You touched upon one of the vulnerabilites with pace handicapping to me, namely that pace scenarios often fall apart; too often for my liking.
To the extent that I pace handicap at all, it's only in the situations the pace advantage jumps out at me that I will factor it in.
A horse ran into a brutal early fraction last time (and finds himself in a paceless race or is dropping in class today) I'm interested. A track is obviously favoring closers and there is lots of early speed in the race, I'm interested.
But my experience, which is only thirty years worth of going to the track, is to expect the race will be run according to a predetermined pace scenario is asking to have your heart broken.
Though I will say this: a horse is more likely to run according to his workouts than to his previous races when there is a divergence in the consistency of what is being asked of him. A young, seemingly come from behind horse, that has a bullet from the gate for today's six furlong event is probably going to be running on the lead today despite what the PPs say. And the speed burner that has a breezing five followed by a breezing four furlong workout since it's last race was probably being taught to rate for today.
Now I don't want to leave you with the impression that I don't pay attention to an individual horse's running style. I'm very aware of the "Internal Logic" of every horse, who are the speed horses and who are the closers. I'm more much likely to bet a speed horse on the Inner and a closer on the Widener. But what I'm saying is that I try not to eliminate horses whose "Interal Logic" indicates a big race today, because they might be compromised by another early pace horse. When all the other variables say "Go," I'll take my chances.



Post Edited (09-19-04 20:55)