What?

Completely agree. Nasty.

This was a really fantastic post!

Dave in Dixie is the only non-stake race I've caught at Del Mar and it looked fantastic - yet I haven't heard a peep about it.

As long as you keep on interpreting these races in terms of FRACTIONS rather than how they're actually run, you'll just never get it. Once again, it's about WHEN you move in these races NOT how fast they're going. This filly last moved a field where everything else had already run before her. In your mind she ran AGAINST it, due to the slow early fractions. In point of fact, she got a perfect setup and the pacesetters, who'd set those dawdling:rolleyes: fractions, got the worst of it.

The Lure - the only other turf race on the Travers card - was also run with a slow pace in relation to final time.

Get Stormy went wire-to-wire and paid $17.00 ... 6/1 Mikoshi, who was 2nd after a quarter mile, finished 2nd. $127 exacta. It was almost 7 lengths back to 3rd.

In the vast majority of races I get that come back with a slow-fast race shape ... it's not about when you move.

If you think Captain's Lover was really getting the worst of it that's your problem. She finished 4.5 lengths in front of Closeout. Next time they meet, I'll take Closeout and the points.

So the slow horses were moving slowly but they had been asked to run so the last horse that had been running the slowest of all was then asked to run after the slow horses who were moving slowly started to go slower even though thay had never run a fast step in the race.. Let's recap..Slow horses move slowly thru a race but eventhough it is very slow they are still running faster then other horses that are running slower. So when the slow horses that have been running slowly start to slow down the last slowest horse to speed up and keep going past the slowing slow horses is a perfect set up winner. Got YA

Can you put this in a chart?

I might be missing your point about the LURE but, then again, since you didn't call the exacta before the fact, I'm just going to ignore it.

On to what we know:

The Lure went 1-2-6-9 (1st call) around the track.

The race in question went 7-5-4-2 around the track.

Forgetting about everything that happened before, during and after these races, at least, we might agree, that if both were SLOW PACED races, then they'd SHAPE UP the same. Huh? My only point is that saying a PACE IS SLOW, when the front runners collapse, and not just one of them but all the pace setters, is just STUPID. If you weren't fixated on time, you'd understand this. What collapsed the latter race is the 4th split moves (which just happened to be the fastest split). As such, the winner got the best of it.

Of course, you're too busy trying to get the horses to fit your method rather than letting how they run dictate your method.

Naturally who couldn't

I think I was quite clear. As a handicapper, you must have noticed that most Euro horses don't break as quickly and rarely gun for the lead like we can see US ones do, especially in races longer than 5 or 6f. Even when there is a pacemaker in the race, it is frequently only a couple of lengths in front of the next horse, and the rest are running so that there is little daylight between the various horses, ignoring the tailed off horses who can't keep up and will have no part in the finish.

Jealous Again beat the field in the Queen Mary at Royal Ascot by not running to the script: she broke like a shot and ran out on a big lead, and the Euro-trained fillies couldn't make up ground. Aegean, another of W. Ward's starters at the meet, failed because she didn't or couldn't put ground between herself and the rest of the field and they outsprinted her in the last two furlongs.

Oh, and German races are often run in soft or heavy turf, so the best horses, the ones who get to go to stud, have to be able to handle it well, and they frequently pass this ability on to their offspring.

Actually Freddy, stop to think about it.

I think that is the exact logic used by many jocks that have cost me many races by waiting till the finish line to let their horse run!