Cowtown Cat gets huge BRIS #. Cobalt Blue gets excused
 

Last week, in the three major KY Derby prep races, the host track carded only one other two-turn dirt route race on each occasion.

This not only makes things difficult for figure makers who split route and sprint variants, but it also makes it hard on analytical handicappers who are looking to evaluate these performances.

It's interesting to see that Cowtown Cat recieved the fastest number of the three preps on BRIS's computerized speed figures...and by a clear-cut margin. While Tiago recieved the slowest number. The Beyer figures had the opposite occuring.

In fact, the 108 BRIS figure by Cowtown Cat is OUTRIGHT the fastest BRIS number earned in any Derby prep. How strong is it? By comparison, Holy Bull's career best BRIS was a 112. Horse of the year A. P. Indy's career top BRIS was just a 110.

What no one's figure will tell you is that Cowtown Cat certainly had everything working in his favor Saturday. For instance,

* Of the 10 dirt races run at Hawthorne on Saturday, A remarkable 7 were won in wire-to-wire fashion! The three who failed all finished 2nd. Meaning, the horse who held the lead after a 1/4 mile compiled a dazzling 10-7-3-0 record. That seems to obviously indicate a potential speed bias.

* Inside posts have been dominant all meet at Hawthorne, and that trend continued Saturday. Post position 1 racked up four winners (paying $27.80, $11.00, $4.80, and $7.40) and had three 2nd place finishes. By simply boxing the three inside posts in exactas, you'd have hit five of ten exactas (paying $121.60, $23.80, $28.80, $88.60, and $21.00) and by simply boxing the four inside posts in trifectas, you'd have hit an amazing 7 out of 10 trifectas. In the ILL Derby, the four inside posts made up a $2,081.00 superfecta. Every winner on dirt raced inside for most of the running according to the charts.

Much like in Southwest Stakes with Hard Spun, heavily favored Cobalt Blue, who is typically a speed horse, found himself rating off a soft early pace, and three wide throughout on an inside-speed track. The result was a 7th place finish, beaten 18+ lengths, at even money odds. The most hardened students of trips will tell you that he ran just as good on Saturday, as he did in his SA Stakes win, where he had a DREAM front-end trip on a slow pace.

While Cobalt Blue was the victim of circumstances, Cowtown Cat was obviously strongly aided by them. If you believe the very modest 98 Beyer Speed figure he recieved---than he's a very good bet to finish 12th or worse in the Kentucky Derby. However, if you believe the spectacular 108 BRIS figure he earned, it's not quite as easy to assume he'll finish way up the track, however...it is highly unlikely that he gets everything in his favor like he did Saturday.

Super post. Thanks for posting it.

--Dunbar

Everybody who plans on betting the Derby should be THRILLED by the Illinois Derby result. DrugS is absolutely right. CC was the beneficiary of a set of circumstances that almost certainly will not be present in this horse's next start.
The best thing that can happen in these spring 3yo stakes is for horses that obviously have no chance to win the Derby (think SinMin last year) to win by a comfortable margin. It basically ensures that the general public will severely overbet these horses in the Derby, which of course, helps all of us. It means more going into a race like this because on Derby Day we aren't simply competing against other seasoned handicappers like we are on a cold and rainy February Thursday at Aqueduct. We are competing against a large pool of people who don't have a clue. The Illinois Derby just helped our chances.

P.S. I've been telling you guys for weeks now.....Cowtown Cat......16th!!!

Without knowing what the field will look like or the post. The one sure thing is no one should get an uncontested easy lead. Where we always are concerned about a calvery charge out of the gate. The real running will come out of the final turn and timing and jockeys taking the right path is the key. Im not sure who I like now but it looks like I described a Street Sense win. I wonder if a trainer with multiple entries , might give instruction for at least 1 of them to cover the inside hole,

Great post Drugs -- it's a systematic issue to consider most days at Hawthorne throughout the winter, when days without bias exist, but are the exception.

The one addition I would make to your post, is that 'Cat still came home in a more than acceptable time for his last three-eighths. So while the inside has been the place to be and the lead has been the place to be -- horses haven't been finishing their races that impressively on the front end at Hawthorne. So regardless of the fact that 'Cat was allowed to loaf on the front end early, he still came home very well without being ridden that aggressively by Jara in the final 1/16th.

For me, it's a very enigmatic performance. I don't know what to make of it.

Excellent post and I think this is a great way to discuss how one must analyze track conditions on a given day or over a season to see if winners were remarkable or simply beneficiaries of circumstance.

