Discreet Cat's Beyer was a 115
 

He got a 115. I find it hard to believe it was only a 115 but the Beyer figures which I used to think were really good are proving to be useless anyway.

Yes, I expected a bit higher than that, an outdated handicapping tool I guess

No - the track was playing fast and that he factored in the track variant for the day as previously mentioned by Mr Oracle, which resulted in a lower Beyer than expected. I'm guessing he has the number pretty close to being right , adjusted for variant. I am sure the other speedfigure people will also do something similar.

NC Tony

that's actually a pretty good number. they can't all run 120's, 125's! and as has been stated, the track itself was playing very fast. remsen was the fastest in almost 30 years. beyer figures are supposed to take things like that into consideration.
now if he ran a hole in the wind, and no one else, than yes, his beyer should have been much higher.

Guess it is actually a 116. Not much difference. Pretty impressive because unlike those deceptive Bernardini efforts where it looks like he was jogging but may have been going all out, there clearly was a little more in the tank of Discreet Cat. Amazing for a 3yr old. Not too many undefeated horses around any longer.

The times in the first couple of races on the card were faster than normal. So I guess he adjusted for a race track that was playing faster than normal.

Randall I guess it fell a little short of zapper's Met huh?
The problem with taking this great race at face value based on time was the speed of the surface, and the fact that awarding DC a zapper number would mean that both Badge and Silver Train ran near career bests as well. This was my opinion on why the race wasn't as fast fig wise as the raw time screamers wanted you to believe.
An exceptional performance(especially visually, he had gears, and stopped and started at will, now THAT impresses me more than the time) but Badge and Silver, in my opinion, are not the horses they once were and I had a hard time believing that moster of all figs was run yesterday with both of those getting beat three lengths.
Fig sounds about right, and it was a great performance.

Oh Lord, DaHoss this is the same guy that lectured us about more being in Bern's tank because of so called hand rides.
Will say this just one more time, because obviously some people don't get it yet.
On a car trip 13 years ago I was listening to a Ragozin seminar on audio tape(I know many and most here use Thorograph, and I'm sure jerry Brown has done the same study, but since I have never heard it I am using Rag semianr I DID hear as point of story), Friedman was the guy doing it and I don't remember much else of teh tape but one thing really stuck and resinated with me that I've used with great success since then in asessing races. I, also, used to watch horses win "eased up" or under hand rides, and say and beleive that the horse would run even faster when pushed.
The Ragozin guys did a study and found that almost all horse ran lifetime tops in these "easy wins". It was a total fallacy that when "pushed" they would run faster.
Easy wins ar a result of optimimum energy distribution, being able to run at the speed you wanna run and moving when you wanna move.
Dc ran a great race yesterday, but he had an ideal setup and was asked to run the last part and thats when he spurted away impressively.
To me the tank was fuilly used, he wasn't going any faster than he did, which is quite fast enough to beat just about anybody in training. But to say he could have gone faster and wasn't used is a joke.

Mike, aren't you the guy who slams Beyers as worthless every chance you get. Let's wait for the Thoro number before you wet your pants.

Incidently,
Did Zapper ever run a 115 in his 3 yr old season. Nope, Discreet has done it 2 times....But Discreet is not in the air of a Zapper yet and I didn't say he was. I simply put that I thought the performance was Zapperesque. No more, no less. His 4yr old season will show us the way.

Won't be much different in its relation to his previous races.
I think it will be the same number hes been running.
This race was one I had to think about a long time before posting any thoughts on how good it was, and I'm sure mssrs Brown and Ragozin will not be quick to assign the number.
I'm not real big on using the performance of the runners up to make a number on the winner. But in this case the current form of the runners up who were beatn by 3 lengths, and the speed of the track in the one turn races yesterday made it impossible for me to think he'd run a number commensurate with the way people were talking about the race.
Thats not a knock on a great race, far from it.

This very well may be the case Randall. He may turn out to be the all time greatest. I'm not saying it isn't possible, because his raw talent is incredible.
But Ghost's Vosburgh was every bit the race that DC's Cigar was, every single bit.

Discreet Cat=Undefeated Track Record Holder.

Ghostzapper= Loser to Valid Video and Great Notion.


Valid Video. Great Notion.

Ghost who?

Ghostzapper got a 116 in the Vosburgh as a 3YO.

Discreet's number in this is a 116 as well. Of course Ghost wasn't giving weight to elders in the Vos, in fact he got a break....But no matter.

Discreet Cat goes 5 for 5 next year and retires undefeated and he will join the all-time greats. Ghostzapper is never getting there.

Not sure the argument, and I never understood the reluctance to either admit that Ghostzapper was an exceptional animal, or detract from one horse because another is good.

Right now Ghostzapper has Grade 1 wins at 6 1/2 furlongs, one mile, 1 1/8 miles and 1 1/4 miles, each one in exceptionally fast time. Discreet Cat has the opportunity to at least reasonably match that. I think ALL racing fans hope that he at least gets that opportunity. Nothing he does will diminish Ghostzappers accomplishments and awesome performances.

See Ghostzapper is already there, so that's unfair. I venture to say that Discreet is a consistently faster 3 yr old. That's all you can say at this point.

