Andy Beyer, Dutrow, DRF

[The Indomitable DrugS]

Originally Posted by King Glorious

Someone on another forum asked a question that I found very interesting. While I understand where Beyer was coming from with the article and I do agree with his point of view, one of reasons he cited for pointing out This Ones For Phil's sudden huge improvement from a figure standpoint. So part of what made the argument was the jump from a career best of 81 to a 117, a 36 point jump. What kind of jump would be considered acceptable? I remember when Bellamy Road got that 120 and he had never been anywhere close to that before. Midway Road got a 124 and hadn't come close to that before. Would a 20-25 point increase for TOFP had been ok? Would Beyer still have written the article if TOFP had gotten a more normal 109 or so? The question comes up now when looking at the number for Haynesfield in the Damon Runyon. He received a 101 originally but it's been downgraded to a 93 now because of the subsequent form of the field in their next races. What if down the line somewhere, the number for TOFP is downgraded to a 109? While still a huge jump, it wouldn't have generated nearly the same attention the 117 did.

Midway Road was a Keeneland freak. I got sucked into betting him good in the Preakness off of a Kee win .. he also won like a monster as a 2yo at KEE and the 124 you speak of came when he was an older horse at KEE.

Bellamy Road won his allowance race comeback at GP by about 16 lengths and his Wood Memorial win was 2nd off of a layoff.

I would say neither performance was as suspicious as This Ones For Phils.