Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark
I have always wondered what to do about horse who in their last start had: 1. serious commented trouble making the race useless for evaluation purposes, 2. had one or two races off a layoff particularly one race off up to 120 days or so with good works before and after or 2 races off a substantial layoff generally over 200 days or 3. raced on the wrong surface or at the opposite distance structure?
Any substitute race will be older and not necessarily meet the requirement of the "Last Line".
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In the Pacelines Manual, Doc says always use the last line unless there is a valid excuse. He then lists a number of valid excuses, including trouble line, wrong surface or distance, off track, etc.
He also says you can expand the definition of "last line", such as last line before trouble line(s), last line at comparable distance/surface/class, etc. This is the "last line" concept that I use.
In other words, "It depends".
He also says that if a horse showed signs of improving form in the last race (good early speed or ran well against a very fast pace), you can go back to a race that shows what the horse is capable of when in condition. This is kind of blurring the difference between pace line and power line.