Ghostzapper charts

[avance2000]

it is still fun to look at numbers like that sometimes.
in his last 5 races he had 4 beyer figs that exceeded 120. the one race where he didn't he only ran a 114 and beat future hoy saint liam.
not a bad string of races to end a career.

[Revolution]

Brilliant career but his races are so spaced apart that it is impossible to consider him a great horse. He raced at 2, 3, 4 and 5 and had a total of 11 career races. I doubt he would have been able to race as quickly if he raced more than 1x every 4 months. Who is to say other top horses couldn't have done the same if they raced so infrequently.

People like to make him out to be Dr. Fager who could win at any distance, but Dr. Fager could win at any distance and do it regularly. He did not need months off between each start.

Originally Posted by Revolution

Brilliant career but his races are so spaced apart that it is impossible to consider him a great horse. He raced at 2, 3, 4 and 5 and had a total of 11 career races. I doubt he would have been able to race as quickly if he raced more than 1x every 4 months. Who is to say other top horses couldn't have done the same if they raced so infrequently.

People like to make him out to be Dr. Fager who could win at any distance, but Dr. Fager could win at any distance and do it regularly. He did not need months off between each start.

This is nonsense, all of it.
Criticizing Ghostzapper for running sparingly would be like criticizing Barbaro for never racing again or Don Mattingly or Bo Jackson for retiring early.
Newsflash, these things ain't machines. They are flesh and blood living creatures with a tendency to have physical problems.
He wasn't raced sparingly to set up an easy schedule, he had all sorts of physical issues and racing him back to back on short rest would have meant an early breeding shed for him.
Frankel's training job with him is 2nd only to Shug's job with Personal Ensign in my mind as the two greatest training jobs I've ever seen.
Despite the fact that he had these issues and couldn't be trained hard, or raced quick enough back to maintain form and fitness off racing(which is MUCH easier than training one of a layoff, despite what some knuckleheads may tell you), he won at all 4 ages you mentioned, and did so against teh very best of his contempoaries and at all distances and at SA, saratoga, Belmont, Monmouth, and Lone Star.
Fact is that without the problems that necessitated the abbreviated schedule, he would have been even faster and better.
I don't need to see a horse run a million times to evaluate them anyway. What else exactly did he need to prove to be considered great?

[jpops757]

Originally Posted by oracle80

This is nonsense, all of it.
Criticizing Ghostzapper for running sparingly would be like criticizing Barbaro for never racing again or Don Mattingly or Bo Jackson for retiring early.
Newsflash, these things ain't machines. They are flesh and blood living creatures with a tendency to have physical problems.
He wasn't raced sparingly to set up an easy schedule, he had all sorts of physical issues and racing him back to back on short rest would have meant an early breeding shed for him.
Frankel's training job with him is 2nd only to Shug's job with Personal Ensign in my mind as the two greatest training jobs I've ever seen.
Despite the fact that he had these issues and couldn't be trained hard, or raced quick enough back to maintain form and fitness off racing(which is MUCH easier than training one of a layoff, despite what some knuckleheads may tell you), he won at all 4 ages you mentioned, and did so against teh very best of his contempoaries and at all distances and at SA, saratoga, Belmont, Monmouth, and Lone Star.
Fact is that without the problems that necessitated the abbreviated schedule, he would have been even faster and better.
I don't need to see a horse run a million times to evaluate them anyway. What else exactly did he need to prove to be considered great?

I guess you could call him a specialist, and that was winning. It made no differance the distance or the venue. He wasnt perfect but oh so close.

Originally Posted by jpops757

I guess you could call him a specialist, and that was winning. It made no differance the distance or the venue. He wasnt perfect but oh so close.

He was a foot injury and a monster track bias away from being just that.

[Revolution]

Originally Posted by oracle80

This is nonsense, all of it.
Criticizing Ghostzapper for running sparingly would be like criticizing Barbaro for never racing again or Don Mattingly or Bo Jackson for retiring early.
Newsflash, these things ain't machines. They are flesh and blood living creatures with a tendency to have physical problems.
He wasn't raced sparingly to set up an easy schedule, he had all sorts of physical issues and racing him back to back on short rest would have meant an early breeding shed for him.
Frankel's training job with him is 2nd only to Shug's job with Personal Ensign in my mind as the two greatest training jobs I've ever seen.
Despite the fact that he had these issues and couldn't be trained hard, or raced quick enough back to maintain form and fitness off racing(which is MUCH easier than training one of a layoff, despite what some knuckleheads may tell you), he won at all 4 ages you mentioned, and did so against teh very best of his contempoaries and at all distances and at SA, saratoga, Belmont, Monmouth, and Lone Star.
Fact is that without the problems that necessitated the abbreviated schedule, he would have been even faster and better.
I don't need to see a horse run a million times to evaluate them anyway. What else exactly did he need to prove to be considered great?

