Gomez Bringing Home Price Horses

[Rupert Pupkin]

Originally Posted by dalakhani

I share your same appreciation for Gomez but i dont know if i agree with the bolded statement. Would Pval really move a late closing turf horse up?

Different jockeys do things in different situations. You dont think horses run really well for Castellano? Prado will never have a good ROI anymore simply because he is almost always going to be on chalk whether its a false favorite or not. When given the opportunity, Edgar use to bring shots home left and right. Same for JV.

To be a really good "chalk" jockey you have to be exceptional out of the gate. Edgar is a great gate jockey and Gomez isnt nearly as good. Pval is one of the best in the world. Do you guys think that there is any merit to that?

P Val and Gomez don't move every horse up, but they move a lot of horses up. I think they move horses up more than any of the other jockeys. You will often see Gomez finish 2nd or 3rd even when he's on the 4th or 5th best horse. He positions them perfectly and gets the maximum amount of run that you can get out of a horse. That is why he has the highest percentage of horses finishing in the money of any jockey at Saratoga. That's a pretty amazing statistic considering that he's not riding nearly as much chalk as the other guys. It's amazing how he'll be on some lousy 15-1 shot with no chance and he'll manage to somehow finish 3rd just by being in the right position and picking up the pieces.

With regards to your contention that Prado is better out of the gate than Gomez, I really don't know. I really haven't watched Prado out of the gate that much. watching jocks come out of the gate is not something that I focus on that much because I think that all of these jockeys are good out of the gate. I don't see too much difference from one jock to another with the exception of P val who seems to break better than anyone.