Anybody See the 6th at Laurel Today?
 

There is a really nice 3 year old colt named Cowboy Gets Even that ran in the 6th race today at Laurel. It is unbelievable that this horse won with all the trouble he had. He was 2 lengths back going down the backstretch but then he checked twice on the far turn. Before you know it, he is dead last and 10 lengths back at the 1/4 pole. It looked like he was totally eliminated and he still won the race.

Assuming he came out of the race in one piece and assuming they don't rush him back too soon, this horse could end up on the Derby trail.

Here's another version of what happened....

He was two or so lengths behind THREE duelers after one quarter. He dropped about six back as those three sped away to the half. He steadied two to maybe three lengths back on the inside nearing the three quarters to fall about 8 1/2 to nine lengths back. He eased out after saving ground and ran down the leaders who covered the final quarter in 27.10 seconds. He did go about 25 3/5 for his final quarter, and was easily best, but he was also 30 cents to the dollar and beat some very slow horses.

There are no trips in slow races.

Nice thing to watch visually ... but he still needs to improve a great deal further.

In his debut, he was beaten by a NY Bred that sold for a whopping 2K as a yearling.

He was 30 cents on a dollar for a reason today.

The horse who finished 2nd to him today was beaten 10 lengths at Penn National last time out .. the winner of the race he was beat 10Ls in is 1-for-7 and was defeated at the MCL 15 level in his prior start.

I didn't see the race but looking at the field it was very weak.

The maiden that won the 2nd at Aqueduct would beat him by a city block....at 1:5.....and nobody is getting all revved up about him.

Just like your namesake .. that horse is also sired by Tapit and ran a Beyer in the low 60's in his debut.

Once a horse runs 5th in it's debut at Delaware Park .. and gets beat twice at Philly back to back ... it forms a strong revved-up over maiden win repellent.

Lightly raced slowpoke horses with prettier records are viewed as much sexier for some reason. As I know you know.

It's how they do it. It's not how fast they run. I don't pay much attention to speed figures.

It's the same thing at the 2 year old sales. I'd much rather have a good mover that works :10 2/5 than an ugly mover that works :10.

I actually thought that this colt worked really good at FT Calder even though he only worked :10 4/5. He's a great mover. And he worked awesome at Timonium. I thought he was in the top 2-3 best horses in the sale.

It's not how fast they run?

You can have the pretty looking ones that prance around at the back of the pack. . . I'll take the ones who get to the wire first.

Thanks for the tip.

I'm willing to bet I could find a post of yours on this board that quotes a speed figure when it conveniently backs up the supposed talents of some horse you are backing.

Once again....there are no trips in slow races.

I pay very little attention to speed figures in my handicapping. That's all I'm saying. I'm not saying that I've never discussed speed figures.

Looks like the jock might've dropped the whip late, as well.


Any chance we can get Quinonez to watch this replay and see how a MALE JOCK finishes a race with a perfect setup?

He only dropped 6 lengths back after he checked the first time. He fell 10 lengths back after he checked sharply the second time. The horse was literally 10 back at the 5/16th pole.

I agree with you that he beat bad horses. But I think he would have won by 8-9 lengths if he would have drawn an outside post. If he drew an outside post, he wouldn't have been in tight and checked twice. I don't think he would have ever fallen more than 3 lengths back without the trouble.

Since you like speed figures, I will talk speed figures. He ran a 77 Beyer first time out sprinting. I think that's a reasonable number for a big, long striding Stephen Got Even colt who is not a sprinter. He only had a handful of half-mile works going into that race and he drew the rail. He had everything going against him in that race and he ran a decent 2nd. Under the circumstances, I think running a 77 Beyer that day was a decent number. He's not the kind of horse that I would have expected to run a 90 Beyer first-time out sprinting.

Your missing the point... The trip is meaningless.. Nobody is saying the colt cant be OK in the future just that at this time he hasn't shown enough speed to make anyone believe he has G1 abilty?

This is not correct, and will be obvious to anybody that watches the race, and you are making up things to suit your agenda with this horse. I get it. People do this all the time to convince themselves to like a horse more than they should. Kind of like making up excuses for a girlfriend or boyfriend that you don't want to believe is the jerk that it is readily apparent that they are.

Who is this blackthroatedwind character?

So you think he fell 6 lengths back because he simply didn't have the speed to stay close? He didn't have enough speed to stay within 2-3 lengths of a :48 half? You think the fastest this horse can run a half is :49? In his debut, he stayed within 5 lengths of a :46 half.

