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hey str.. thought you'd find this interesting
oaklawn R5 $20k open claiming
9yo gelding 18-7-7-1 (first start this year)
8yo 7-3-3-1
7yo missed
6yo 6-3-2-0
his only run out of the money in his last 10 starts was his only start in a route.. 5 wins and 3 seconds (no, hd, 1)
he ran at woodbine his whole career with 1 start on the turf.. making his first appearance on the dirt today.. like somebody else but you gotta be impressed with this resumeComment -
hey str.. thought you'd find this interesting
oaklawn R5 $20k open claiming
9yo gelding 18-7-7-1 (first start this year)
8yo 7-3-3-1
7yo didn't race
6yo 6-3-2-0
his only run out of the money in his last 10 starts was his only start in a route.. 5 wins and 3 seconds (no, hd, 1)
he ran at woodbine his whole career with 1 start on the turf.. making his first appearance on the dirt today.. like somebody else but you gotta be impressed with this resumeComment -
you can start billing me in installments
just saw a 3yo statebred msw race at oaklawn..purse big there for these and open msw (high 70's)..with purses so big there in the last 10 years you're starting to see more ky sires even though I'd still say well over 80% are arkansas
based sires..these are very cheap and often under 1k stud fee..just had a homebred fts win by sky mesa whose a long standing kentucky sire (15k)and above avg with firsters..the dam was a winner and produced 2 winners from as many starters and the dam production index was pretty good so they had to be at least one decent runner..
it's not right in front of me now but the horse paI'd around $24 and won easy..when I looked at the pp's trainer kenny smith,whose name I've seen for decades,was 2/94 with
debuters so I tossed him..workouts were on the slow side but i'm like you with that..doesn't matter much..the question is this and I think it's more or less rhetorical..
kenny has to know going in what he has and even though
overall he doesn't go for it first out he's capable when he has a horse he knows can get it done..in this case everybody (or at least a lot of folks)see his record with debuters and dismiss him..so it's not that these trainers with bad fts records are not capable of doing it..it's just normally they don't try unless they have something that they feel really has a good shot to do it..that make sense ?Comment -
Q. kenny has to know going in what he has and even thoughyou can start billing me in installments
just saw a 3yo statebred msw race at oaklawn..purse big there for these and open msw (high 70's)..with purses so big there in the last 10 years you're starting to see more ky sires even though I'd still say well over 80% are arkansas
based sires..these are very cheap and often under 1k stud fee..just had a homebred fts win by sky mesa whose a long standing kentucky sire (15k)and above avg with firsters..the dam was a winner and produced 2 winners from as many starters and the dam production index was pretty good so they had to be at least one decent runner..
it's not right in front of me now but the horse paI'd around $24 and won easy..when I looked at the pp's trainer kenny smith,whose name I've seen for decades,was 2/94 with
debuters so I tossed him..workouts were on the slow side but i'm like you with that..doesn't matter much..the question is this and I think it's more or less rhetorical..
kenny has to know going in what he has and even though
overall he doesn't go for it first out he's capable when he has a horse he knows can get it done..in this case everybody (or at least a lot of folks)see his record with debuters and dismiss him..so it's not that these trainers with bad fts records are not capable of doing it..it's just normally they don't try unless they have something that they feel really has a good shot to do it..that make sense ?
overall he doesn't go for it first out he's capable when he has a horse he knows can get it done..in this case everybody (or at least a lot of folks)see his record with debuters and dismiss him..so it's not that these trainers with bad fts records are not capable of doing it..it's just normally they don't try unless they have something that they feel really has a good shot to do it..that make sense ?
A. Correct. They know how to do it but their training style is to not put ultimiate pressure on firsters leading up to the race. They are trying to let the horse have a career, not be so dead on ready 1st time. It's a training choice. That's why you don't see the trainers that push firsters real hard run many 4 year olds. You just can't have both.
With a 2/94 win % with firsters, 24.00 is a bet down mutual. Probably has potential to be a pretty useful state bred.
