When Horses That Can't Win.....Do
 

Don't get me wrong, I'm a lifer and understand you have to take your lumps, and I have put enough intellectual energy into handicapping, that I could have earned a Masters degree... but there have been a series of winners over the last two days at SAR that are just confounding.... Horses that are simply un-pickable in advance based on the field in the gate. I'm not talking about MSW, but horses with some history. The 7th today with Prince Dubai.. just a dull may not win for another year horse, and The Sword Dancer as an example.....

I'm not asking for sympathy, but really more looking at handicapping as an activity that the average motivate fan could look at and decide that putting money at risk is a reasonable gamble. The twice a year punter looks at $40 and $50 winner and says "yea, I want some...." At the SPA, those kinds of prices are usually heartbreakers for serious players.... unless there is a total other quantum level of insight that I am blind to.....

Feel free to hammer me as a p**y, but for me so far its either been chalky Doubles and P3's that trade within a range, or WTF.........?? :zz:

If anyone will be up next Sat, looking forward to meeting some of the gang

I/L

For cycling events, like the Tour De France, for example, there is much planning and coordination to ensure that a team runs smoothly. Nonetheless, you always have some idiot who deviates from the team plan, doesn't listen to the directions over his earpiece and orchestrates a break and messes up his team's strategy.

It'd be hard enough to predict what would happen in a given stage of the tour, even with constant instruction being relayed to the riders.

Now, take it down about 2 million notches and you have your typical jock/trainer team. I've heard enough trainers say that they leave the riding end of it to the jock, as the jock have more experience than they do at it, to realize that there's not a hell of a lot of planning that goes into this game. And, other than Dominguez, most of the jocks out there would probably ride just as well, make comparable decisions, if they rode with their heads in their asses.

Of course, the jock/trainer combo can always blame whatever goes wrong on the 'uncontrollable' horse.

What's my point? It's not a very long stretch at all to watch some of the rides put in by these jocks and just come to the conclusion that they must be retarded, because what they do, over and over, just doesn't make sense.
Like retards, they just never learn. Every so often, they contribute a fine ride and you assume that they'll learn from the experience and duplicate it on a fairly regular basis. Doesn't happen. Why? The only thing that makes sense is that they're challenged.

So, when you have trainers that are allowing challenged jocks to make split second decisions, on horses that, believe it on not, are dumber even than the jocks, every so often the results won't make sense. When you have basically no planning/strategy by the connections going into a race, every so often the results won't make sense.

In fact, that things make so much sense, and so consistently, in this game is, in itself, an AMAZING thing.


Next time you see Mike Luzzi PUMPING AWAY on a horse that already has an easy lead, think of this post:rolleyes:

Nice post. If I may ask, what is your opinion on the Lukas winner at Toga today. Not so much the fact that the horse won, but the way the race was run.

The Lukas was ok, far from a shocker. The 8 in the NY bred turf race even closed well last time with trouble, but he was a lot harder to make then the Lukas.

Serling was all over this one, btw.

Compare it to R5 (MSW) on the inner at 8F: in that one, 3 of the 4 splits were under 24 seconds and one was just over; for R8, 3 of the 4 splits were over 24 seconds and one was just under.

What's interesting is that Luzzi can typically be counted on to do the wrong thing, typically move to soon or rush his mount, but in this case he didn't. He actually timed his move about as well as anyone would expect. The only way it's better (for him) is if he goes after the leader late stretch and ensures that he gets 2nd if he can't go by. But having it all his own way in slow fractions pretty much made the winner unbeatable. Had Luzzi ridden to form and gone after him on the turn (or hooked him earlier) the race collapses. Of course, Luzzi didn't learn from the experience (or viewed it negatively) and he was back to his rushing antics in the finale.

How does anyone account for all this stuff? It's not like you're trying to think along with a deep, rational thinker.

sometimes you have to say , "none of these are good enough for their relative prices"
The winner was better than some of the horses in the race, and he appeared to just happen to get great positioning and a dream collapse. He might have been just on the front of the wave, i've yet to re-watch. There were about 4 tosses and 6 non-tosses. Nobody was really a good price. Race results aren't always like a teacher's edition where you can check the answers and generate the correct way to play it. Sometimes pass is correct.