You say "fact is that without the problems that necessitate the abbreviated schedule, he would have been even faster and better". How do you know this? The fact is he did have an abbreviated schedule. 11 races in 4 years.

Nobody is criticizing Ghostzapper. Learn how to read. The point is he can never be a great horse. Injury or whatever, he didn't race enough.

Your comments "fact is that without the problems" means nothing. He had problems. There are no excuses when talking about greatness. You either achieve it or you don't. The sports world is full of athletes that were just short of greatness for one reason or another. Putting a horse like Ghostzapper in the category with the great horses is an insult to them. Let's stop cheapening the word greatness. Invasor is 9 for 10. Discreet Cat is 5-5. Neither of them is great yet either.

[31lengths]

Originally Posted by Revolution

Brilliant career but his races are so spaced apart that it is impossible to consider him a great horse. He raced at 2, 3, 4 and 5 and had a total of 11 career races. I doubt he would have been able to race as quickly if he raced more than 1x every 4 months. Who is to say other top horses couldn't have done the same if they raced so infrequently.

People like to make him out to be Dr. Fager who could win at any distance, but Dr. Fager could win at any distance and do it regularly. He did not need months off between each start.

Good point, however I think that the increased space between races will be more and more now.

[philcski]

Originally Posted by avance2000

it is still fun to look at numbers like that sometimes.
in his last 5 races he had 4 beyer figs that exceeded 120. the one race where he didn't he only ran a 114 and beat future hoy saint liam.
not a bad string of races to end a career.

The 114 was a BS number anyways. they dropped it about 6-7 points because they weren't convinced SL was "worthy" of a higher number.
He actually ran closer to a 121.

[Dunbar]

Originally Posted by philcski

The 114 was a BS number anyways. they dropped it about 6-7 points because they weren't convinced SL was "worthy" of a higher number.
He actually ran closer to a 121.

I don't remember them dropping that Beyer. If they did, they dropped it very quickly.

As wide as St Liam took Ghostzapper around the turn, and as much as they leaned on each other down the stretch, I thought the 114 was as good as any of the 120's.

I lost a prop bet that day that Ghostzapper would win by a certain amount of daylight, but I came out of the race with huge respect for both horses.

--Dunbar

[philcski]

Originally Posted by Dunbar

I don't remember them dropping that Beyer. If they did, they dropped it very quickly.

As wide as St Liam took Ghostzapper around the turn, and as much as they leaned on each other down the stretch, I thought the 114 was as good as any of the 120's.

I lost a prop bet that day that Ghostzapper would win by a certain amount of daylight, but I came out of the race with huge respect for both horses.

--Dunbar

The number was published initially too low, then admitted by Beyer to be a single race variant. The times for the day were:

NYB MSW 2YO fillies @ 7F: 1:26.51
CLM 20K @ 6F: 1:10.73
MSW 3U fillies @ 1 mile: 1:38.10
MSW 2YO's @ 6.5F: 1:17.25
CLM 50K @ 1 mile: 1:36.72
MSW 2YO's @ 6.5F: 1:17.59 - won by Reverberate
ALW 3U fillies @ 7F: 1:23.37
The Gazelle G1 @ 9F: 1:48.25 - won by Stellar Jayne
The Woodward G1 @ 9F: 1:46.38 (:45.70, 1:08.75, 1:33.35 fractions!)

My figures were (approx Beyer):
85 (51)
102.2 (75)
97.7 (68)
102.1 (75)
107.0 (82.6)
99.8 (71.7)
106.2 (80.7)
116.1 (99.4)
129.4 (122)

[Buffymommy]

I just hope they are breeding him to strongly sound mares.

[Dunbar]

Originally Posted by philcski

The number was published initially too low, then admitted by Beyer to be a single race variant. The times for the day were:

NYB MSW 2YO fillies @ 7F: 1:26.51
CLM 20K @ 6F: 1:10.73
MSW 3U fillies @ 1 mile: 1:38.10
MSW 2YO's @ 6.5F: 1:17.25
CLM 50K @ 1 mile: 1:36.72
MSW 2YO's @ 6.5F: 1:17.59 - won by Reverberate
ALW 3U fillies @ 7F: 1:23.37
The Gazelle G1 @ 9F: 1:48.25 - won by Stellar Jayne
The Woodward G1 @ 9F: 1:46.38 (:45.70, 1:08.75, 1:33.35 fractions!)

My figures were (approx Beyer):
85 (51)
102.2 (75)
97.7 (68)
102.1 (75)
107.0 (82.6)
99.8 (71.7)
106.2 (80.7)
116.1 (99.4)
129.4 (122)

Thanks for the info. Do you remember what Beyer's rational was for using a single variant? What did they think happened between the Gazelle and the Woodward?