Nice catch JBEX.
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not going to dismiss those types right away anymore..i've caught trainers who aren't good with fts but have a horse who's bred well to win first out..good way to get value..bill mott had a good one this past friday at gulfstream who won easy..he'll surprise you every once in a while but overall he's patient..gets more distance horses as you know..
think with the purses being so high at oaklawn you'll see more breeders reaching out for sires in the sky mesa price range..makes no sense not to..thanks again strComment -
hey str
santa anita R5..a fts in a mcl 30k..bred and owned by martine bellocq and margaret sherr..trained by bellocq ..coming in from training at san luis rey..remember that's who you knew from way back and was badly injured in that fire
by lucky pulpit (california chrome) out of a winning high brite mare (long time sire strict speed)..be rooting fot her..#1 lucky brite eye (12-1)Comment -
hey str
john servis has a horse in the withers tomorrow R9 #5 lucky lee (7-2)..have a question regarding his debut race on 9/11..it was @ 6f on a sloppy track and ran without lasix and broke from the rail at parx..got off 6th of 8 horses and no mention in the comment about a slow break..running line like this (lengths behind rounded off)
7-7 ..6-12..5-11..6-8 (finish 6th by 8)
next 2 races 5 weeks apart added lasix and blowout wins at a mile at parx* (5 lengths maiden than 11 lengths n1x)..he's bred to go long top and bottom and the withers is now 1 1/8..think I may have heard you talk about this before but do you think that debut was a useful primer for stretching out ...I'm talking about the running line and not just that he got some experience from running.. dropping back from the first 2 calls and then gaining through the last 2 calls ?? like him tomorrow in the raceComment -
Yes. That is exactly what it was. The no lasix for John who runs on Lasix regularly was the give away. Plenty of trainers do that. Also the one hole in the slop gave the horse virtually no chance . If John wanted more than experience he would have found a better spot for the 1st effort. Of course, hindsight is 20-20 but rest assured you are reading this one perfectly.Comment -
ok thanks str.. rudy has the #7 not that brady (interesting timing) in the race.. he claimed the horse for 50k in his debut at saratoga . 2 months rest and ran in an off the turf at belmont at 6f and did nothing..
3 weeks back at aqueduct another off the turf but this time 1 mile and runs a huge race on the lead all the way and misses by a half length.. 10 horse field and pace was about 3 lengths fast so really nice effort..these are all ny bred msw races..next time out they just run him on the dirt at a mile (aqu again) and wins by 11 with a big figure and again according to pace figs race about 3 lengths fast.. his last start he wins the damon runyan NY bred stakes at a mile wiring the field.. won close to $100k with him and he's not out of it at all tomorrow.. he's listed as one of the owners along with michael imperio and one other whose name is cutoff.. know I've heard the imperio name before.. joe was a trainer and maybe michael also ??
great to have a young ny bred with the extensive statebred stakes schedule they have there.. probably do well with himComment -
Hey str hope all is well, been lurking still but a horse in the Withers had me wondering about something.
I dont have the pp link but the horse is Tax. Basically the horse first lost a mc30000 sprint, than won a mc50000 route. After that, a trainer switch happens and it runs a good race in the G2 Remsen at highish odds.
Just wondering what went on there? Owners wanted more from the horse after the maiden win so that's the trainer switch reason?Comment -
Nice job getting the horse right by Rudy.
Always great to have a 3 year old NY Bred these days. I'm sure they have hopes for a big year with him.
Stepping out of NY Breds into the saltier water today. They probably are not sure how good this guy might be with the positive figures.Comment -
It could be a number of different reasons. Did they only move one horse or a string of horses and where were the trainers located? Both in NY? A lesser named small trainer to a larger outfit?
Give me a few more details and I might be of some more help.