What stuck out to me and maybe it was a simple way to look at it was that this was a pretty good ride by Fernando Jara. He knew the three horses inside of him didn't have a lick of early speed and that if he beat Cobalt Blue to the first turn the track was basically going to carry him home. To me, that was the only scenario with which Cowtown could win. I did not believe for a second that he could run down a "loose on the lead" Cobalt Blue. So whether Fernando did this on his own or got instructions from whatever assistant was there representing Team Pletcher, it was the right way to do it.

NT

I use a scale similar to Beyer and I gave Cowtown Cat a 98. Since Haw absorbed the Spt meet, we see quite a few great rails in the spring meet. The fall meet has many more neutral tracks, and some dead rail days as well.

This is a great example of why computer driven numbers like BRIS makes are a dangerously deceptive product. I talked about this number with Beyer for a long time, and one of the main things he said was that 1 1/8 races, which are rarely run at Hawthorne, create hard to defend times. While War Emblem and Ten Most Wanted probably deserved the high numbers Beyer gave them for their Illinois Derbies, Greeley's Galaxy and Sweetnorthernsaint may not have. Fleet Indian earned a crazy high raw figure in her 1 1/8 win at Hawthorne last year as well.

Bold Start could've (AND SHOULD'VE) beaten Cowtown Cat to the lead but Melancon was hell bent on strangling him early. If he beats CC to the lead after a 1/4, he probably draws away by 5.

That's not entirely true as only a pathetically inept ride by Larry Melancon on Bold Start, who had post two, kept that one from perhaps wiring the field.

I suppose I agree considering Bold Start did show a little speed with Melancon at River last year. I imagine I didn't see Bold Start as a possibility wiring because I wasn't alive the last time Larry Melancon rode a wire to wire winner in a graded stakes race.

NT

It seems like every year we can count on the Illinios Derby for a huge number.
I use Bris but when I see a number that sticks out like this, I look for other ways to confirm it, say a comparision to other figures, etc.
CowTown Cats Bris numer jumped by 12 from his NY race. Was it actually that much better?

Longshot Reporting for Duty and Bold Start finished only 2-3 lengths behind Cowtown Cat. Would anyone expect that those two horses would also turn in efforts that would put then right with the leaders in the division? If it was a true 108 breakthru performance from CC, I would have expected a much larger margin between him and the rest of the field.

When Fleet Indian won that race with the insane raw number from last year, I believe there was a Graded Stake race for colts that was also run at 9 furlongs and went MUCH slower....albeit it may have been the worst Grade 3 for older males ever...and even still the massive gap in the times seemed fishy.

I think a case can be made that the other numbers you mention were all legit. SNS had a dream trip in that HAW win...and his tough trip 2nd in the Preakness two races later seemed to confirm that number to me. Greeley's Galaxy was bias aided and beat a lousy field by a lopsided margin. In War Emblem's case, he was an impressive Preakness winner two races later. Ten Most Wanted was 2nd in the Belmont two races later..and won the Travers later on.

As for Cowtown Cat's number, it's a hard figure to have any confidence in either way...and I don't even want to stab at it myself.

I agree though---the computerized version of speed figures are more likely to make a big mistake, and mistakes compound with figures, and as they add up the figures become less and less reliable.

war emblem did not run@hawthorne he ran his ILL derby at the"new" sportsmans which was heavily speed biased. yeah it was the long stretch in the biz but if you werent within 3 turnin for home you had zero chance

When you consider the fact he was greatly aided by an inside-speed bias, you have to assume he ran a top. The top four finishers all raced on the favorable rail path as well. I believe the 1st, 2nd, and 4th were on it just about every step of the way.

Even if the Bris number is right, and I'm certainly not saying it is, you'd have a winner who is likely to go backwards because of the circumstances he took advantage of. And, even the horses behind him all had the advantage of racing inside.

That racetrack Saturday was like the old KEE track before they installed the poly.

that racetrack is like that much of the spring and fall. usually when its cold here it favors speed tremendously. my friends uncle whos been going to the track for 50 years here in chicago makes his picks for each race and bets them but regardless whom he likes he boxes 1,2,3 every single race

Yep, Three Hour Nap won a dreadful rendition of the National Jockey Club G3. Summer Book ran second and Courthouse (still looking to clear his NW3X condition...)ran third and was later DQ'ed. For kicks, favorites Colita and Evening Attire ran a long looking last and second to last. That race was just awful, but Fleet Indian ran a monster race and the time was very swift given the surface is was run over which has a tendency to produce less than stunning raw times.

Bris Pace figures
 

I'm wondering what the 3 BRIS pace figures show for this race compared to earlier CC races. For me that's usually a better indicator than the BRIS speed figure. Anyone know?

I don't have pps/pace figures from this race.

I'm amazed though, the allegiance by which handicappers adhere to Beyer speed figures--and little else. I've assumed, for the most part, that they were a starting point in a process.