Saturday's contest race (2/10) is a perfect example of learning from your mistakes.
I know the Hat says to never look back, but as far as I'm concerned you HAVE to try and learn from your mistakes. At least I do.
When I handicapped this race I thought the three would wire it and if he didn't the six would win. After looking at the race results and going back over the race, I had to ask myself some important questions:
1. Why on earth would I think the three would wire it?
2. Why did I adjust the two by only 1 3/5 seconds instead of 5 seconds.
http://tinyurl.com/2ml5zc
3. Why did I think there was a lot of speed in this race and that the three was by far the fastest of the speed?
Now that I've looked back at this race in "hindsight," I realized that this is one of those races you can really learn something from. These are things I wouldn't have learned if I had just moved on and forgot about it.
There are only two legitimate early horses in this race--the one and the two. And the two is MUCH faster, so today he will get the lead.
So now I have to ask myself the question, can the two wire this field--Yes! Yes he can wire it. He had trouble getting the lead and holding it in his last race because of competition on the front end, but he still did the best he could and held onto a tough second. That shouldn't happen in this race. He should get the lead all alone.
The three is a PRESSER not a speed horse. So the three will most likely press again.
The six will be coming, but he probably won't be able to win because the early pace will be slower.
So after the fact I realize that the two will get the lead with the one and three (and perhaps others) pressing. This means the two will probably be able to set a leisurely pace and wire the field.
I have to look back and see where I went wrong if I went wrong. When I do that sometimes I say, "nope, I did everything right, but I still lost...that's the way it goes. But this time I can see where I screwed up, and I wouldn't have been able to figure that out if I hadn't of gone back and objectively looked.
Maybe when (and if) I ever reach the Hat's stature I can move on to the next race and just forget about it, but until that time comes I have to look and see where (and if) I went wrong.