Zenyatta sure to be wronged by vindictive number nerds
 

The Beyers aren't out for yesterday's SA races yet - but Zenyatta ran 6 points faster than Sidney's Candy did in his San Felipe victory.

The longshot maiden Stephen's Got Hope - who was 7th in a MSW race last time out - finished 5th beaten 5 lengths behind Sidney's Candy.

Erebia finished dead last of 7 in Sidney's Candys race - beaten all of 5.75 lengths. His previous lifetime best figure is 80.

Lets assume Erebia ran well enough while finishing last to equal his best lifetime number of 80 - that would give Sidney's Candy a 90 and Zenyatta a 96.

Dance To My Tune would get a 94 for running 2nd to Zenyatta - which would be the best figure of her life in career start #30.

In fact, Pretty Kathrine would get a 86 for finishing 7th. That would mean that she also ran a lifetime best number - by open lengths - in career start #16 - while only managing to beat a single horse in a field of eight.

In other words ... it's pretty impossible to justify Zenyatta getting anything more than a 96. Even that number is really stretching it.

She's obviously going to get a lower number in that glorified workout than the 100 RA got yesterday in defeat. I can only imagine the outrage.

John Shirreffs is a God.

I still believe that synthetic Beyers don't mean squat when handicapping a race.

If you say it about Beyers - you're saying it about Thoro-Graphs and Ragozins and everyone elses figures as well.

They're basically all the same ... and RA is going to get a faster number in defeat on everyones figures because she ran faster.

Even though Zenyatta got a great pace setup - a lot of people are going to make a case that Zenyatta could have run faster if she was put to an all-out drive.

Just like a lot of people are going to make a case that RA has a right to improve significantly because she hadn't run in over a half year - and had a light worktab for a terrible layoff trainer.

i agree, those numbers mean squat when they change tracks too. i never put too much faith in the "numbers" anyway. will they give you some winners ? yes. but, learning how to read the racing form and anticipate outcomes of the way a race is going to run is way more important. anyone with any horse sense knew that rachel would have a hard time coming back after 6 and 1/2 months. shes a front end kind of horse that had a grueling schedule. the fact of the matter is she may never come back to that form again. i've been doing this for so long and have seen many horses go this route, especially the fillies and mares. i'm glad there are numbers people because it gives alot of overlays. every surface is different and every horse reacts differently to the surface. trying to correspond some sort of number to the performance and then projecting it to the next race is fine at the same meet. when the surface changes those numbers are just about worthless. zenyatta runs to win not for numbers. she sits back and exerts just enough energy to pass every one. if the race is slow she wins "slow", but as we've seen when the competition is better she can step up her game. a horse with her style and brains is very, very hard to beat. the number she gets means nothing.

Anyone who uses them as the sole tool for "giving winners" is certainly going to lose money betting. They'll lose about 3/4 or 7/8 of the takeout over the long run.

They tell you absolutely nothing other than how fast the final time of the race was from start to finish - with the speed of the racing surface factored in.

Anyone who thinks they aren't important when gauging horses from different circuits is out of their mind.

Zenyatta -102 per a DRF tweet.

I'm shocked, never thought she would break 100

That's a downright horrible figure .. but I love it when we're off by that much.

Basically ... if you believe that Zenyatta ran a 102 today .. you believe that every single horse she beat ran by far the best race of their lives. You also have to believe that soundly beaten horses (behind a slow pace no less) in the San Felipe surged to career best numbers.

If Zenyatta gets a 102 ...

* 2nd place Dance to My Tune runs the best race of her life by 5 full lengths in career start #30. She gets a 100

* 3rd place Floating Heart runs the best race of her life by 5 full lengths.

* 4th place Striking Dancer runs the best race of her life by 4 full lengths. And 7 full lengths better than her 2nd best prior race.

* 5th place Pretty Unusual runs the best race of her life by 4 full lengths.

* 6th place Made For Magic - in career start #30 - runs the best race of her life

* 7th place Pretty Kathrine - while only managing to beat a single horse - ran the best race of her life by 4.5 lengths.

