handicapping 101 PART4 "WORKS"

[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.