I didn't say why he dropped off.....I simply implied it wasn't because he checked. He was mildly tight, and I mean mildly, when they hit the exact start of the turn, but that almost always happens to an inside horse when they are lined up at that point ( which I'm sure you know ).

If I had to guess why he dropped off it was because the jockey ( wisely ) didn't feel a need to go after three horses vying for the lead, so the horse probably dropped back naturally. It isn't as thought the rider was either particularly urging or restraining him....he just seemed to be riding him. If, in fact, he could have stayed closer ( sorry, but we don't know this ), it might not be unfair to say that in retrospect he should have tried to extracate himself form the other horses, but that's in hindsight knowing he was forced to steady.

Look, you got me to waste ten minutes of my life viewing the pan and head-on a few times. I suggest you do the same.

He might improve, but getting excited about his race yesterday doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.

There are a ton of stakes horses that did not run "fast" early in their careers. I've got the PPs for the Breeders Cup in front of me. Summer Bird debuted as a 3 year old in March at Oaklawn. He got beat by a length and he ran a 65 Beyer. In his next race, he won and he ran a 78 Beyer.

Mine That Bird was winning stakes races at Woodbine in September and October of his 2 year old year. In his wins in September and October he got 77 and 78 Beyers. When he broke his maiden in August, he only got a 71 Beyer.

When Noble's Promise broke his maiden in September, he got a 73 Beyer. Piscitelli got a 63 Beyer first-time out in July when he ran 2nd beaten a head. He came back and won and got a 72 Beyer.

Crown of Thorns got a 72 first-time out in December right before he turned 3. Biofuel got a 55 Beyer when she broke her maiden first-time out in July. Da' Funnybone won by 7 lengths first-time out but he only got a 70 Beyer (granted that was in May of his 2 year old year). The list goes on and on.

With any one of those horses, if you would have made a post about them, you would have had the numbers guys telling you that those horses were "slow".

I did watch both the pan and the head-on several times. I agree with alot of what you're saying. The second check was severe. The first check was only slight. The horse actually probably checked himself somewhat because he was in so tight. But I still view that as trouble and something that cost the horse position. And the 2nd check was obviously severe and was something that most horses would not recover from.

With an outside post, I think the horse would have won by 9-10 lengths.

And I think this is the kind of indefensible wishful thinking that causes people to lose their money. You have a horse that had an otherwise perfect trip, but had three lengths of trouble at most, somehow turning a 1 3/4 length win into a nine to ten length romp. It's typical racetrack over-exaggeration if you ask me.

He was 30 cents to the dollar yesterday. What would have been the appropriate amount of lengths he should have won by with an absolute perfect trip, as you are suggesting, given his competition?

I'm not sure I understand your question. How many lengths would he have won by with a perfect trip if he's an average horse or if he's a really good horse? How many lengths did the general public think he'd win by? As you said, they made him 1-3 so they obviously thought he was a stand-out that would win easily. I guess they probably thought he would win by 5-6 lengths.

Thus he didn't overachieve. He was about five lengths the best.

I am going to guess that you liked him at the 2YO sale, and perhaps recommended that some people could have or should have purchased him. Therefore, should he turn out to be OK, you will look good and perhaps be able to use this for your benefit. Now, don't get me wrong, if I am correct here, I see nothing wrong with that, and can't imagine what smart person wouldn't do the same. But, I do think it may be clouding your judgement and affecting your objectivity.

Sharp Post

You are partially right. I did like him at the 2YO sales but I didn't have any clients that were buying at either one of those sales (he was in 2 different sales) so I didn't recommend him to anyone.

A horse's work at a 2YO sale definitely influences my opinion because it gives me an opinion about a horse before he has even run. This is not to my detriment. Quite to the contrary, it makes me a lot of money betting. It often makes me more money in their 2nd or even 3rd career starts than in their debut. It's not easy to win first-time out. I obviously couldn't bet the horse yesterday because he was no price but there are plenty of times where these horses will just run mediocre first-time out and will come back and win 2nd time out or even 3rd time out.

With regards to the horse yesterday, my opinion of him at the 2YO sale definitely affects my opinion of him now. However, it doesn't affect my opinion on how much trouble I think he had.

I know DrugS and you are no DrugS

I hope your overall opinion at the 2YO sales is better than your assessment of his performance yesterday.

