Handicapping a Falling Knife
 

Of all the horses I come across while matching this type continues to perplex me. I usually pass the race which I will do here today. How can one possibly know whether this type is landing in the right spot or not. My pace line selection puts him in the winners circle. But I have little confidence. So pass.

Pook

woodbine
 

Hi Mike

From an outsider, I don't know much about Woodbine. When a horse takes a big drop in the final days of a meet, I could be the barn wants the purse
to offset the cost of moving to another track or housing the animal till next season at WO.

If the horse gets claimed the new owners have to also now pay those expenses. along with the claiming price. One more idea, If the horse slips past the claiming box, Now it can run in a starter optional for only 7500

Just my thoughts,

And it's so nice to see you posting

Bless you

I was thinking if the pace collapsed the race could fall into the lap of the falling knife. But the pace didn't collapse. In spite of the big drop in class he was too far out of it again and finished with a mild gain. It was a good pass.

Pook

Thanks Bill,

Good thoughts.

Mike

This particular screen shot doesn't give much information nor does the PP's within RDSS or TrackMaster. This is why it pays to supplement RDSS with Bris PP's as they give you much more data. What was this horses rank in BPP and PL? How good is its trainer? Competent or incompetent? How is its workout pattern?

It appears this horses best surface is on poly but that was at PID which as far as I know is much more kinder to speed than WO which is a much slower although it ran good over it last year, but may have some unsoundness this year. She is not making sustained runs this year and is too far off the pace to be effective. I'd say its not the same horse and something is bothering it, perhaps it doesn't like being rated way back and resents it.

Don't put so much emphasis on man made race designations, last year this horse was meeting weaker fields. Since his PID race this horse has 2 failures in weaker fields.



Mitch44

It seems like his form went south after the trainer put him in a 14 furlong (yikes) turf route. Why would you pull a move like that?

You can get this
 

If you compare the 2nd line with the two bottom lines run about 6 months ago you can see that the horse has deteriorated. These 3 races are very similar from a pace standpoint, condition, distance and surface. This horse has been in continuous training and racing with no layoffs.
This is a slow horse that is getting slower and is not the same horse that ran those two races at the bottom of the pps. Unless you project a 1:10+ 2nd call you really shouldn't use that 4th line.
You have everything you need right in front of you to make this call. I would not fool around with him and just throw him out unless I was playing a Superfecta and then use him in the 4th or 5th hole. But i don't bet that stuff.