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Originally Posted by largo1
Do you guys mostly just look at how fast they got the last quarter? I don't know, I'm trying to learn.
Suzanne
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You probably already know all of this, but just in case......
Works can be especially useful if you can detect a pattern between the way the horse has worked in the past and how he/she has performed in past races. In that respect, times alone CAN be helpful.
A good recent example of people failing to do this seemed to be last week's Lexington Stakes. I have to assume that Tomcito was bet down to the favorite largely because of his very fast work over the Keeneland surface in preparation for the race. People betting on him did not seem to take into account that Tomcito had posted a similar flashy workout over the Gulfstream surface in preparation for the Florida Derby, but then turned in a rather dull effort in that race as well. For Tomcito (and many others) fast works over a surface simply don't translate into fast races. Other horses tend to follow fast works with fast races and slow works with slow races. Like anything, each horse is a little different. Typically workouts only make a lot of sense as a handicapping tool if you know, and take into consideration, that particular horse's works-to-race history.
With synthetic tracks however, I think works have become a little more important in their own right than they were before, because you just have even more horses switching surfaces all of the time. When a colt works like Pyro did in preparation for the Bluegrass, it is a reasonably safe bet that he just didn't like the polytrack surface. So, in the case of the Kentucky Derby, I am very interested to see how colt's with no dirt form (like Colonel John) work over the CD surface, but far less interested in how horses that have more established dirt form look.