Marc has given us a reminder. I can honestly say that I probably would have lost this race.
I remember a long time ago in a Follow UP or a seminar (I really am an old guy!) where we looked at a race where there were a ton of Early horses and only a couple of late. Doc Sartin said, "When there is this much Early who are very close to call, bet the Late horses no matter the numbers." Sometimes we get number blind. At least I do. We probably win more races that way in the Leverage Pace approach by focusing on the numbers and percentages but I hope that as we handicap we remember that Leverage Pace gives us multiple looks at the race and not just numbers on one line. Marc has given us an example to take the broad look at running styles and and Early Speed Points.
Here is the Segments screen with all the horses as competitors. We have 4 strong Early horses that look to fly out for the lead with lots of heat, pushing each other on the front end. Even looking at the numbers we see 4 horses tight at the 2nd call, 11,5,8,10 tight at the 2nd call. What happens if we eliminate them from the contenders for the win and just look at the Pressers.
The 3 best finishers are the 1,7,9. As Marc pointed out the 9 is the Swing horse in NP meaning he can run Early or Late. His ESP 6 would point to him running up closer than any of the other pressers.
This is a good example of looking at how running style and ESP can influence a race. Sometimes we have to look at the bigger picture. Thanks for the example Marc.