Nice to hear from you.Comment -
Wow yeah, must have been misprint as thats the only reason it stood out to me.Comment -
they had it as a claim in the brisnet's . ran a huge race in his debut at 30k and just missed.. bumped him to 50k and lost him to gargan who's o fire at this meet and one of the better claiming trainers anyway... was a claiborne farm homebred so sure they're sorry they left him exposed.. bred to run all day top and bottom.. only knock was the pace in the remsen was extremely slow so that may have contributed to the big # he ran (at least the brisnet's have it big... maybe beyer or the sheets don't agree)Comment -
1st time I saw him and spoke to him was 4:30 AM in Dec. of 72 ( it was cold). I was feeding a horse and we had to borrow a stall of his. He was the next barn over. He was just walking up and down watching the horses eat breakfast. Only spoke to him as Mr. Whiteley or sir. As years went by, that never changed.Comment -
here's a nice little summary of his career
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hey str
lacey gaudet shipping in from md for a stakes at aqueduct 1 1/8 dirt busanda.. like the horse
R8 #8 destiny over fate (15-1)Comment -
Hey str, some general pace questions concerning position/closing horses with no specific race in-mind.
1) Concerning slower paced races......should the position/closing horses still be positioned further back or is that playing into the hand of giving the speed horses an easy trip? Like, would you want your jock if he picked up that the pace was slow, to push the horse closer or is that taking the horse out of their running style?
What triggered me asking was a discussion about Zenyatta on another forum. I know to you speed figures arent that important. The discussion was about how Zenyatta never earned big speed figures as she followed the speed horses and allowed for slow paced races,but was always capable of passing them when needed.
2)Related question somewhat for a faster paced race......if the speed horses in-front are going hard in a duel, do you still want those position horses to maintain striking distance even though that means they themselves might be running faster than normal?Last edited by cutchemist42; 02-06-19, 03:16 PM.Comment -
cutch, 1) is a classic question for a horse like Sadler's Joy over the last few years
I like 2) as well, good questions, we'll see what str has to sayComment -
Eddie never shied away from shipping 25-1 shots to NY for stakes races back in the day. He did win e few but overall most ran to their odds. Seems as though the family tradition continues. But to be fair, finding a race for a 3 year old filly stake horse that needs to go long this time of year is a very tough task. Slim pickins until late March or April .
She knows what she is doing. That was not a knock by any means.
If she is a Md. Bred,( No clue if she is) the Caesars Wish should be coming up about then if they have not changed the schedule. That is a much softer spot.Comment -
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Let me answer in general terms and I will talk about Zenyatta last.
Q. 1) Concerning slower paced races......should the position/closing horses still be positioned further back or is that playing into the hand of giving the speed horses an easy trip? Like, would you want your jock if he picked up that the pace was slow, to push the horse closer or is that taking the horse out of their running style?
A. We need to seperate the position horse from the deep closer which I have done. They are two very different types of horse.
Very 1st thing. If a rider of mine did NOT pick up on the pace being too fast or slow, they rode for someone else after that. They better know whats going on with the pace. I had very little tolerance for that. The game was tough enough when they did know. That is why I tried to ride riders that I knew I could trust in those terms. Apprentices got a pass, but needed to show awareness next time out.
I always felt that a position horse had enough versatility to be somewhat closer, or move earlier if necessary. But, the early move or forwarding of position was nothing more than making the speed horse or horse laying 2nd off of their relaxed gate and force them to apply more pressure on their horses.
(That feeling was backed up by multiple discussions with many riders over the years, several that are HOF'ers as was my explanations about deep closers later. To be honest, it was riders that taught me what I know in terms of pace. Starting with my best friends , mainly riders I was the same age as and or grew up with on the track, the most notable being CJ **., but over time I spoke to many veteran riders. Without the help of all those riders over the years, I never would have had the level of success I did or the understanding that I do. I owe them a ton of gratitude for that. I was and/or am so lucky to have them as friends.)