Your 122 approx Beyer would be the equiv of perhaps a 128-130 Beyer for a horse getting the same time but running near the rail. That seems a bit high for me, but who knows.

Another thing. You show an approximate Beyer of 99.4 for the Gazelle. With a time diff of less than 2 secs slower than the Woodward, wouldn't the Beyer diff be less than 17. Your approx figs show a diff of 22.6, which seems to big to me, unless you, too, are using diff variants.

At any rate, I think we agree the Woodward was an amazing race for both horses.

--Dunbar

[philcski]

Originally Posted by Dunbar

Thanks for the info. Do you remember what Beyer's rational was for using a single variant? What did they think happened between the Gazelle and the Woodward?

Your 122 approx Beyer would be the equiv of perhaps a 128-130 Beyer for a horse getting the same time but running near the rail. That seems a bit high for me, but who knows.
Another thing. You show an approximate Beyer of 99.4 for the Gazelle. With a time diff of less than 2 secs slower than the Woodward, wouldn't the Beyer diff be less than 17. Your approx figs show a diff of 22.6, which seems to big to me, unless you, too, are using diff variants.

At any rate, I think we agree the Woodward was an amazing race for both horses.

--Dunbar

If you recall, in his race before he ran a 128 Beyer and I had it at LEAST that, if not a point or two higher (Mth is tough at that distance because they don't run a lot of races at a mile and an eighth, but it came out to a 133 on my numbers or approximately a 129 Beyer) At the time I had a hard time believing the Woodward number because i didn't think much of St. Liam, but obviously he proved his worth and ability to run very fast. Beyer agreed with my original assessment that St. Liam wasn't nearly that fast which is the reason they had a 1 race variant.

As far as the difference goes between the Gazelle and the Woodward, I used a single variant on the day- the difference of 129 to 116 on my figures is 13 lengths (1 point = 1 length) so the Beyer number difference may be in my conversion. I have found it's approximately [72 - (100 - my figure)*(factor)] where the factor is based on the distance run since 1 point on Beyer's scale at 10F is different from 1 point at 5F. The factor I use at 9F is 1.7, right or wrong is up for debate, but it's the best match I can find.

I rewatched the race last night, what an incredible performance. I feel bad for the guy in the BC who had the only pick 6 live but didn't have GZ, whereever he is... he should have watched this race.

[Dunbar]

Originally Posted by philcski

If you recall, in his race before he ran a 128 Beyer and I had it at LEAST that, if not a point or two higher (Mth is tough at that distance because they don't run a lot of races at a mile and an eighth, but it came out to a 133 on my numbers or approximately a 129 Beyer) At the time I had a hard time believing the Woodward number because i didn't think much of St. Liam, but obviously he proved his worth and ability to run very fast. Beyer agreed with my original assessment that St. Liam wasn't nearly that fast which is the reason they had a 1 race variant.

I could be wrong, but I thought that St. Liam had run at least a 113 earlier that year. It seems odd that Beyer would force Ghostzapper's number down to 114 (from a previous 128) if St Liam had already shown he could run at a 113 level. If the Beyer guys were being arbitrary (ie, disregarding the earlier races), it would have made more sense to use something like a 118-120. That would not have been a hard-to-believe jump for St. Liam, and would have made the other horses' BSFs more believable. It's not like Beyer never gives a horse 5-10 pts more than an earlier career best.

Ghostzapper and St Liam finished more than 9 lengths ahead of the other 5 horses in the field, and I think all of them had shown themselves capable of running 100+ BSF's. But with the 114 fig for GZ and SL, each of those other 5 horses must have earned a sub-100 BSF. (or at the most, a 100 BSF)

Originally Posted by philcski

As far as the difference goes between the Gazelle and the Woodward, I used a single variant on the day- the difference of 129 to 116 on my figures is 13 lengths (1 point = 1 length) so the Beyer number difference may be in my conversion. I have found it's approximately [72 - (100 - my figure)*(factor)] where the factor is based on the distance run since 1 point on Beyer's scale at 10F is different from 1 point at 5F. The factor I use at 9F is 1.7, right or wrong is up for debate, but it's the best match I can find.

Using 13 lengths, your approx Beyers are consistent. But 13 lengths for the 1.87 sec difference in finishing time is 7 lengths per sec. Is that your standard rule-of-thumb?

Originally Posted by philcski

I rewatched the race last night, what an incredible performance. I feel bad for the guy in the BC who had the only pick 6 live but didn't have GZ, whereever he is... he should have watched this race.

Do you have a link for that? I watched it relatively recently, too, but now I can't remember where. Thanks.

--Dunbar