handicapping 101 PART4 "WORKS"

[blackthroatedwind]

Originally Posted by Danzig

i wonder what trainers don't work their horses when deemed necessary tho....

Only the one's who's workouts, apparently, point out live 6:5 shots.

[cakes44]

If you ever want to hit on a DWL horse, don't pay attention to works whatsoever. Can anyone in the world tell when one of his horses is going to be fit and/or come close to repeating a past performance?

BTW My point is that if handicappers actually take the time to correctly analyze a horses am activity, clues will be revealed that can indicate an improved afternoon performance. The work pattern of King's Silver Son was very ordinary, as are most of his trainers stock, until the startling move on January 7th. In that work he exploded and blew away a very fast stablemate who broke his maiden at Belmont in one o nine and a tick. That stablemate DEVEREUX, who is bred top and bottom to sprint won the previous race for nonwinners very easily. 'KING who is bred long on long had never shown any lick in the morning and his work was very telltale. I realize workouts are not one of your areas of expertise, but they are for many successful cappers.

Cakes

for the last five years or so everthing Wayne works runs off in the morning. His training style is now obsolete and the quality of his stock has dropped precipitously.

Originally Posted by bellsbendboy

BTW My point is that if handicappers actually take the time to correctly analyze a horses am activity, clues will be revealed that can indicate an improved afternoon performance. The work pattern of King's Silver Son was very ordinary, as are most of his trainers stock, until the startling move on January 7th. In that work he exploded and blew away a very fast stablemate who broke his maiden at Belmont in one o nine and a tick. That stablemate DEVEREUX, who is bred top and bottom to sprint won the previous race for nonwinners very easily. 'KING who is bred long on long had never shown any lick in the morning and his work was very telltale. I realize workouts are not one of your areas of expertise, but they are for many successful cappers.

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[blackthroatedwind]

I don't have the pps, but I think it is a fair guess that at 6:5 the horse had quite a bit to recommend outside of his supposed good work.

IMO, unless one sees the works, or speaks to someone who does who really knows what they are doing, then judging one out of the paper as either " good " or " bad " is a dicey proposition. I respect those that talk about spacing of works.....but not specifically those that think they can tell from the paper what may or may not have been a good work.

[NTamm1215]

Workouts are an interesting part of the game and I think Hooves was doing us all a favor in starting the thread.

I think certain works stick out more than others. Here was a situation where a work made it pretty clear of the trainer's intent:

Saturday's 6th race at Aqueduct was for NY bred MSW going a mile and 70. #4 CASH FOR GOLD had two starts, the first of which was useless, he did nothing and was beaten handily. In his second, over a muddy track, he made a slight early moev and then tired abruptly to finish ninth beaten 16 lengths. That race was on 12/29. He had one work between that start and Saturday's start, 21 days later. The workout was a half-mile in :47 and 4/5ths handily (his only workout that was rated handily) and was a bullet. He was also adding blinkers and switiching jocks form Alan Garcia to 5 lb. bug Aldo Arboleda. Clearly, trainer Jeremiah Englehart was looking for speed from this guy and he got it as he opened up off the far turn and was hard-pressed to hold on late.

That, to me, is a situation where a workout made a trainer's intent pretty clear and gave one plenty of reasons to think Cash for Gold was headed right to the early lead, a great place to be going a route on the inner track.

NT

[AeWingnut]

BrisNET was providing FREE clockers reports for Churchill maybe Kentucky. I found them to be very helpful when looking for value. The reports would mention if they were working in company, who the company was and if the rider up was bad.

I like to look for patterns.

[Payson Dave]

imho... generally the published workout info is a small part of the story...there is no substitute for actually seeing the work...I think gate works tend to get overrated...I've done reasonably well betting mdns especially first time starters based upon their works that I have actually seen...splits, out times, in company, is much more valuable than final workout time..

BTW You are accurate that KING'S SILVER SON had some pp's that indicated he would not be a maiden long. In his five races, he debuted in August with a "quick move" second best. Then a "taken up" second best before drawing the twelve hole in his two turn debut, when again second, while favored over the talented Court Vision. He next drew the nine hole, was caught wide thruout yet led late and was nipped and bumped at the wire. In his last he drew the eleven hole and was beat a length to a $700K Zito weanling while checking in fourth. Most of these were over par and he only had to negotite the short stretch and the sixty days off.

