[omar]

First off i know this response is a little past the expiration date of your question but sometimes if i'm not napping on cloud 9 i'm just too busy picking winners and contenders! FORGET NUMBERS is the best way to assess class/form.Let's say 2 horses are running today, one in a 25k claimer and another in a grade 1 race. For arguments sake they both ran 2 weeks ago,on the same day,but in 2 different races,however their respective running lines were identical: 2nd by 2,3rd by 4,5th by 8 and 8th by 14 at the wire.By chance that was their 1st race after a 6 month layoff to the day by both of them. Also by chance, their 3rd race back was also run on the same day and they both won in wire to wire fashion. So who is the better bet today?the claimer,the stakes horse,both of them 2nd off l/o, or neither one? The answer is this:certainly not the claimer,but i would trust 2nd off l/o on a gr 1 horse unless he's in against other gr 1 horses coming off wins or close finishes. A horses recent form is his class.that claimer today is in for 12.5 k and is 6/5,but until he shows me a good race i'm looking elsewhere for the winner. I let the class of today's race determines how far back i go in a horses's pp's to assess his class/form and to pick the right paceline to use. Later, Omar.