* 8th and last place finisher Gripsholm Castle - despite taking up sharply - runs the same figure while last at 9/1 odds today that she did while a dream trip 2nd at 18/1 odds in the Grade 2 La Canada last time out.

I think the figure maker did a wonderful job of not showing an Anti West Coast Bias or anti synthetic bias. It's very important to not make hopelessly stupid people think you might be biased in some way.

I just feel sorry for any bettors who will take the figures of the horses Zenyatta beat at face value when these horses run back. They'll all be "dropping in class" out of a "Grade 1" with "big figures" .. nice collection of future bet againsts.

don't shoot the messenger... Even if I did quote a "tweet".

I came up with 92 give or take a point and thats was just based on the track and not looking at pp's.

so the winner of the third race, a career mdn, got around a 105?

The figures are meaningless, pretty much they are made up. Best is to use the last furlong come home time and then just old fashioned trip handicapping.

I have heard many references to RA was not geared for yesterday....and Shirreffs had Zenyatta cranked for the santa margarita?

Are you kidding!? It's the best news I've heard all morning. I'd rather be way off than dead on their number.

I really need to get a life. I'm trying to watch the OBS March under-tack show live on my comp .. and somethings not working.

It may also have something to do with trying to preserve devotees' faith in their figures. If a speed figure is supposed to represent an accurate reflection of a horse's performance, I think they'd be hard pressed to have Rachel Alexandra come in with a figure higher than Zenyatta. This is especially the case when a Fair Grounds allowance race yesterday produced an identical time to the New Orleans Ladies, off a 49.1 half.

Whoever is making Beyers for SoCal routes is completely clueless, and has been for a long time.

Helps the price on Rachel.

Nonsense. The Zardana-RA figure is rock solid.

The winner of the allowance race freaked and ran huge.

He ran multiple triple digit Beyers at Fair Grounds last year .. and was 2nd beaten just a length to Macho Again in the Grade 2 New Orleans Handicap.

They have the 2nd place horse in that alw race pairing up - the 3rd place horse going slightly backwards - and the 4th place horse going way backwards. It was a 7 horse field.

And in the days other route race .. they have a perfect trip 4/5 favorite winner in an 11 horse field winning with a 37.

People can pretend that Zardana isn't a real horse on dirt all they want. She's now 4-for-4 on the surface with her 4 wins coming by a combined 40 lengths.

.....i cant remember the beyers rachael got with her bang up race over the synthetic but it seems all horses get low figs over the stuff....i mean sydney got less than a 100 going 20 and change:confused:

So what's the big deal that Rachel was 4 or 5 lengths slower then she will be 4 weeks? She ran ok, wasn't 100% fit, and needs some more work to get back to herself. Running a 100 fig off the bench and being at 90% is far from worrisome? I also think that she could have won yesterday if Borel would have sent her earlier...so if she was 1length faster all would be well in horsey land?

MGM Mirage matchup
 

Current matchup for Apple Blossom:

Zenyatta -170
Rachel + 150

.....i agree, i thought he strangled her.

Kindly requesting permission to post this elsewhere if it comes up?

You may very well be right that Zardana will turn out to be a serious horse on dirt. I bet Zardana yesterday, because I thought Jackson/Asmussen emptied the tank with Rachel last year and she was not likely to return the same horse in 2010 as in 2009.

I was only speculating as to why the Santa Margarita figure seems to have been "fudged" upwards (based on your own projections) in a big way. Maybe, as other posters have suggested, the conclusion that we should draw is that the figures are meaningless on synthetic surfaces.

Feel free.

Per DRF in the story by Marcus Hersh:

"Borel said he rode to instructions, and would have preferred to have let Rachel take the lead earlier.

'I wanted to go on past the speed horse early,' Borel said. 'I'd have got by her anytime and my filly could have gone on, but they wanted me to wait and not get into her until the sixteenth pole.'"

Have to wonder if Assman will be happy with Borel throwing him under the bus.

Humbly, as I am a know-nothing novice compared to some of you, but regardless of speed figures, am I wrong to think that Zenyatta showed amazing athleticism for such a large animal down the stretch? To my untrained eye she looked like Barry Sanders, cutting hard inside and then back out, never losing a step. Is that type of footwork some kind of illusion, or is there something to be said for it?

