BEYER: Poly's Anti-Speed Bias

[saratoga guy]

Originally Posted by blackthroatedwind

If we can't use current races to help predict the future they have no value to any handicapper in the ongoing process.

I wouldn't dispute that. What I do dispute is that because Race A might not offer any insight into how Race B will be run, then we should question why Race A was run.

Maybe more importantly though -- we don't even know that the Blue Grass won't add some insight. It might be a matter of us -- as handicappers -- adjusting. We probably have to give it four or five years before we know for sure.

For instance, a lot of players feel that a turf-to-dirt move will "wake up" a horse and bring about some improvement. It's not a direct correlation. You can't necessarily rely on the time or the pace or the figures from the turf race -- but there's been a large enough sample over time to know that the move can often lead to an improved effort.

Perhaps after four or five runnings of the Blue Grass on Poly we'll see runners that come out of the race do well in the Derby. We might not be able to make a direct correlation with the times, the pace or the figures of the Blue Grass -- but we'll know that those runners do well, and we can add that info to everything else on the PPs to make a decision.

It's still a very limited sample -- but certainly the move from Poly to Churchill in last year's BC Juvie doesn't seem to indicate that it leads to a particularly chaotic handicapping conundrum.