[Bill Lyster]

No problem with going deep to find a pace line. The Hat said to use the entire PPs.

However, there is a lot of info missing from this post that would assist the handicapping process. that being said, we have a horse that consistently runs in the top 4 and occasionally top 3. We cannot see field size so if the horse is beating half its field its probably not as big a "dog" as he looks!

We also do not see the other early competition which we need to see if they cancel each other out. We need to see the early times they run, how many E's, EP's, pressers and sustained. If the race pace is as you say it is very possible that all the early types were eliminated, making the race run Other than early, and opening up the win for this horse.

I would guess that the TPR ratings on this horse for the most part do not vary a lot, so the key to this horse winning is for the others to be forced to run faster early so that this horse competes well.

I often posed this same type of question to The Hat in this forum and his best answers were always a little oblique, because the form of the question did not have enough detail to allow him to be specific. Matchup is contextual to what everyone in the field is capable of doing vs today's anticipated pace. In my opinon you need to post the PPs for all horses in order to answer your question.

What i forgot to say before is that the PPs for this horse show it got beat by RTR 3 times previously, so from a tandem point of view it would take extenuating circumstances for this horse, using any line to beat RTR.

Regards