:mad: Meanie. :D

I too was at that race. My friend owned a pretty fast horse named Uncle Camie. GZ blew him off the track that day. I never bet against him again. KP

Good point, however I think that the increased space between races will be more and more now.

Thanks for the info. Do you remember what Beyer's rational was for using a single variant? What did they think happened between the Gazelle and the Woodward?

Your 122 approx Beyer would be the equiv of perhaps a 128-130 Beyer for a horse getting the same time but running near the rail. That seems a bit high for me, but who knows.

Another thing. You show an approximate Beyer of 99.4 for the Gazelle. With a time diff of less than 2 secs slower than the Woodward, wouldn't the Beyer diff be less than 17. Your approx figs show a diff of 22.6, which seems to big to me, unless you, too, are using diff variants.

At any rate, I think we agree the Woodward was an amazing race for both horses.

--Dunbar

If you recall, in his race before he ran a 128 Beyer and I had it at LEAST that, if not a point or two higher (Mth is tough at that distance because they don't run a lot of races at a mile and an eighth, but it came out to a 133 on my numbers or approximately a 129 Beyer) At the time I had a hard time believing the Woodward number because i didn't think much of St. Liam, but obviously he proved his worth and ability to run very fast. Beyer agreed with my original assessment that St. Liam wasn't nearly that fast which is the reason they had a 1 race variant.

As far as the difference goes between the Gazelle and the Woodward, I used a single variant on the day- the difference of 129 to 116 on my figures is 13 lengths (1 point = 1 length) so the Beyer number difference may be in my conversion. I have found it's approximately [72 - (100 - my figure)*(factor)] where the factor is based on the distance run since 1 point on Beyer's scale at 10F is different from 1 point at 5F. The factor I use at 9F is 1.7, right or wrong is up for debate, but it's the best match I can find.

I rewatched the race last night, what an incredible performance. I feel bad for the guy in the BC who had the only pick 6 live but didn't have GZ, whereever he is... he should have watched this race.

I could be wrong, but I thought that St. Liam had run at least a 113 earlier that year. It seems odd that Beyer would force Ghostzapper's number down to 114 (from a previous 128) if St Liam had already shown he could run at a 113 level. If the Beyer guys were being arbitrary (ie, disregarding the earlier races), it would have made more sense to use something like a 118-120. That would not have been a hard-to-believe jump for St. Liam, and would have made the other horses' BSFs more believable. It's not like Beyer never gives a horse 5-10 pts more than an earlier career best.

Ghostzapper and St Liam finished more than 9 lengths ahead of the other 5 horses in the field, and I think all of them had shown themselves capable of running 100+ BSF's. But with the 114 fig for GZ and SL, each of those other 5 horses must have earned a sub-100 BSF. (or at the most, a 100 BSF)

Using 13 lengths, your approx Beyers are consistent. But 13 lengths for the 1.87 sec difference in finishing time is 7 lengths per sec. Is that your standard rule-of-thumb?

Do you have a link for that? I watched it relatively recently, too, but now I can't remember where. Thanks.

--Dunbar

Saint Liam had gone 108/113/108 going into that race.

Seek Gold going in had Beyer's of 93/92/99 and got an 86 for his 4th place finish in the Woodward. His next three after the race were 92/99/108.

Midway Road ran a 70 Beyer that day finishing 6th. He'd run a 106 in his previous race and ran 107 next out. He ran an 83 when he stunk up the Foster two races prior to the Woodward.

Presidential Affair was last with a 53 Beyer, he hadn't been under 80 in his past 13 starts and was only under 90 in three of those.

Unfortunately I can't find figures for Bowman's Band who was 3rd and Newfoundland who was 5th.

go to Youtube and search for "Ghostzapper Belmont" and it'll come up...

my rule of thumb for lengths-per-second is actually calculated by the speed of the race, rather than an arbitrary designation, which I believe gives a more accurate number.

Did you lose a lot of money on Bernardini? Did you buy that hype?

Thanks for those numbers, Sniper. I'm pretty sure that Newfoundland had run 100+ BSFs coming into the Woodward. Not as certain about Bowman's Band.

To me those numbers suggest that the figs in the Woodward were perhaps too low. But at the same time, it suggests that there would have been no logic in Beyer thinking there was a single-race variant because St Liam wasn't fast enough to run better than a 114. I'm not saying Beyer didn't do that; I'm saying if he did it, it wasn't logical. The way it came out, I think every horse in the race except for St. Liam got a worse Beyer than it's previous race.

--Dunbar

what racehorse is great then?
Ghostzapper is not great?
what exactly was he supposed to do?
was he supposed to help the track maintenence crew at Saratoga not make it an incredibely rail biased track that day.
thats not really part of the job of a racehorse.
besides that SAR race, he never lost in a race where he was not injured.
personally, I think there were 2 truly great racehorses in that 2004 Woodward.


Repent

The 114 Beyer for the Woodward is easy to explain. It's the standard number for a 9f race at Belmont when u run 1:46 1/5. Consider:

Seattle Fitz, 2004 Brooklyn.....1:46 1/5......114 Beyer
Ghostzapper, 2004 Woodward.....1:46 1/5......114 Beyer
Oratory, 2005 Peter Pan.......1:46 1/5........114 Beyer

Interesting info huh?

Bowman's Band ran a 110 in the Hal's Hope in January of '04 before running a 78 in the Donn. Have no clue what figures he was running between then and the Woodward.

Newfoundland from January through April of '04 ran 100/105/104. No clue after that.