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Originally Posted by King Glorious
Handicapping 101. The longer the races, the slower the paces tend to be and the harder it is for closers to win. The shorter the races, the faster the paces and more contested and the more likely u are to see the pace-setters wilt and set it up for a closer.
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Hardly that simple. The last time I counted, closers had won almost half the Ky derby in the last 60 years. Ive already posted the list a couple of times, so PM if you need more evidence....Front runners/Pressers won about 25%. Dont know why so many people cling to this belief but it seems well known that the classic winning trip in the derby is the wide closing path. Doesnt win all the time or even most of the time, but more than the others...
see the part that you are omitting, and part of why it seems so simple. Is that you are omitting the fact that we got twenty horses in the derby. THere are bound to be 5 or more types that want the lead. You cant help but set torrid fractions. You know on another board someone mentioned the "well known fact" that opening fractions in the derby are usually hot. WEll yeah, perhaps you dont agree but in any event this is another reason to think that your theory is not so simple as you make it sound.
Another part that complicates it is we are seeing a lot of good miler types being asked to do 8 1/2; 9 f at this time of year and then asked to go 10f in another month. It is not a long time we have to evaluate these types and determine if they go onto get 10f or not. We dont have a million races or even 3 or 4 to evaluate them on the ability to go 10f. So you have to start looking at the final fractions very closely.
Another problem w/ Jazil example (prolly a bad example on my part) is they had him closing from 20 lengths back in that Wood but I have my doubts; we have seen enuf messed up charts having to do with closers that move up in between calls. (Geez anyone remember last years derby chart and how effed up it was? Derek being headed by Jazil in midstretch?? Bris had Jazil home in 23.6?? The front runners ran 26.5 in the fourth quarter??? oh I could go on).
Someone above mentioned how many front runners and closers there seem to be. In my opinion this year actually seems to have less closers than usual. I dunno maybe its me, or maybe some horse that's a stalker will wind up being a closer in May. Like Fu Peg, there are a few derby winners that had to do that. I dont see the front runners being all that suicidal this year, I think this years field seems to have an inordinate amount of pressers e.g. AGS, Cowtown, etc.