I should probably let this thread die a typical death, but reading some posts here really bugged me. The dismissive tone of many of these posts is unfortunate for a number of reasons.

I consider Rupert an invaluable source of information on 2-year-olds and other lightly raced horses. His eye for running ability is pretty much the only thing that will get me to bet on a maiden race. If he likes a horse in a maiden race, I will bet it, period.

I didn’t always have this view. I’m a speed figure guy, and Rupert is disdainful of speed figures. (If Rupert ever quotes a speed figure, it would probably be with the qualifier, “for you speed figure guys…”) So I was full of skepticism when I first encountered Rupert about 6.5 years ago. I had the same view as some of the posters in this thread: “I can’t believe this guy puts so much emphasis on how a horse LOOKS running!!”

Over the course of 2 years, I followed Rupert’s picks on over 600 races. He showed a remarkable 9% profit from those picks. These results were not skewed by one or two gigantic payoffs, either. They were all win or win/place bets on medium priced horses. The chance of getting a positive result over that many races by luck alone (without the help of big exotic payoffs) is pretty small.

Although Rupert included all kinds of races in his picks, it’s my opinion that his biggest strength was with the maidens he had personally seen work at Ocala and other sales. This was the kind of information that just wasn’t accessible to the vast majority of the betting public.

Speed figures are still the starting point for my own capping, but I would never dismiss any opinion of Rupert’s. And I bet seriously on any post of his with a title like “nice first-timer in 3rd at Oaklawn”. I wish he'd make more posts like that, or better yet, email them to me privately!

--Dunbar

No doubt he's good at this. But, he's clearly not an expert at TRIP HANDICAPPING. First thing a trip handicapper learns is to not give too much weight to the inside troubled trip (especially if the race sets up well for the troubled horse). Hard to believe that something as ELEMENTARY as this, borne out by simply watching races over time, is so difficult to comprehend for so many. To BTW's credit, he's still trying to educate while so many others have given up.

Then again, when one is an EXPERT in a given area, who can fault him for thinking he's an EXPERT in another (unrelated) area. :rolleyes:

a lot of doctors have gone broke in the stock market fat

a lot of stripper's have gone broke smoking crystal meth.

Shouldn't Obama be bailing out national treasures like Meth Stripper's Coach? Maybe we can organize a Charity Concert?

He should legalize prostitution and meth. That would solve the deficit.

It's unfortunate the religious nutters hate this fine country.

You are right. I am not a "trip handicapper". But you don't need to be a trip handicapper to know that taking up sharply at the 3/8th pole is not a good thing. Taking up sharply at the 3/8th pole is going to kill you almost every time.

If you have a horse stuck on the rail behind horses (but within striking range), saving ground all the way around the turn, I wouldn't call that a bad trip as long as the horse does not have to take up and as long as he gets out at the top of the stretch. Many people will mistaken that for a bad trip, when in reality, it is often times a really good trip.

If you are 7 lengths better then the field why is taking up at the 3/8th's SUCH a big deal. The horse laid over the field?

Kind of like the religious nutters that run this fine state that refuse to allow gambling? Williams should go back to his hole in eastern KY and never come back

Races are entities in and of themselves. There are flows to them and those part of the 'correct' flow for that race have a huge advantage.

Clearly, your horse had to check and lost ground. However, to that point it was saving ground and had the best of it, while 3 other horses were going at it on the front end. And, while it had to take back, it also, in a sense, got a break from chasing. Sooner or later, the speed was coming back and it was just a matter of who had done the least amount of running at the point where this happend. And this just happened to be your horse. It stumbled and bumbled its way home in poodle fractions (as all the others had run BEFORE it).

Now, there's no doubt it was probably the best in this race (the only horse I want back from it is the runner up) but I'd want to see it run in a FAIR race to see what it's made of. In other words, while your horse had trouble, it also got the advantageous setup. And, in its debut it showed that it can't run against it. Not saying the horse can't do it; just need to see it.

Your first thought, as is often the case, was your best thought.

Or, perhaps I misunderstood, and it was Rupert that you were needlessly chastising for being dismissive. Pardon my silliness. Maybe I should have followed your original advice....that you ignored.

happy gilmore..feelin' the flow..

AQU R7: #3 Hello Gold

CHECKED INSIDE at the rear of the pack going into the turn and had to take back

YET

she somehow, miraculously, worked her way between horses, came wide entering and got up late. :rolleyes:

another horse that wins after checking inside