The early part of a race, especially a long race is all one big game of cat and mouse. Riders are trying to either bait or force their competitors to do something they would prefer not to do. Like get to the right eye of the leader so as to make the leader let out a notch. The horse applying the pressure does not want to take the lead at that point. They simply want to rider in front to waste a bullet by moving sooner than they hoped . Same thing goes with a horse in the two path making a rider stuck inside to commit before the far turn to get up in the hole created by all the horses running on their right lead that will shift over about 3-4 feet when the horses naturally switch to their left leads as they go into the far turn. That inside rider better get the entire body up in that hole or they will be severely checked or get dropped when they tangle legs upon entering the turn where the switching of leads takes place. (If you find that hard to see, try and find a overhead camera angle and watch all the horses shift to the inside going into the turn and shift back outside when they straighten away for home.)
However, making that move is only necessary when it seems inevitable that the horse on the lead will steal the race if not made to do more. And it can come at a cost that is two fold. First, it will most likely weaken the finishing push of the position horse asked to move early and secondly, I used to see plenty of horses that ended up over achieving physically from having to sustain their run for a longer period of time. That often led to a longer recovery time before it's next race OR what Beyer made a fortune with calling it a bounce. That bounce will most likely occur if the trainer does not see anything different from the horse in the way of eating, training or whatever and runs the horse back assuming the horse is better than it actually is. Sometimes that will be the trainers fault and sometimes the horse just did not show any signs of being over tired or extended. But these things have very little to do with high beyer numbers and have much to do with individuals extended effort from the previous race or not recovering as fast from a fast workout that they typically would be able to handle.
The deep closer is oftentimes but not always a deep closer for a physical reason. Weak hind end muscles due to poor conformation or general muscle soreness are the two leading candidates. Yes, some of it can certainly be breeding as well but along with that the conformation can be passed down that helps to create that style.
In the case of these types, I was taught by those riders I spoke about earlier that you do not mess with the 1st half of the race ( give or take depending how the horse is travelling) and more often than not, you don't mess with the horses style much at all. Those deep closers are at the mercy of the pace and what they are hopeful of is that the position riders are doing their job as I mentioned earlier.
Honestly, there is just not much you can do if the horse if not what is called, underneath themselves and physically collected to move forward. The rider can try, but it is very rare and darn near impossible to get them to run unless they are well within themselves.
I suppose that because I trained horses, when I would go to watch a sporting event, I'm talking about pro baseball and pro basketball, I always wanted to get there way before the game started. I would watch them take BP or shoot around and you could see some of the players trying to work through whatever was tight. ( I was kinda weird about that I guess being as that is what I watched horses do every morning for too many years to count. Lol. ).
One that sticks in my mind was watching Jeff Ruland warm up every home game for the Wash. Bullets. I had season tickets back before a wife and kids. He would be moving around like an old man prior to the game. So was Rick Mahorn. Those guys would work hard to get loose. Mahorn could usually get loose but Ruland was different. We always used to say that Ruland could not get going until he got slapped around under the basket and got pink. Lol. Pink was referring to him working up a sweat after getting pushed around early. He was a fiery player and once he got loose and fired up, that was it. A totally different player after the 1st quarter. That was around the time they won the championship. So, in my goofy mind as a horse trainer, Ruland, was a deep closer. Hopefully that analogy helps people to better understand what I am talking about in terms of needing to loosen up enough to perform or as jocks say, have the horse within itself or underneath them.
Q. 2)Related question somewhat for a faster paced race......if the speed horses in-front are going hard in a duel, do you still want those position horses to maintain striking distance even though that means they themselves might be running faster than normal?
A. No. Let the fast pace occur. Never move early into a fast pace. The position horse can usually go when asked, so why go while the pace is too hot. What the rider of those types is generally doing is sizing up the others around them. The rider has already written off the speedball or speedballs. Now, they are maneuvering for their best position to strike upon the speed and not let other position horses pin them or get the jump on them. They should be and usually are, preparing to pounce.
In the case of the deep closer with a hot pace, let's say they are typically 8 back early going long. But the real fast pace has that horse 13 back. Who cares? I never did. Because I knew that the two speeds (assuming) would come back at a much faster rate than normal. So that 13 length deficit was truly about 8 lengths and 5 lengths for a pace that was too fast to sustain.
