Cowboy Gets Even actually did improve 10 Beyer points off the race where I thought he had all the trouble. The race where I thought he had 8 lengths of trouble, he ran a 66 Beyer. In his next two races, he ran a 75 and a 76. So according to the numbers you guys trust so much, the horse actaully did move way up. I expected him to move up 8 lengths. What did he end up moving up, 5 or 6 lengths?

The horse is obviously not right. He was running close 2nds at Laurel in nwx1 races. Now he's losing the same races by 10 lengths.

Despite that, I will take the blame for a bad pick. The bottom line is that I thought the horse would turn out to be a very good horse. He's turned out to be a pathetic horse. Regardless of the reason, I was wrong. Whether it is because the horse is lame or he just didn't have the ability, he didn't turn out to be a good horse. I admit it. I'm not going to be right 100% of the time. Not every maiden winner that I'm impressed with turns out to be a good horse. Most of them do, but not every one.

As long as you refuse to even try to learn anything from others.....

Why try when you have such a magical eye? .... and the brilliance of "every trainer on the West Coast and Mike Smith" to guide you.

I actually did used to go to the harness races occasioanlly as a teenager. And you are right that in thoroughbred racing it is approximately 6 lengths per second rather than 5. That is what I should be using. It is more accurate.

I was being conservative when I said Zenyatta was 20 lengths back after 3 furlongs. There is no official number of how far back she was, but there are plenty of people (Richard Migliore) and articles that think she was closer to 25 lengths back (between calls after about 3 furlongs). If she was 24 lengths back, that would mean she ran her final 7 furlongs in 1:23 1/5. If she was exactly 20 back, then she ran her final 7 furlongs in 1:23 4/5. If she was 22 lengths back, then it was more like 1:23 2/5 or 1:23 3/5.

How far back do you think she was after 3 furlongs?

I've learned a lot in this thread from you and DrugS. I thought that Zenyatta looked extremely stiff in the early going of the race. After finding out that she was not warmed up in the post parade, I thought that explained why she looked so uncomfortable in the early going of the race and why she fell so far behind.

But after listening to you guys, I now realize that Zenyatta was travelling perfect in the early stages of the race. The reason she fell so far behind is because she is incapable of comfortably going faster than :38 and change from the gate. Thanks for teaching me that.

Here is one of the best mares of all times that could breeze 3 furlongs in :36 and change from the gate with her eyes closed and you guys (or at least DrugS) think she can't comfortably break :38 and change. Thanks for the info guys.

I just watched the race a few more times. She was actually the furthest back after 2 1/2 furlongs. She was probably 22 or so lengths back after 2 1/2 furlongs. So that means she ran her final 7 1/2 furlongs in 1:29 3/5, which is more impressive than her final 7 furlongs.

I think her correct final 7 furlong time was a few ticks slower than I originally thought. I think she ran her final 7 furlongs in 1:23 4/5 (I originally had said 1:23 1/5).

I watched it again and from the broadcast view it's impossible for me to determine how far back she was after 2 1/2 furlongs.

Soon after the leader crossed the 7 furlong marker the camera showed a view that could more accurately estimate how far back she was and 16 lengths is my guess.

It's a good thing she was so far behind... if she was closer, who knows how much punch she has late. The pace killed the chances of anyone close to it... the farther off, the better.

I don't know if you have an account there, but Racereplays.com has the normal pan-shot of the race. You can make a pretty good estimate from that angle.

The further back the better? If Mike Smith would have known that, he could have dropped a few lengths further back. I'm sure he would have won then. :zz:

How hard is it to understand that the only reason she even came close to winning was because she was so far off that pace? This really is not rocket science.

If Borel only had Mine That Bird five lengths closer to the lead going into the 1st turn - he would have won the Kentucky Derby by 12 lengths instead of 7.




If Ice Box was only 20 back at the first call instead of 24 back - and Make Music Music For Me was only 23 back instead of 28 back at the first call - Ice Box would have won the Derby in a route with Make Music For Me 2nd.

You're basically KYRIM ... but because you're not a 20-year-old female people don't want to give you crap. Did Zenyatta also crossfire?

Being way back totally helped Ice Box and Make Music For Me. I have never disputed that. That was a race in the slop where the half-mile went :46. That's a nice comparison. You're going to compare 3 year olds going :46 in the slop to older horses going :47 on a fast track. Good argument.

