Pace and Cap - Sartin Methodology & The Match Up - View Single Post

Mark · 06-27-2013, 07:00 PM

Bill,
My feeling is and was that ORB is a Presser. Most of his PPs show that he kicks it in the butt in his second fraction. But if he doesn’t reach the lead with that move he fades at these long distances. Or at best he passes exhausted horses. Maybe he is a miler but he is not suited to run these marathons as you call them. He has to lay too far off the pace to conserve energy.
You are exactly right, it is about position at that point. Those that are left standing at the head of the stretch are decelerating at similar rates. Oxbow chased decent fractions and held the lead at the mile in 136.4. In the next ½ mile Orb made very little headway and finished 1 ¾ lengths behind him. At the 1 ¼ mile point ORB was 3 ½ off the lead and yet he finished 5 back. He is not like Oxbow or Palace Malice who are basically Sustained horses that run on or near the lead. Bradshaw once told me and a group of others that there are three types of sustained horses: 1) Those that run on the lead 2) those that run from far back and 3) slow horses.
This is what makes these races so difficult. These are young horses that have never done these things before. And we are trying to use races at shorter distances to make an evaluation.
Jim Bradshaw was the most brilliant handicapper of our time, very possibly ever. He had intuition and learned instinct that few if any can duplicate. But I think he had difficulty verbalizing or writing about his process because it was basically seamless. He just knew…
All we can do is attempt to apply his concepts and principles over and over and over and over… and hope to gain some of his insight.

06-27-2013, 07:00 PM	#12
Mark Grade 1 Join Date: Jan 2013 Posts: 318	Bill, My feeling is and was that ORB is a Presser. Most of his PPs show that he kicks it in the butt in his second fraction. But if he doesn’t reach the lead with that move he fades at these long distances. Or at best he passes exhausted horses. Maybe he is a miler but he is not suited to run these marathons as you call them. He has to lay too far off the pace to conserve energy. You are exactly right, it is about position at that point. Those that are left standing at the head of the stretch are decelerating at similar rates. Oxbow chased decent fractions and held the lead at the mile in 136.4. In the next ½ mile Orb made very little headway and finished 1 ¾ lengths behind him. At the 1 ¼ mile point ORB was 3 ½ off the lead and yet he finished 5 back. He is not like Oxbow or Palace Malice who are basically Sustained horses that run on or near the lead. Bradshaw once told me and a group of others that there are three types of sustained horses: 1) Those that run on the lead 2) those that run from far back and 3) slow horses. This is what makes these races so difficult. These are young horses that have never done these things before. And we are trying to use races at shorter distances to make an evaluation. Jim Bradshaw was the most brilliant handicapper of our time, very possibly ever. He had intuition and learned instinct that few if any can duplicate. But I think he had difficulty verbalizing or writing about his process because it was basically seamless. He just knew… All we can do is attempt to apply his concepts and principles over and over and over and over… and hope to gain some of his insight.