BEYER: Poly's Anti-Speed Bias
 

On the surface, Blue Grass gives no Derby guidance
By Andrew Beyer

http://www.lcsun-news.com/sports/ci_5675976


Leave it to the experts... Sunday it was Steve Crist offering a fog-clearing view of the NY franchise situation, and below Andy Beyer delivers a succinct summary of what happened at KEE in Saturday's Blue Grass and 'Poly's Problem'. The Blue Grass was run in a manner totally incongruent with the way the Classics, particularly the Derby, are run, and offers little in the way of clues as to the principal's Rose Run prospects. I say little because there are a few clues about the 5 top finishers in the BG who will move forward to Louisville...

Dominican, who closed out the final eighth in under :11.0, was able to make up as much as four lengths in the late stages and demonstrated that he is a danger May 5th knowing that he has the speed to say within striking distance in a race run in an authentic manner... Street Sense could not have had a better race in which to 'react' from his layoff start in the Tampa Bay Derby tussle with Any Given Saturday, and can now be fine tuned for the next three weeks by Carl Nafzger, who will be one of three trainers, (potentially four), in the event looking for his 2nd Derby blanket... Zanjero remains a fascinating Derby player having run on the slowest part of the track and again demonstrating a tenacity and consistancy largely missing from many of the longshot candidates that will line up in Derby 133... Teufelsberg couldn't hold on at 9f running :51.4/1:16.3 on the lead, and is a good candidate to be last at Churchill going 10f in Jamie Sanders' campaign to ruin him... As long as Great Hunter exited the goofy race in good order after a DQ-worthy mauling by punchdrunk T-berg, he goes on as viable as any upper tier Derby hopeful knowing that Doug O'Neill will only start turning the screws on him now...

So all Keeneland route races are essentially sprints from the top of the stretch to the wire as fields continue to walk around the track trying to remain in stalking but never leading positions. Was this Bluegrass a record of sorts as the slowest rendition since Lexington built a racetrack?

Believe I heard it was the 58th slowest in the race's 83 runnings..

So Andy is frustrated he can't pick a winner, so he is whining to all the public. Everyone has the same perspective as he does. Anyway, when did Andy last pick a derby winner?? I can't seem to remember.

Uh.. whining where? He is explaining the jockey reaction to the specific situation emerging at KEE and the affect it had on the bizarre Blue Grass we witnessed Saturday. While Beyer's Derby selection has become a humorous running gag, you and I would give left nuts to be half as successful betting the races on a DAILY basis as he. I would anyway.

Gentleman.......this thread is about the bluegrass and the change in the wind of racing strategy.

MrB......fifteen yards for piling on and unnecessary roughness of a handicapper!!

I can see this is going to be a hyperkinectic week here on the trail. Coffee and breakfast anyone???

Andy wrote:
I wrote last fall this was an ugly style of racing. Others disagreed. Keeneland President Nick Nicholson told me then that he liked the nature of the races, with bunched fields and tight finishes. The betting public didn't seem to object; Keeneland with Polytrack set wagering records.

But Saturday's races in Lexington, Ky., underscored all that is wrong with the synthetic surface.

That isn't whining? I love my left nut, and the right one too. So Andy's daily success is because of the beyers?? That's why he is so successful?? If this was true, we would all break the bank Steve, bring in the money truck.

B,

I've been as critical of Beyer as anyone.. (As evidence, my post-Giacomo piece criticizing his vicious analysis of that '05 Derby: http://www.equidaily.com/bestbet/gue...5/050516.html).. But for the most part, Beyer is 'right' a huge percentage of the time about most topics in the game. As for the BSF's and his own horseplaying, obviously he and we can't and don't rely solely on the figs for wagering decisions. His own success at the windows is now a 3+ decade long run of remarkable and enviable prowess. It just can't be argued. Are the figures as revolutionary and effective as a handicapping tool as they were when introduced to the public? Maybe not.. But they still work just as DRF's original speed ratings 'still work'.