When this occurs, a deep closer can win in a faster than normal time , therefore running a higher beyer than normal and NOT take more out of themselves. As a matter of fact, they can do it sometimes easier than normal. If that is the case, there is zero chance of a bounce but customers might assume a bounce is coming. This is why Beyers are not a stand alone in handicapping. Circumstances within the race cause quite a bit of the finishes that occur. A number cannot point to that by itself. The circumstances within the race however can indeed point to the Beyer number. As a result of that, I do not need a Beyer number most of the time, especially with claimers and everyday horses. THAT, is my main knock on Beyers. They are fine for the classic races for the most part. But even with those horses, they only tell part of the story. Which would be fine except that I see waaay to many handicappers use them exclusively. And that's why I always say that they are simply a tool, at best, within a toolbox full of other tools.
Lastly, Zenyatta. I wished I had paid more attention to her physically instead of just watching her like everyone else. I did go back and watch her 2007 Breeders Cup race where she seemed hopelessly beaten turning for home and won rather easily. In that race, there is no question in my mind that the rider ( Smith?) has no choice but to let her lag back the way she did. The 1st time past the grandstand she looked terribly out of sync body wise. Broke on the wrong lead, finally switched about 1/2 way through the stretch the 1st time and had no rhythm or flow to her stride. She looked like a rocking chair that was broken. It took her until 1/2 way down the backside to even begin to find comfort. She finally (got underneath the rider) past the 3/8ths pole and truly ran only about a 1/4 mile in full stride.
She (looked) like the classic example of what I spoke to earlier about the basketball player. But... and it's a big but... it is rare that champion horses like her, I mean truly great horses, do not have personalities that are as large as the horses themselves. Along with that is a level of intelligence, and quite frankly cockyness, that you do not see in many race horses. She was really smart. And all that might have been just Zenyatta being Zenyatta. There is no way for me to tell on a replay. But when I see horses move like that , unless they are her, or a handful of the greatest ever, I look at that as needing 1/2 the race to loosen up and any pressure put on the horse to move sooner is detrimental to the horses performance. It just does not work. For those, they are at the mercy of a decent pace and there is not much you can do about it.
Hope all that helps.
Feel free to follow up if needed.Comment -
yeah 35-1 and nothing with gabby's horse.. looked like she was floated wide into the first turn and was also very wide on the 2nd..don't think you can explain that bad of a run by that but certainly didn't help..
looked at the stakes schedule for maryland and didn't see the one you mentioned.. on march 16 they have 5 stakes including one at a mile for 3yo fillies (miracle wood..listed) ..
april 20th there are 7 stakes including the weber city miss for 3yof @ 1 1/16 dirt (listed) ..she is a maryland bred and these are open company races.. obviously a lot tougher than statebreds.. hopefully she came out of the race in good shape and we see her in one of these if lacey feels she's up to itComment -
Thanks str. Your writing is very capable of painting a picture in my head that is so easy to understand. That was great insight that really makes sense to me. I really have no questions about the pace after that.
However....something you wrote about jockeys and changing one if they screwed up a pace badly got me wondering.....have you ever covered jockey changes? Tried a quick search and didnt see any that popped out.
Once again,thanks so much for that insightful post.Comment -
hey str
if you want to see an impressive 3yo colt watch a replay of GP R2..he won his 1st 2 races by a combined 16 lengths..debut 6.5f comment "ridden out" and 2nd race 6f "wrapped up "..today* he won by 18+ lengths going 7f in* 1:21 3/5 so he's now 3 for 3..he's owned and bred by gary and mae west who also own game winner (must be nice to be* them).. he's a mega wealthy guy who's been involved in the game for a long time ..both buying and breeding I believe..anyway not to get off topic want to know if you think they would even consider the fountain of youth at 1 1/16 on the dirt next saturday ?? now that he's run 7f you'd think they wound want to try 2 turns next
but that's kind of a quick turnaround...on the other hand a dominating performance and if the foy field comes up weak maybe they would take a shotComment
