Vicious Victor (638 Views)
Posted by:
Caradoc (IP Logged)
Date: April 25, 2005 09:34AM
After watching a lot of California races this winter, I can’t understand how Victor Espinoza keeps getting top mounts from top stables. Apart from some other failures, Victor doesn’t make much of an attempt to save ground and this costs his mounts a number of races. The Snow Chief Stakes, the 9th yesterday at Hollywood, is a good example. Victor is riding Lucky J.H., who at 7-1 is as fast as anyone in the field after adjusting for weight. Going into the first turn, Lucky J.H. finds himself in a perfect position -- a group of horses contesting the lead 2 lengths ahead and a group of closers about 4 lengths behind him. But Victor doesn’t drop over to the rail to save ground, or even ease over to the two-path. For no reason whatsoever, he decides to stay in the three-path all the way around the first turn.
You can guess the rest. Lucky makes a four-wide bid around the final turn, opens up in midstretch but gets nailed on the wire by a bomb. Had he saved even a half-path of ground on the first turn, Lucky J.H. wins the race.
I thought maybe I was being a little hard on Victor, so I reviewed TG’s jockey information to see how Victor’s “average path” compares to some of his competitors. Here’s the result:
Valenzuela 2.0
Valdivia 2.0
Gomez 2.1
Pedroza 2.1
Solis 2.1
Court 2.1
Stevens 2.2
Nakatani 2.2
Baze 2.2
Douglas 2.3
Espinoza 2.4
So, someone correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t this mean in the average 9f stakes race, you expect P.Val to save about ¾ of a length in ground compared to Victor? If so, that translates into a lot of races that Victor loses just by not being very smart.
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