Hopefully Helpful Information

[For The Lead]

On July 2nd in the 8th race at PARX there was a GR3 “Handicap” race.
The original thread and discussion on this race can be found here...http://paceandcap.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9226

What got me thinking about writing this post was the comments Bill V. made in his final post in that above discussion. It seemed to me that Bill sort of "gave up" with respect to the winner, so I thought I would go over the winner as there are a couple of points to be made.

First, line selection.
In the winners 10 races showing in the PP’s, 9 of them are in GR1, GR2 or GR3 races, including the Breeders Cup Juvenile where it got beat by 4 lengths.
The horse was off for 197 days and returned to the races 30 days ago in an “Optional Claiming” race.
One of the "qualifiers" for a “(+)” race is where a horse makes a middle move to be within 2 lengths of the leader at the 2nd call. This horse did that. There was nothing dramatic about the move. It only gained 1 position and ½ a length to be within 2 lengths of the leader at the 2nd call, nevertheless, it “fits the bill”. This is a “(+)” race even if the horse weakens down the stretch. In this case the horse DID NOT weaken. It finished 1 ¾ lengths behind at the finish, running 4th. Here is the winning horse.



Now, what I really want to point out is, all trainers do not follow the same pattern or procedure in bringing their horse(s) back from a layoff. It is common for a trainer who is bringing a stakes horse back to the races after a lengthy layoff to look for an Allowance race to use as a “prep” race. In this case the trainer used an Optional Claiming race. It’s basically the same thing as an Allowance race. The horse can’t be claimed unless the trainer enters it to be claimed and it is run under Allowance type conditions.

The other thing to understand is, when the trainer entered this horse in that Optional Claiming race, he was looking ahead. He knew this GR3 Handicap race was coming up. All he wanted in that Optional Claiming race was a “prep”. He didn’t care if the horse won it or not. More important to him, was how sound the horse was and where the horse was in its’ conditioning. The “prep” race answers these questions for him.

One other thing I wanted to mention is, I like the “original” screen in RDSS. Based on the lines selected, it gives you a look at each contenders running style. It’s kind of a “preview” of how the race should run. You see the early horses, pressers and closers. Like everything else in horse racing, nothing is 100%, but it is interesting to look at the original screen and then compare it to the chart of the race. I’ve done that below so you can see how it works. See what I mean by “interesting”? I think this helps improve line selection. Some of you who want to learn the "match up" can use this as a start. Obviously you only want to use the "contenders", not the entire field.

[Bill V.]

Thanks FTL for the valuable lesson
I struggle with this very pattern, mostly with turf horses,
The ones who when in form run to a normal for them range of adjusted speed
ratings, then take a break either by the end of the turf season or injury ?

This is not a "yeah but "
This was my thought process when picking a line for the horses in the race.

Here are the adjusted speed ratings for each horses plus turf lines

H1A, 83, 82
H2. 83, 66, 71,80, 79,82,69
H3, X
H4, 85 76,83, 32, 78, 75, 74,
H5, 97, 89, 81,87,73,78
H6, 79,73,81, 79
H7, 87, 86, 81, 82,78

So looking at these numbers and considering the 84 was # 6's best ever
Adjusted speed ratings just did not seem up to the ability of some of the other horses
I took into consideration the last two turf races before the layoff.
I came to the conclusion it just seemed to me a like a horse to avoid.

Thanks for the lesson about a OC tune up

Bill