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Originally Posted by miraja2
Yeah this is exactly what I am saying. Actually you did a much better job of summing up my argument than I did at any point in this thread!
In 1973 Secretariat dropped back to last in a field of 13 and had to pass every single horse to win. If there had been 20 horses in the race, instead of 13, this would have been a more difficult task because it increases the chances of him running into traffic. Therefore an increased field size in the Derby could have prevented a TC that year.
That's my basic argument.
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well it might have prevent a TC that year but you have to look at it in terms of all the years.
Are you saying only closers can win the TC? If large fields hurt closers then a large field must be helping need to lead types. That only stands to reason. So I dont see this part of the argument at all.
Increasing fields would simply promote need to lead type winners. But empirically that is not what is happening at CD on the first saturday in May. Closers are winning close 50% of the races. So that seems to contradict your argument in terms of the data that we have...
There is an idea that more traffic hurts closer, but hell you can see front runners getting buried by horses lugging into the rail: Wheelaway 2000; Candy Spots 1963; Diabalo 1975, perhaps 2001 as well. You can see this a lot on the films...So I dunno, it's one idea, perhaps anohter idea is that closers can see what is happening ahead of them. Carry Back avoided a lot of traffic troubles on his way to the front...
My guess is that large fields finds more cheap speed types that set it up for closers. There certainly were some cheap speed types in Secretariats race, SHecky Green, etc.
The random winner argument makes sense to a degree but if you exclude horses there is a counter argument that you might exclude a possible winner.
More difficult question than it seems at first...