Please understand, in the RA vs. Z war, I'm RA all the way. But Zenyatta's last two performances have really got me wondering if I jumped on the right bandwagon.

That is exactly what I thought. Hopefully he gets a pass because he gets pulled and people will go apeshit!

I don't think anyone was questioning the ride. So I don't know either why Borel chimed in and insisted on rubbing it in futher on Assman. According to the quote from the Bloodhorse originally posted by Dani, Ass was accepting the blame for her being short. I wonder if Borel's personal feelings for the horse will now end up costing him the mount on her.

Zenyatta is probably more Ironhead Heyward than Barry Sanders .. but yeah, Smith looked vintage Ramon Dominguez-esque with that ride.

I would be a lot more critical of Smith's ride ... if only I hadn't seen Dominguez win like hundreds of Delaware races on short priced horses just like that. Almost never getting stopped and weaving to victory while winning handily instead of just looping around.

I'll tell you this much ... let's say Zardana never ran in New Orleans. What happens?

1.) Rachel Alexandra wins by 12 lengths under a lazy hand ride from Borel.

2.) The final time comes back less than stellar. She gets the same 100 Beyer but a lot of people foolishly assume she would have run a lot faster "if asked" She runs hard to the wire regardless of urging.

3.) Everyone would be falling over themselves to mock that pathetic horse who finished 2nd to Zenyatta. The horse had been 4th or worse in like 10 of her last 11 races.

4.) The line wouldn't be Zenyatta (-170) VS RA (+150) .. RA would certainly be at least a slight favorite.

5.) DrugS would become alarmingly unopinionated on this match-up. Probably just mumbling up something about how good a trainer Shirreffs is when pointing...and how cool the race will be to watch.

Damn good analysis from you both. Quoted for truth.

I thought the NO Ladies figure was a bit high but it actually does fit well when considering the quality of the allowance field and what Rachel had done at FG in the past. Also, clearly Zardana is a very good dirt filly- better than any of us had predicted (except for perhaps Drugs who gave her a 95 "Brasil Figura".)

Simply won't be denied. RA can work her ass off, it won't matter.

Zardana has run credible races on three surfaces, she just is a decent little horse. I have no idea where people get this she suddenly became something different in her 100 beyer figure effort yesterday.

its gonna pay well after its all over..good job in all your hard work doug

Isn't it a significant difference between a 101 Beyer and a 96 Beyer (her previous high)?

Not when turf and synthetic beyers are pretty much moot.

My wife follows horse racing about as much as I follow grey's anatomy, and even she knew Rachel might be a bit short yesterday. Agreed, no big deal.

I wish I gave her a 95.

Looking at when she was foaled and when those races took place .. it was basically a 2yo filly going 7 furlongs.

Afleet Alex won the Grade 1 Hopeful at 7fs with a 90. Ashado won the Grade 1 Spinaway at 7fs with a 84. Vineyard Haven won the Hopeful with a 84.

I think there was pretty strong proof that her numbers could be as high as 85 in those races... which would place her on par with our Grade 1 caliber 2yo's.

On top of that .. she was a monumental flop when she first came over here. She beat a grand total of just 3 horses in her first four races in the country.

Yet, she slowly got better and better to the point of winning a Grade 2 on cushion track two starts back. She looked like a true turf/synthetic hater who was very slow to adjust and develop.

I made that number up... not that it matters though. Your analysis indicated her quality on dirt at 2.

Also, Zardana's "synthetic" win came on the very much mostly dirt cushion track at Hollywood.

You can only count what she did before coming here, and what she's done with Cher' Riffs. The trainer she had in-between has been pretty much dormant for at least 10 years (Pine Box back ordered.) You can see how all this owner's stuff feels just a bit better when modern enhancements have been added by his 3 new trainers.

All works yesterday/today were wind aided or hampered

Huge head wind Yesterday and Today But I think Yesterday Was Worse.
I was one of the Faithful THat was sitting there CLocking all the Gallop outs