By the way, how did Zenyatta get within a head of Blame? He wasn't going too fast. He went :48 4/5 or :49. He had no excuses and he only beat Zenyatta by a head. I thought he was 10 lengths better than Zenyatta.

I give credit to Robert for defending his position, but he's worse than Joe Miller in realizing that he's been soundly defeated.

I hope you're kidding. You would be hard pressed to find a single person that knows what they're looking at that that would tell you Zenyatta was travelling comfortably in the early going. I don't care if she was 3 lengths back or 50 lengths back. All you have to do is look at the way she was moving. You don't have to be a vet or a trainer to see it. If you have any sort of eye for horses at all, you would be able to see it.

Steve Haskins is not a vet or a trainer. He could see it.

Do you think we are all hallucinating? Do you think every trainer on the west coast (I haven't talked to all of them but I've talked to 5 of them) is so "gaga" over Zenyatta that they are imaging things?

Mike Smith confided in an interview that he thought about pulling her up. You think he was just imagining that she didn't feel like right?

It's amazing how it went from "every" trainer...to 5 in the span of a few words.

I get it though. More insider bulls.hit. You see it and us peons don't. So she wasn't feeling right, but within a span of a minute suddenly felt better and ran really well. Maybe she's the equine version of popeye and Smith gave her some spinach up the backstretch.

She lost. It's going to be okay. Really it is. So what if she isn't the superhorse you DESPERATELY need and want her to be. It's going to be okay.

Speaking of your impeccable "eye for horses"

I'm just wondering if you will keep your word and eat your racing form as you promised in the following thread.

http://www.derbytrail.com/forums/showthread.php?t=21060

You write about a $650,000 sales topper 2-year-old - and claim "If he's not a stakes horse, I will eat my Racing Form"

That horse never managed to do anything more than string a couple of moderate published workouts on a few separate occasions. He's still winless.

But that wasn't all ... Rupert did singe out one unraced horse who "couldn't run a lick" in that thread ... he turned out to be 3-time Graded Stakes winning sprinter Munnings.

Yes, that's the kind of impeccable eye us dummies all lack.



While no one could ever dispute the impeccable eye (for dapples) Haskin has - he also mentioned before the race that Blame might be better off if positioned behind Zenyatta early on. A laughably absurd idea.

Steve Haskin is a dapple expert. You got me there.

The $650,000 horse got hurt and never made it to the races. I do admit that it was a stupid comment though. There are so many things that can go wrong with a horse that you can never "guarantee" that one will turn out to be a stakes horse.

You mentioned a few horses that I was wrong about.

Let's look at all the horses I mentioned in the thread on promising 2 year olds and 3 year olds. We were talking about horses who had just broken their maidens. Here is a list of every horse I mentioned:

1. Uptowncharlybrown- He came back and won a stakes race.
2. Bear's Hard Ten- He came back and won a stakes race.
3. Sidney's Candy- He won the Santa Anita Derby
4. Bulldogger- He was totally mishandled but still won an allowance by 5 lengths and got a 103 Beyer.
5. Sister Dawn- She's won 3 races since then, two allowance races and a stakes race.
6. Kajiwara- Came back and ran 2nd beaten a length in 1:08 4/5.
7. Cowboy Gets Even- My worst pick. He came back and ran 2nd twice in a row in allowance races but never showed the ability of a good horse.
8. Trappe Shot- Won two allowance races, a stakes race and ran 2nd in the
Haskell.
9. Hunch- Came back and won an allowance race but was then rushed into a grade I just 15 days later, ran 5th and got hurt. He's on the comeback trail right now.
There was only a single horse (Cowboy Gets Even) on that list whose ability I was probably wrong about.

And you're still not going to confess that you were wrong about Munnings?

I confessed that several months ago. There are usually a few stakes horses every year that I didn't like at the sales. If you know anyone that claims that there was never a 2 year old that they didn't like that turned out to be a stakes horse, that person is lying.

I'm amused you included Sidney's Candy - as you only mentioned him after his stunningly impressive maiden win.

It would be like someone saying they "like" Uncle Mo after he wins his debut by a pole with a triple digit Beyer at Saratoga. Or saying they "like" Quality Road after he runs a triple digit Beyer in his debut at AQU. Or saying they "like" Curlin after he runs a triple digit Beyer in his debut at Gulfstream. Or saying they "like" Big Brown after he wins his debut by a pole on turf at Saratoga.