I guess my whole point here is, Beyers are discussed around here like they are the candy of racing, and people discuss them as if they are the sole predictor of an outcome. If people would stop and read your last post here, I feel they will now understand, even Andy doesn't use them as his sole guide to the winners circle. Are they useful, I guess so, if they mean anything on today's card, however, they are merely a rational of history, and one mans opinion on what he thinks

I like the competitiveness of the racing on the Poly, but the jockeys are turning this into a farce. It's becoming a self-fulfilled prophecy when they run a ridiculous 1:16 to the 3/8ths pole, turning the race into a 660 yard quarter horse race. The notion that it is impossible to win on the front end is crap. In the fall, there were 136 races run on the main track, of which 13 (10%) were won wire-to-wire, including one race with the fastest fractions of the entire meet (by a 33-1 shot), and 89 were won by horses within 4 lengths of the lead at the first call (a very normal percentage.) This is a lower percentage than typical for wire jobs (around 25% at Belmont or Saratoga or Churchill), but not as low as people seem to be feeling.

While I admire and respect Beyer, I think he is just wrong on this one.

Since when is it assumed that the Blue Grass or any other prep race will be or should be definitive? In my view they are almost never definitive. No better example than last years Blue Grass run on the dirt. Did we learn anything from that with Sinister Minister romping?

Are we not supposed to have to work to figure this stuff out? Okay so this years Bluegrass was run in a style that we are not used to. So we'll have to learn what we can, maybe dig deeper in ways that we're not acustomed to.
There is nothing to say that next years Blue Grass will be run the same way as this years addition.

I like it because it makes it more complex, challenges you to think about what you've watched. It's another puzzle piece to consider, a race run with a different pace set-up, on a different surface. It highlights different attributes of the horses. Its only a hunch of mine at this point, but I think there is a chance that down the road we will look back on this years Blue Grass and say "Oh, well it did tell us something after all". we'll just have to see about that.

I love it that you've basically got someone like Andy Beyer, one of the true gods of racing imo, throwing up his hands and saying "I don't know, can't figure it out".

I see it as an opportunity.

Sinister Minister was a freak that day...where is he now?

That Blue Grass was a joke, and Beyer seems pretty spot-on in his comments.

If so many think Beyer and his figures are so bogus. Why is one of the first questions asked after an important race is, WHAT WAS THE BEYER NUMBER?

Beyers are not just put on important races, what is an important race anyway?? My next race I bet, is just important as the last.

In this article Beyer openly complains about the polytrack surface, holding the belief that this may not be good for racing.

Yet, when he speaks to the general manager . . . etc, and learns that part of this can well be attributed to the jockeys making the determination of how to ride this particular track (and of course, the jock is going to ride to win the race therefore getting his check) . . . he ignores this bit of information. Still believing the surface to be the sole problem. I think that this is a mistake.

Lifelong handicappers can be difficult. They can be as difficult as the trainers, the jockeys, the horses...etc. The puzzle is difficult enough, and when there is a new concern that confounds them--so completely as polytrack has--they are not pleased.

I think too, that two short race meets provide little in determining the ultimate answers regarding this new dynamic to racing.

And, as all weather as this has been billed, there may be changes in the surface on days like Saturday's, with constant pouring, pouring rain. This has been shown at Woodbine and at Turfway.

I'm not sure Andy was on track at Keeneland on Saturday, but the rain and the jock's judgements could have had a great deal to do with how the Bluegrass Stakes was run.

I think its a little premature to determine the surface unfit for North American racecourses, therefore possibly a hindrance to the game.

Maybe Andy will think on this one a little bit longer.

I'd say he is far from whining. He is offering a very real assessment of how that race was run and provided emperical evidence on how other Derby preps were run. For the horses not winning in the race, I'm drawing a line through it, and for Dominican, a win is a win, but there is no way he can expect 26.1 and 51 and change for the first half in the Derby, and turn the race into a 400 yard sprint to the finish like was done Saturday. I don't often agree with Beyer, but in this case, he is spot on.

I think I'm more or less inclined to toss that race when capping the Derby. It obviously stamped Dominican as a horse to watch, but I'm not sure that it did much to lower the stock of Sense or Hunter in my eyes. It was the total opposite of last year's Blue Grass with the same result -- that I'm not really sure what to make of it.

OK, what does the other derby preps have anything to do with this one? Evidence of what, he doesn't like poly tracks. he disagrees with the bettors and the President of Keeneland. What point did he make, other than cry like a baby about the poly.

The only whiner in any way associated with this is obviously you, someone who through their continued uninformed knocking of Andy Beyer shows an obvious all-consuming jealousy of him, as well as a likely complete dissatisfaction with your own poor results. Criticizing someone who has done as much for horseplayers as Andy Beyer has just exposes you.