Stephens Belmont's vs Baffert's BC (971 Views)
Posted by:
skitimber (IP Logged)
Date: August 07, 2018 09:57AM
I could not let this one pass and setting aside Oscar Barrera for a moment:
The $2 parlay on WS 5 consecutive Belmont Stakes would have gotten you $2891.70. Baffert's 3 BC's: $65 and change.
Look at it another way: Set the odds at either winning their respective race before the start of the year at 20-1. Then the odds of what Baffert has done is 8000-1 while Stephens is at 3.2 million to 1.
Even lower the odds of Stephens winning each to 10-1 instead of 20-1 puts him at 100,000-1 - still dwarfing what Baffert did in 3 years.
Use the number of horses in the field as the probability that each horse wins the respective race: Baffert:1 in 1134, Stephens 1 in 199,650, a leap of 176 to 1 to get from Baffert to Stephens! This doesn't even take into account Baffert's multiple entries (don't recall if Stephens had any!) which would reduce his odds considerably. Obviously it is an achievement in most cases to get a horse to this race (which is why you can use any of the other metrics above!)
Baffert pointed to the BC's. Stephen's first winner, Conquistador Cielo, won the Met mile just 5 days earlier and under Baffert would likely not even been entered in the Belmont.
If Arrogate (or West Coast or Collected or Mubtaahij) had won last year, Baffert would now be in a position to simply try for five. But he failed with the favorite and two others at odds less than 6-1.
Compare them as winning trainers and Baffert comes out on top. Great for the sport, tough call for me.
But comparing only the streaks, I rest my case.