Good day for the exotic forcers who boxed all 6, or the Better Talk Now fans or those born 7/49 etc...

Great points, but I see this as more a reason why a solid choice might put out an inexcusable effort. It's harder to take that a horse would get repeated bad efforts from jockeys and look unplayable, then suddenly get the perfect trip to win at a huge price.

I know you're not just complaining and whining so I'm not trying to go after you on it, but not everyone thought the Sword Dancer was an impossible result. My colleague Joe Kristufek was all over it - http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/hor...ory?id=4400403

Yes, I'm trying to poke holes in the likely favorites because I like a long shot in TELLING. He definitely needs to run the race of his life to win this, but he might just be ready to do just that. He won four races last year, but hasn't scored in 15 months, and today's competition is much tougher than what he's been facing. That being said, his recent fifth place run in the Grade 3 Arlington Handicap was much better than it looks on paper. He showed a different dimension in rallying from far off the pace, and finished best of all, but he was simply left with too much to do. Trainer Steve Hobby isn't one to ship half way across the country for no reason, so one could gather that he's thrilled with the way this 5-year-old has been training. Guessing we'll get at least 30-1.

Visually, his last run was good (and much better than it looked on paper, and Just As Well made sure the race came back pretty well too, closing on Gio Ponti for 2nd last weekend in the million), and he's right about Hobby not messing around.

I'm not shilling or saying that the horse made the most sense by any stretch...but your 30-1 horse that "can't win" is someone else's play of week, that's the whole reason parimutuel wagering works.

:tro: ...absolutely

also if you've inadvertantly played the million preview intro: "joekristufekfur Arlington..Park...dot...cahm.." enough times, full blast, during replay watching sessions he starts to attain a god-like quality.

hahaha I know exactly what you mean

I've known a few riders and jocks but can't ask them to their faces if it's a genetic mutation that not only makes them little but also sorta stupid. I know there is a lot of inbreeding in the jockey/trainer colony. Any insight here? If Joe Talamo marries Ron Ellises' daughter what do you get?

Was it his play of the week? He liked the horse mainly because of the overall weekness of the field, it was a shot and he knew that. He was right he did well, but how often is anyone going to be right on a 30-1 shot?

You only have to be right 2 out of 30 times to be significantly ahead. I bet Telling in the Arlington Handicap. I didn't bet him Saturday, but he was not a hopeless outsider given the relative weakness of the Sword dancer field.

An angry Cory Nakatani.

Well he also liked the horse because he had some hidden form, especially off that last run which looked relatively weak on paper in a Grade III race.

Not sure if it was his "play of the week," per se, but my point was that not everyone views every 30-1 shot as hopeless, and it's not just because they're swinging for prices.

As for how often anyone is going to be right on a 30-1 shot...having worked with Joe on a daily basis for nearly two years now, I can tell you that while he seeks out prices whenever they're possible, he's not one just indiscriminately putting 30-1 shots on top of his picks, hoping to get a bomb.

So as far as I can remember, in the last year, he is "going to be right about a 30-1 shot" somewhere near 100% of the time....this past Saturday. That's the difference between having a "horse to watch" that pops up in your virtual stable off a run like his Arlington Handicap and who is going to go off at 33-1 in a very suspect field who has some hidden form and whose last races are better than they look -- and someone who is just crossing their fingers hoping for a $68 horse to get them out of a hole. Put yourself in whichever camp is appropriate.

Don't know how many from the forum played him but I know for a fact that AJ had him... this is as good a place as any to say it.

I thought he had absolutely no shot, of course.

You can add Top Lass to the list out of today's 7th...don't know how you figure that horse could win :zz:

That was tough to come up with, but wasnt it really easy to toss the favorite (Bankers Buy) at that ridiculous price? It was a tough race to really like anything, so in retrospect, it kind of screamed bomb.