[Seven Furlongs]

I just wanted to ask any matchers out there or rdss users about which call, be it 1st or 2nd, that they base their early analysis on?

The advantage of placing importance on the second call is that it provides the foundation for doing any late fraction analysis. Doing late fraction analysis from the 1st call is just not very practical or useful. Also, the second call makes turn time analysis possible. So, if you do those two things as part of your handicapping, I can understand not placing much value on the 1st fraction.

But, I think if you have read Mahl's 'The race is pace' looking at the 1st call pace of the race provides, I think, a better way to visually represent the running ability of a horse on his 3 dimensional graphs. Basically, the graphs illustrate that there is obviously a spike in speed from zero at the start and that a race is basically an exercise in deceleration, of which usually happens from the 1st call onwards. If you focus too much on the 2nd call as some kind of pivot point for analysis, it is harder to imagine those deceleration graphs.

Another point in favour of first call analysis comes from Davidowitz, via Quirin, in which he quotes Quirin's findings 'that more than five out of every nine races on dirt are won by horses that rank 1-2-3 through the first quarter-mile call in sprints and the half mile call in routes.'

I write this asking the question somewhat selfishly, in that I would like to do my handicapping of the early scenario largely based on one call, mainly because I don't want to complicate my handicapping with too many numbers.