Just pointing it out Andy. As I've said many times on here, I believe Zapper and Mineshaft were the 2 best horses since Spec Bid. Obviously Zapper was a unique and dynamic a horse as you are going to see....And the way Discreet runs is similar at least so far.

Ghostzapper retired with a grand total of 4 grade 1 wins in 4 years of racing.

Invasor won that many this year alone.

Discreet Cat will likely finish with 5 or 6 in 3 years of racing. He has to win them though or obviously he is not an all-time great. He would likely win the Dubai Classic, Breeders Cup Classic, Met Mile type race, Whitney, and JCGC and have to beat Invasor to do it all. Not easy, but if he does it, he is an all-time great.

I agree with that. But he still has to do it.

In that photo was the LAST time you'll EVER get 5-1 on him again! :D

I am confused, Discreet Cat ( and for that matter NoBizlikeshowbiz ) didn't even run at Aqueduct yesterday....or at least that's what Revolution's alter ego George Washington told us last week.

If I had their money I wouldn't be here wasting my time talking to you. :eek:

Spoken like a true genius.

Thanks Mike, that was some good info to read.

Wow, I'm actually starting to have a little bit of faith in Beyer numbers. That 115 is about what DC deserves. The track was ridiculously fast.

DC is very good. Much better than Bernardini ever was or ever would be. DC's not Ghostzapper. And don't hold your breath about seeing him much next year.

I am sure everyone at Beyer Associates is breathing a deep sigh of relief.

Of course, there's still that little matter of the 116 (cough, cough) Beyer gave Sinister Minister in April.

Beyer better start offering a dental plan over there.

That was obviously a very difficult number to make...as is any that are made for races run, and won, over extremely biased surfaces. You are probably right, it should have been higher, but I guess one could say they erred on the side of caution.

Certainly any handicapper that expected that number to be even remotely duplicated on Derby Day is long broke and whatever he ( or she ) lost on that hopeless no shotter is inconsequential relative to their continued horseplaying losses.

it's called hitting your stride. as a runner, i was lucky enough to have done it a couple of times. no feeling like it in the world. like you can run all day, fast as you ever have, without losing your breath at all. i loved it when i did it, you're almost invincible! unless of course someone else does it at the same time!!
and believe me, the times i had it happen, i wasn't being pressured by another runner.

"O",
Thanks for posting this.
I agree completely.
If the tank is full, it goes..."moving when you wanna move".
If the tank is empty, no amount of stepping on the gas is going to make it go any faster.
In other words, as the old saying goes..."Makes no sense beating a dead horse."
DTS

The 116 wasn't necessarily "wrong", but never to ever be duplicated. As noted above by someone quoting Ragozin, horses run their best (sometimes freakish) numbers when they get the perfect setup, and that's exactly what Sinister Minister had as the lone speed in the race AND the Keeneland rail conveyor belt to boot. There wasn't a chance in the world he'd ever run back to that on Derby Day, or any other day for that matter.

Who cares what his beyer was. If he won and his beyer was 95 would that keep you from betting him in his next race? I don't think so. Beyers are one of the components that play a role in handicapping. Beyers coupled with times are a good tool.

Weren't you the one just saying that we shouldn't care about times? Do you even think about what you write anymore?

Its about a blend of things, in varying degrees of importance.
After the 3rd race on Saturday, which was laughable when those two "noble steeds" went 7f in rocketship time, I told the guy I was talking to that the Cigar would go in 32 and change easily.
Thats why I didn't join in the unending praise about the horse based on his raw time in the race.
I think that was pretty rational.
I think his sheet number will be in line with his last two races, still great, but not representing anything more than what he had already shown us.
What did impress me more than anything were the "gears" he showed.
His tractability and being able to start and stop on command were very impressive. It showed us that he has a fine mind, and that in teh heat of battle he can run as fast as he does when he has things his own way.
I do think the setup he got was as perfect as one could ever hope for.
By that I mean the speed horse who had seemingly no shot to win going out and doing the dirty work on Silver Train and forcing him to rush up and engage in blistering fractions on the inside.
Figures are 1/2 the equation, how they ACCOMPLISH the figure is the other half.
Euro seems to waver back and forth on everything, and most of what he posts is to try and get reactions out of folks and its tiresome.
Folks who can't seem to form and post enough intelligent thoughts who therefore go to the ole "I'll try and get a reaction out of people" posts are low on my list of "must read posters".

Tracks are always super fast when a horse sets a track record. Aqueduct was on Saturday and I'd bet it was also super fast the day Easy Goer ran in 1989. It can be weather or the way they work the track or, most likely, both but that's what I've always seen.

I just wish Gomez had pushed a little more late or that the others had held on a 1/16th more or whatever and that the final time was 1/5 faster. I know the colt was was going as fast as he could, but in an all out drive, who knows? It's not inconceiveable that under greater pressure DC could have responded and gone a click faster. At the same time, the 3rd qtr really put him into his fastest gear and he just maintained it to the wire, so maybe not.

All I know is they run a lot of mile races on the Aqueduct main and there have been plenty of super fast tracks there for G1 mile races over the years.

Horse ran incredible. Good enough for me.