Pace and Cap - Sartin Methodology & The Match Up - View Single Post - 'For the Lead' Guidelines

Bill Lyster · 02-06-2018, 01:39 PM

There are so many.

Perhaps one of the best are guidelines to identifying running styles. This is really the foundation of all race analysis IMHO. there are obvious early horses and not so obvious early horses and being able to see the 'not so obvious' will help eliminate a lot of chaos.

Perhaps one of the most underrated/misunderstood or misused screens in all of RDSS is the SEGMENTS screen. There are several races where FTL shows how this screen can be utilized to better your handicapping.

I've asked this question several times over the years, but the most common answer is 'some times they do and some times they don't'. And the question is, what happens to a presser who ran 2 back of a 44.8 when the pace is 45.4? Is he two back or leading by 1?

Well, this situation is often depicted on the SEGMENTS screen (on the right hand side), in the Incremental Matchup section where the little horses are, and invariably pressers who ran against faster paces than the early horses are shown leading or near leading at 1F. However, in most cases this graph is not depicting the reality of today's race!

In several examples backed up by race charts FTL teaches that EARLY horses are EARLY and they lead no matter what, until they cannot lead anymore. So what this does is force us to 'picture' the pace of race with the early, or best early horse leading at the 1F call. In my view this practically eliminates the graphic depiction of any non-early horses' 1F info.

Keeping in mind who is leading, you can then look at 2nd fractions of the field horses to see who has the best 2nd fraction and hope to determine who can be making up ground on the best early horse. First deal with the other early horses. If they are deficient in 1F and have 2F's that are equal to or slower than the lead early, you can discard them for win consideration and go on to assessing the rest of the runners. Even if these lagging early horses have monster 2F numbers, if they have not made it up close to a 0.0 lengths back at 2C, they will not compete because they NEED TO LEAD and cannot get there by the 1F Call. This is where line two of this post comes into play big time.

Winning pressers or sustained horses need strong 2F's to get into contention. If they are several lengths back at the 2C (left side where computed beaten lengths are shown) their win burden to overcome the early horse increases as the size of the lead at the 2C gets larger.

As I was writing this I had an idea for some research. It would be interesting to see how dedicated pressers reacted to strong first fractions by their race leaders, that is does their 2nd fraction POH get larger or smaller significantly when the pace changes. If their normal running position is 2 back, do they speed up to maintain 2 back or are they 3 or 4 back? or do they get closer to the lead? You could track the results from race charts or more current races in the PPs. This is just a note to self so I don't forget the idea.

02-06-2018, 01:39 PM	#7
Bill Lyster Grade 1 Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Escondido CA just 25 minutes from where the turf meets the surf - "...at Del Mar" Posts: 2,500	Things to learn from the FTL library files There are so many. Perhaps one of the best are guidelines to identifying running styles. This is really the foundation of all race analysis IMHO. there are obvious early horses and not so obvious early horses and being able to see the 'not so obvious' will help eliminate a lot of chaos. Perhaps one of the most underrated/misunderstood or misused screens in all of RDSS is the SEGMENTS screen. There are several races where FTL shows how this screen can be utilized to better your handicapping. I've asked this question several times over the years, but the most common answer is 'some times they do and some times they don't'. And the question is, what happens to a presser who ran 2 back of a 44.8 when the pace is 45.4? Is he two back or leading by 1? Well, this situation is often depicted on the SEGMENTS screen (on the right hand side), in the Incremental Matchup section where the little horses are, and invariably pressers who ran against faster paces than the early horses are shown leading or near leading at 1F. However, in most cases this graph is not depicting the reality of today's race! In several examples backed up by race charts FTL teaches that EARLY horses are EARLY and they lead no matter what, until they cannot lead anymore. So what this does is force us to 'picture' the pace of race with the early, or best early horse leading at the 1F call. In my view this practically eliminates the graphic depiction of any non-early horses' 1F info. Keeping in mind who is leading, you can then look at 2nd fractions of the field horses to see who has the best 2nd fraction and hope to determine who can be making up ground on the best early horse. First deal with the other early horses. If they are deficient in 1F and have 2F's that are equal to or slower than the lead early, you can discard them for win consideration and go on to assessing the rest of the runners. Even if these lagging early horses have monster 2F numbers, if they have not made it up close to a 0.0 lengths back at 2C, they will not compete because they NEED TO LEAD and cannot get there by the 1F Call. This is where line two of this post comes into play big time. Winning pressers or sustained horses need strong 2F's to get into contention. If they are several lengths back at the 2C (left side where computed beaten lengths are shown) their win burden to overcome the early horse increases as the size of the lead at the 2C gets larger. As I was writing this I had an idea for some research. It would be interesting to see how dedicated pressers reacted to strong first fractions by their race leaders, that is does their 2nd fraction POH get larger or smaller significantly when the pace changes. If their normal running position is 2 back, do they speed up to maintain 2 back or are they 3 or 4 back? or do they get closer to the lead? You could track the results from race charts or more current races in the PPs. This is just a note to self so I don't forget the idea.