Clearly he was the horse to beat. But my point was that his work Jan 7th implied that he would not only win; but that he likely will win right back.

You may recall a pick four we posted on the other forum where I called a 48 half by a maiden at Churchill a "monster" work, a statement you disagreed with. After explaining why the work was stakelike, you relented and with good reason. The horse Silver Lord won right back, then took a $100K stake paying a big number. I do not have the link to that discussion but recall the date as Nov 18th and you will enjoy the nebulous prattle contributed by a few members from this forum.

Good for you Nick. Sharp cappers always check the works when there is an equipment change while most recite the useless statistic of how the trainer does adding blinkers. As you know most jurisdictions require gate clearance of some type.

Et. al. Generally agree. Workouts are a handicapping frontier that puts a whole lot more art than science into the equation. BBB

[blackthroatedwind]

One of the things that makes this game so great is that everyone has different theories and ideas. Some are good....and some are bad. If I think something is " bad ", but it works for you, then who's to say I'm right. However, I think there is a basic fallacy to placing too much emphasis on the actual supposed workout, and that is something I touched on and Payson Dave, who speaks from hands on experience, illucidated further. Without seeing the work for yourself, or being close to someone trustworthy who has, you really don't know what the work really means.

Let me give an example......in many top barns especially, good horses have workmates, so you will often see a top horse with a similar workout to some unknown horse in the paper. That does not mean the unknown is anything close to the good horse, in fact it's very possible the absolute opposite is true, and the horse may be merely being used as a target for the good horse....someone to keep him or her occupied.

My point in the specific example you gave is that while you seem to claim this workout helped point out this horse, maybe even for the future, at 6:5 it is hard to believe the workout was particularly meaningful.....and being that he was a 6:5 maiden breaker for a top barn it hardly seems it is even meaningful for future performance. The Zito horse he lost to is Aquarian, I assume, and considering I believe that horse has a bright future, it isn't hard to assume by extension that this horse may be able to run some himself. Simply said, the hard data that this horse obviously displayed had to considerably outweigh the vague information the workout may have offered. Right or wrong, I think it has to be better to stick to what we know than what we think.

[2 Dollar Bill]

Enjoy reading this thread... I allways try to see, what the trainer wanted to get out of the works. How many works & distance on a first time starter, a long work to get ready for a sprint. Thanks for everyones input, gave me a few more things to look for.

[The Bid]

The only thing you can tell from paper works are how often they are being asked to work. After that things can get decieving

[Cannon Shell]

One of the biggest problems with works is that they can be so inaccurate and there is no way to check or dispute them. Unlike other information given in the pps which is usually pretty accurate, a work is not seen or recorded therefore the clockers version is the one taken without question. Speaking from personal experience, they make lots of errors in most jurisdictions, though many times because the system of clocking horses is so outdated. When the track opens in the morning there are usually so many horses working at the same time from different positions on the track that much is missed. There are simply only so many horses that a few guys can watch at a time. The fact that they are even close most of the time is amazing and there is an art to being a good clocker. An perfect example that Payson Dave can probably expand upon is turf training at the Oklahoma turf course in Saratoga. There are sometimes 30 horses working withing minutes of each other from different poles. Since the there is a short window of time when the turf is open and they allow free access to the turf it is an impossible task to catch them all. Also remember they have to put the correct names to each horse along with the actual clocking. The newest trend which you will see expanding in the next few years is trainers, especially the bigger ones, utilizing training centers where many of the times are self clocked and turned in. The accuracy of these are very much in doubt.

[Payson Dave]

imho the clockers at Saratoga, both at the main track and the Oklahoma training track are very good...most of the time they know before the work who it is that is working and how far they will be going...the trainer or someone from the barn usually provides the info to the clockers in advance...on a rare occasion in the midst of a flurry of activity a work may get missed, but very rarely... I think that the much bigger issue here is that the final time is not at all the most important piece of information regarding a work...how did the horse finish...did the rider keep on riding past the wire for another 8th or 4qtr....if in company who led at the wire and by how much...did the horse get out on the turn...the old saying that "time only matters when you are in jail" is especially true as regards workouts.
For me anyway, by actually watching the morning works, I feel that I have some additional info that most of the betting public does not have...to me that is a major advantage.