Blue Grass & Ark Derby

[the_fat_man]

Originally Posted by The Indomitable DrugS

I believe he was lucky in that the pace was as strong as it was - yes.

The vast majority of people will tell you the trip IWR had in the Wood was worse than the one GQ had in the Tampa Derby .. and they'd be bigtime wrong. All because of the pace each horse had in front of him.

Obviously it doesn't mean GQ's Tampa Derby performance was better than IWR's Wood performance - because IWR ran about 20 points faster.

No doubt. The only difference is that you're looking at the races in terms of numeric pace while I'm considering the shape/dynamics. I'm not sure that there's a one2one (and onto) relationship between these two but they do concur in the case of the Wood. The poor break and the patient ride allowed IWR to last move a tired field.

GQ's last race is not as transparent as one would want in the charts but the replay shows that he got the worst of it. Of course, he also wiped-out the field in the Sam Davis (as did the runner up in the Blue Grass in his previous start).