Quote:
Originally Posted by Calzone Lord
That is the key reason that makes her very helpful in her role. Migliore is very good with this as well.
Even if you can trust that someone is a very good judge at looking at horses in the flesh ... they aren't much help unless they have seen the horse in prior races before and have made, at the very least, a good mental note.
I'm not interested at all in hearing how a horse looks and is behaving before a race ... unless the same person can tell me how the horse has looked and behaved before prior races.
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To demonstrate a case of what I'm talking about... think Shackleford before the Preakness.
The tv analyst on horseback made a huge deal about how washed out he was and how "everyone looks fine right now except for Shackleford. He's washed out, acting up, and looks like he's already run his race"
That behavior wasn't that unusual for him ... a lot of his form was established with the same type of behavior... and he went out and outgamed Animal Kingdom in the stretch to win that Preakness.
The focus should be on change of appearance and change of behavior. The handicapper is using past form as the basis for his betting decisions ... if a horse is washed out and acting up today, but was also washed out in each of his last few races ... big deal. I'm only interested when the new information suggests a change.