's Preakness recap above, he notes that "Oxbow ran a very good race" before adding, "Orb didn't fire his best shot."

    I agree with both those statements, and if you liked Oxbow at all--even if you didn't think he was the most likely winner or even a more likely winner than Orb--then you had to be thrilled with the 15.4-to-1 win price.

    I liked what I saw from Oxbow in his Lecomte victory but was way off him by the Kentucky Derby following two hang jobs in the Risen Star and Rebel Stakes and a non effort in the Arkansas Derby.

    There were signs of life in the Kentucky Derby, though, as many pointed out that Oxbow ran best of those near the blistering pace, and a softer pace in the Preakness figured to benefit him with Gary Stevens retaining the mount.

    The key word there is "softer" which is a comparative term. Few would argue that the Preakness was a kinder pace than the Derby, but "softer" doesn't mean "soft." All three of Oxbow's wins have come in gate-to-wire fashion, and since his maiden win in his fourth career start, Oxbow is undefeated when making the lead early.

    All that is to say we have a good baseline of the pace Oxbow is capable of handling and winning since he had done it twice before. His E1 (start to first call) and E2 (start to second call) pace ratings on Brisnet.com were 94-94 in his maiden win and 84-92 in his LeComte win.

     Before Preakness, Oxbow had five previous races where at least one of those ratings (the E1 or E2) was 95+, and he lost all five of those races. In the Preakness, however, Oxbow popped a 96-105 en route to a victory in which he closed with a 114 rating. 

    I have a hard time calling Oxbow's Preakness pace "soft" or "easy" given that he ran faster than he had ever run before when winning yet this time still won. Plenty of credit for that is due to Racing Hall of Fame connections trainer D. Wayne Lukas and jockey Gary Stevens, who pushed the envelope just enough to get the best out of Oxbow at all points of call (114 LP rating!). Lukas tipped his hand all week, saying that Titletown Five would absolutely NOT be on the lead, and now we know the full effect of Lukas's plan.

    How does this fit into how we handicap a race? I'm a broken record on this, but successful wagering is more about determining who can win (and the chances of that happening) than it is saying who will win. I dismissed Oxbow, but there was clearly a scenario in which he would win this race, and there was some chance of that happening. With the benefit of having seen it happening, his fair odds were probably more like 9-to-1 in the thought that what happened in the Preakness probably happens 10% of the time.

    There were some poor judgments on my part not to include that conclusion among my possible scenarios, but that's why Lukas and Stevens are in the Hall of Fame and I'm writing a blog about it.

  • The Baltimore Bounce

    POSTED May 17, 2013 By Derek Simon
    Horses don’t bounce.

    At least that’s the position I’ve always taken when arguing with speed-figure handicappers and others who believe that a single race can “gut” a horse — à la Rachel Alexandra in the 2010 Woodward.

    Frankly, I feel the same way about “bouncing” that I do about global warming. I don’t doubt the phenomenon — thoroughbred racehorses clearly have good and bad days (just ask Itsmyluckyday) and statistics show that the Earth’s temperature is, in fact, rising slightly — but I am very dubious of the conclusions that many draw from this data.

    No, I do not think that man (in the general sense) controls the fate of the planet. To paraphrase a line from my favorite holiday movie “It’s a Wonderful Life”: In the whole vast configuration of things, I'd say man is nothing but a scurvy little spider.

    We can’t prevent earthquakes, tornadoes, monsoons or even the occasional afternoon sprinkle, but somehow we have the power to destroy the planet? Please. (The power to destroy ourselves is another matter, of course.)

    Likewise, I think it is generally foolhardy to say, as followers of The Sheets and other speed rating services often do, that a certain pattern of numbers indicates a horse that is “over the top,” or due to run a poor race. And I think it is particularly foolish to assert that there is an optimum number of days between races that allows these “gutted” animals to recover — or not.

    The fact is, when one is dealing with a finite data series, which, for the most part, speed figures are — horses can only go so fast or so slow — what we see from animals that regress after a particularly impressive performance is more often a return to the mean than it is a reaction to a hard race.

    Did pitcher Philip Humber of the Chicago White Sox “bounce” when he gave up nine earned runs in five innings on April 26, 2012 — a mere five days after he became just the 21st player in the 135-year history of Major League Baseball to throw a perfect game?

    Few of sound mind and body would argue that he did.

    Through May 11, Humber has a 5.34 career earned run average and is 0-8 this year. What happened on April 26, 2012 was simply a return to the norm; in Humber’s case, a return to mediocrity.

    Now, having said this, I think it is equally obvious that greatness, at least as it relates to sports, can be defined as an athlete (or team) that consistently produces outstanding results. Most people know that Wilt Chamberlain is the only player in NBA history to score 100 points in a game, but how many people know that Chamberlain scored 60 or more 32 times (yes, that’s a three followed by a two)?

    I can already hear the grumbling: Fine, fine… thanks for the sports history lesson, Poindexter. But what do Humber and Chamberlain have to do with horseracing and bouncing?

    Everything, as it turns out.

    I doubt many racing fans would disagree with me when I say that winning the Triple Crown is among the toughest achievements in all of sports. After all, only 11 horses have pulled off the coveted Kentucky Derby-Preakness-Belmont Stakes trifecta and it’s been 35 years since the last one (Affirmed in 1978).

    What all 11 of those horses had in common was consistent brilliance — at least during their Triple Crown run. At no point was this more evident than in 1973, when Secretariat set a track record in each of the Triple Crown contests (I don’t care what Pimlico officials say).

    Similarly, Sir Barton (1919), the first Triple Crown champion, set a track record in the Belmont Stakes; Citation (1948) destroyed the track record at Garden State in the Jersey Derby, a prep for the Belmont (Citation also raced six times in 61 days prior to his 8-length score in the “Test of Champions”); and Whirlaway (1941) set a track record in the Run for the Roses.

    The other greats that won the Triple Crown also showed remarkable consistency. 

    This got me to thinking: Could one use this factor to determine whether or not a horse is a viable Triple Crown contender?

    My gut feeling is that Derby winners possessing recent speed figures within a fairly restricted range probably outperform those that show a greater variance of performance. Hence, I came up with the following chart:

    (Click on image to enlarge)

    It appears that my hypothesis may be correct (the sample is far too small to be definitive). Horses that improved their Brisnet speed figure by more than five points in the Kentucky Derby (compared to their previous start) are just 1-for-7 in Maryland since 1992. All other Derby winners are 7-of-13. (Using the Beyer numbers produces a 1-for-9 and 7-for-11 ledger, respectively.)

    This begs the question: Are Triple Crown winners the exception to the rule? Based on the following chart, not so much:


    (Click on image to enlarge)
    Of course, I had to use the old Daily Racing Form speed ratings for this one, but even utilizing that simple formula (100 minus the fifths of a second the winner’s time was off the track record minus beaten lengths) — and without using track variants — it is clear that even Triple Crown champs tend to record consistent speed figs. In fact, Secretariat, one of the chart “exceptions” actually set a track record in his race prior to the Wood, which was arguably the worst race of his career (explaining his 20-point ascension in Louisville).

    So where does this leave Orb? Well, honestly, it makes him a bit vulnerable — especially if any of the other Preakness contenders improve.

    Will Orb, like Secretariat, be the exception to the "greatness rule"? Believers will get even odds or less to find out.

    Weekend Wagers

    Coming soon.