Getting The Contenders Down

[shoeless]

Let's say you have 5 horses in the program and there is a 2 point difference in Total Energy between the first three and the last two.Will you get rid of those two on the bottom or will you adjust them?I have been getting rid of them because I keep reading dont help slow horses.Gary is up at Colonial Downs today in a handicapping contest so that's why he hasnt been responding.I hope he takes home the whole enchilada.Jeff

[Houndog]

Originally Posted by shoeless

Let's say you have 5 horses in the program and there is a 2 point difference in Total Energy between the first three and the last two.Will you get rid of those two on the bottom or will you adjust them?I have been getting rid of them because I keep reading dont help slow horses.Gary is up at Colonial Downs today in a handicapping contest so that's why he hasnt been responding.I hope he takes home the whole enchilada.Jeff

Jeff, if 2 horses have a 2 point difference in Total Energy from the top 3 the automatic adjustment will not help them that much. They probably will not show up very good in any of the readouts anyway. Where you can get in trouble is when you use the Alternate (E) adjustment or if you are using Energy II the alternate adjustment. With the Energy II and Thoromation Doc and Jim have made it alot easier to use the Alternate adjustment. You probably have seen that warning that flashes on the screen saying you may need to use the Alternate adjustment. All you do is press the #2 I believe and it is done for you. If you recall it was more time consuming and harder to do with the older version of Energy.

What in effect the Alternate Adjustment does is equalizes every horses Total Energy. This is a big boost for slow horses. When used properly the Alternate Adjustment works very well in the races it is needed. All you have to do is hit a big winner using the Alternate Adjustment and it gets to be like a drug, and you start wanting to do it in every race.

To answer your original question if you leave the 2 horses in using the automatic adjustment this adjustment will not help them much. By all means if you feel you can eliminate these 2 horses do it. I would recommend though that you look at all of the read-outs even with horses that have a 2 point disadvantage in Total Energy. They may (but unlikely) show up good on one of the readouts. That is why I try to do much of the work before entering horses in the computer. (Contenders, pacelines, toss-outs etc). I then enter them in Engen first which shows all the horses raw. I can see which horses will cause the warning to flash up just by looking at the Total Energy differences. It could be possible that one of these lower Total Energy horses could be used maybe not on the win end, but maybe in Exotics by virtue of one of their readouts.

Jeff, you are correct in saying you don't want to help slow horses. I just don't want you to make it an automatic rule to eliminate horses with a 2 point energy difference. Tom Brohamer and Jim Bradshaw said several times do not put a horse in your program unless you are willing to bet it if it shows up on your readouts. If you are getting the horses down to 5 or less you are well on your way. I think when you first started using Energy you were putting 6 or more horses in on several occasions.

Just remember to do most of the preliminary work before you even turn on the computer. I hope this advice helps and does not seem contradictory to you. The main point I was getting across is that the real trouble lies in if you use the Alternate Adjustment when it is not called for. The automatic adjustment is all that you need the majority of the time. You can ask around but Jim Bradshaw I believe never really liked the Alternate Adjustment at all.
I really don't remember Jim Bradshaw recommending it even once in all the seminars I attended when he was a presenter. I believe he and Doc put it in as a convenience hoping people would not overuse it. Many people did overuse it including myself, much to the dismay of Doc Sartin.

[shoeless]

Houndog,Thanks for the well thought out response,there is no need for me to ask around about anything.I have all the confidence in the knowledge that you and Gary have in using the Energy program.Jeff

[shoeless]

Houndog,That's a great suggestion about doing all the preliminary work before you put the horses in the program.I heard Hat say the same thing many times.Jeff

[Rxlawyer]

Jeff:

Houndog is 100% correct. The answer was right on target. The first rule is that ONLY true contenders go in Energy. If a horse is in Energy and comes up low total energy then go back and make sure the horse is really a true contender. If so, then leave the horse in Energy. When there is a big disparity in total energy numbers then look at all of the screens. See if your true contender looks like a contender. Compare the raw screens to the adjusted screens and see if the adjustment makes sense. Some of my biggest prices have come from lower total energy horses that were true contenders. Some of my biggest disappointments have come from slow horses that I thought were true contenders.
Gary

[RichieP]

the paragon and fractional screen

[RichieP]

Hi guys,

Here is a race today from Philly as I worked it. It is race 10 and these were my contenders. I will post all the screen shots from Energy and then the result chart for the race.

My question is:

Based on the readouts you see here and the result would YOU say that the software:
a) did it's job
b) didn't do it's job

then maybe a brief why/why not please.

I am leaving the race exactly as it was before I got rid of the # 10

thanx in advance for any feedback. There obviously is no right or wrong answer here

btw the # 4 horse was a 7f line ( 2 back) from Philly that I typed into " selector" and used the resulting "projector" line as the one entered here for 8f

Rich

here is raw and adj opening screen

[RichieP]

the rankings screen

[RichieP]

the exdc screen

[RichieP]

the result chart for the race