Angle - Blinkers Off

[ArlJim78]

Originally Posted by miraja2

Question: How much does their recent running style factor in?
I personally don't use "blinkers-off" as an angle (although apparently I should) but for Jim and others that do use it, I assume that if a horse was rank - or simply wouldn't rate - in his recent starts with blinkers, you look at the blinkers-off angle as more meaningful. Is that true?
If a horse shows no early run with blinkers, do you still think that taking the blinkers off will sometimes help?

a horse with no early run in blkrs is not one I would look at, for sure, especially if its an older horse.

It's hard to generalize but what I have noticed like with maidens is that sometimes you will see when the trainers put on the blinkers that the speed was sharpened but it looks like with some horses the sharpened speed may come at the expense of having the horse run relaxed and they end up coming up short in the lane and not getting the win. What I have noticed is that in this case when the blinkers are removed the horse now has better fitness and speed, but seems to be relaxed and will more naturally come from just off the pace and finish up well.

Like with anything else there are no hard and fast rules, you just have to use your normal thought process to determine if you think it may or may not help a particular horse on a particular day.