Good early effort dropped back
 

From the pace line manual:

When a horse displays good earlypace, is on or near the lead for the first two calls and then drops back to finish well out of things it is one of the strongest positive signs in racing.

It also goes on to speak of early fractions being at or near par.

I must admit to being surprised at this. When looking at the pps I quite often see a horse that takes charge only to watch the rest of the herd pass time and time again. I avoid these as they can never seem to close the deal.

Is there a cutoff with a horse like this? That is to say forgive 1 race but not two (or fill in the blank)?

I would have to think that it is only a good sign when the horse doesn't have a big history of dropping back after the second call. I would think if in its pp it has done this 2 times and no next race improvement, then I would not take it as a good thing, just my thought on the subject,