It's kind of annoying when someone has the potential to be a good poster around here ... but instead they'd rather pull a Baghdad Bob routine because a horse like they like lost.

Can I get Super Poster brownie points for Big Brown -- as a few on here can attest, I liked him before that maiden start. :D

That is what I was talking about. I was talking about picking horses that just broke their maiden (like Cowboy Gets Even). Some of them were obvious, others were not.

There are plenty of horses that break their maidens impressively that never do anything after that. I think I'm good at distinguishing between a 5 length maiden winner that is a good horse versus a 5 length maiden winner that isn't much horse, and I don't base it on the time they ran.

I actually bet either $150 or $200 to win on him in his debut at 14-1. I would have bet more but I just wasn't that confident that he would be fit to win, first time out, going long. That trainer (Patrick Reynolds) did not have great numbers with first-timers.

You might be good at a lot of things, Rupert, but I think this thread has shown that you really weren't very good at watching races on at least one Saturday a couple weeks back.

You're my hero!

So all these people, myself included who think that Zenyatta looked really stiff and uncomfortable in the early going (not to mention Mike Smith who admitted that he thought about pulling her up) are all hallucinating or imagining things?

It occurs to me that you're picking perhaps the one valid point out of like 37 that you've made on this thread to prove that you've been right all along.

It's a hell of a lot easier than people think.


I don't either - though it is obviously a factor I take into consideration.


However, perhaps you should.

http://www.derbytrail.com/forums/sho...35&postcount=1

Call me crazy ... but Funny Cide, Discreet Cat, Big Brown, Quality Road, Plagerist, Ghostzapper, Southern Image, Spanish Chestnut, and Pro Prado sure sound like a much more impressive collection of horses than ...

Uptowncharlybrown, Bear's Hard Ten, Sidney's Candy, Bulldogger, Sister Dawn, Kajiwara, Cowboy Gets Even, and Trappe Shot

Poor Spanish Chestnut was cooked.

I'm usually not going to post one that is a no-brainer to everyone. I didn't feel the need to post Uncle Mo. He obviously looked like a slam dunk to everyone. I did post Boys at Tosconova because I saw the race live and knew that most people probably hadn't seen it yet.

There typically is very little to no betting value in those type of impressive maiden winners.

The real value comes when you can identify very underrated horses who are soundly beaten in lesser races - and don't have the best of forms going in.

There was a horse racing blog I believe called 'Trader Pete's Boom Boom Room' that was probably the best racing Blog in the land for all of the three or four days it was running.

Trader Pete did a single 'Horses to Watch' list after Saratoga's meet concluded. He only put one horse exiting a stakes race on the list .. Big Drama - who was beaten double digit lengths in the King's Bishop.


Trader Pete put only a single 2-year-old on his watch list... a horse named Eightyfive in a Fifty who was 3rd at 27/1 odds in a maiden race in his most recent race.

Trader Pete made two nice calls - because 85ina50 won his next start by 19 lengths and Big Drama was given a layoff and returned to win the BC Sprint the following year.

Obviously - I just want to pat my buddy StoneGossard in the back - and mention his fine old site. http://traderpete.blogspot.com/

But basically, there is little value in impressive maiden winners. There's a lot more with soundly beaten horses who run better than people think.

...and Pricci had the nerve to call Steve a self promoter. Ha!

Pete is a vastly underrated poster here. He's so modest - I have to do his self promo for him.

There was another blogger that was really good. I can't remember his name. He would come up with a play practically every day. In the first year he did it, he gave out around 160 plays (just betting to win or sometimes win and place) and the guy had an ROI for the year of +15%.

The next year he came up with even more plays. He came up with over 450 plays and his ROI was +6% that year. He had a pretty good following on the site but he finally stopped posting because he was afraid that he was costing himself money by giving out the plays to people who may be betting into the pools.

:rolleyes:

If Rupert thinks he's going to win a battle of bragging...he really doesn't know who he is dealing with.

:tro:

Someone sent me a text an hour ago saying "Getting involved in a redboarding battle about first-time starters with DrugS is like getting involved in a land war with Asia. You'll never win"

People have me so wrong.