comedic relief
 

pretending that you can tell what a horse is thinking isn't hard.

but not everyone could make up a semi-scientific sounding name like "emotional confirmation" to describe it. not without cracking a smile.

and then to write an entire book where you apparently present your fevered imaginings as fact?

you have my respect kerry thomas.

and just in case anyone asks, i didn't actually read the book.

but i imagined what was in it which is almost the same thing.

Who needs to read it? "Kerry emphatically states Zenyatta is the highest level herd dynamic mare he has ever seen, on all levels."

oh my. my first thought while reading the article was 'how absurd'.

A fancy way to tell us the filly is slow IMO

:D

yeah, they could have saved the verbiage. k.i.s.s. is a good rule of thumb.

I think it makes a lot of sense.

When I drive I'm always looking around and making moves based on the cars around me. Who hasn't picked off a car targeted ahead, or keep an a-hole driver pinned in when you have the chance.

You can especially tell the dynamics with me when you pass and look through my window. Clearly you'll see my head bob in rhythm to the other drivers around me, unless I'm making a bold move at which point it will be faster.

I tend to decide between Kentucky Derby riding jockey or Gizmo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qOg7JbocL4

Ah, Gremlins. Featuring the supposedly most whacked off to woman in human history!

One of those TMI moments between you and Douglas?

No.

>>>For those not familiar with Kerry, he is the founder of The Thomas Herding Technique (THT), author of Horse Profiling: The Secret to Motivating Equine Athletes, and a pioneering researcher in the fields of equine communication and herd dynamics, among other things. I am THT's director of equine services. Our company specializes in the study of herd motion (aka a horse race), the minds and emotions of horses, and behavioral genetics.<<<

Then an entire article about how some horses are naturally closers, while other prefer to press or run on the front. And some horses need blinkers to stay focused.

If he gets paid for this he's a friggin' genius

It doesn't take much too fool a lot of people in this industry ... especially the ones in Lexington.

and the payor would be friggin stupid...plenty of those to go around. back in the day, he'd be called a snake oil salesman.

No. I read that in some sort of survey results. Phoebe Cates in Fast Times.

At least, way way back in the day, the type of snakes harvested for snake oil were ultra rich in omega 3s and other nutrients, and it actually was a useful product.

This emotional horse stuff is complete nonsense.

PHOEBE CATES

That was a great scene to watch as a 14yr old boy...just great

Exactly my point.

The thing is, what that guy does is basically "analyze" stuff we all notice like horses hanging when they look like they're about to go to the lead or how mares like Zenyatta or Blind Luck seem to know where the finish line is. It's not like he's needed to detect that stuff, and unless it's going to impact how you train a horse or whether you buy them, I don't know why you'd hire him. If he could pinpoint a problem and you now know to fix it, that'd be one thing. The opinion itself isn't particularly helpful and it's got a touch of 'dog psychologist' about it when he interprets Eblouissante's thought processes.

There's a video on Youtube where he's talking to Baffert about this herd analysis. Bob's expression is pretty priceless.

My favorite part of that article...

"But unlike Zenyatta, Eblouissante relies on the individual dynamic for most of her forward movement. Zenyatta only exerted her individual dynamic when she had to (when she encountered a talented and stubborn foe)."

Really? Like those talented and stubborn 16k claimer types she was beating by desperate noses?

I would also like to know why, if Z had such an awesome herd dynamic, why did she not just go to the lead at the start, or at the very least, earlier in the race?

Link us!

Zenyatta has a nurturing side, which she displayed by not running past her opponents until the very last possible moment. This left her opponents with the feeling that they had won. Zenyatta cares.

She was the Bill Brasky of horses

Maybe it's something about her name that causes some people to say remarkably stupid things about her.

Like that it's in English?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5otgqYgftw

It's been awhile since I've seen it and I think I was projecting a bit of my 'uh..riiiight' onto Bob because he's trying to go with it in the parts that I looked at for a second to make sure it was the right video. This is 10 min. long.

I'd like to see a horse that wasn't fulfilling its potential until this guy analyzed the situation and they made some changes.

I ended up hunting that down last night and viewed it.

My thoughts watching that were that Baffert was being paid for his video appearance, and was trying his hardest to make it sound like he believed in that crap.

I would have loved to see him interviewing Cannon Shell

That would have been interesting.

Hell, I'm eagerly anticipating the day when Stauffer uses this stuff in a race call.

"She's got the speed of Blind Luck, the class of Ashado, the color of Lady's Secret and the herd dynamics of Zenyatta!"

Any good handicapper looks for the good and bad attributes a horse has. How a horse handles different types of surfaces and situations, etc.

This guy tries to do the same thing...but in a hilariously BS kind of way.

We all know a horse like a Perfect Drift or Dynever had a lot of hang to them as they got older ... he would explain it by going off into some mumbo jumbo herd dynamics rant ... where as a rational person doesn't try to explain why PD became a hanger... they just call him a hanger.

wow that is the two best examples of a hanger i could ever think of..:tro:

Yeah, it's not just calling Perfect Drift a hanger, it's figuring out a way to correct it. Otherwise it's useless because bettors who are paying attention to a horse already know they have a tendency to hang from looking at the same things this guy did. They don't need herd dynamics to tell them, so it doesn't even have a practical betting application.