Re: TGJB-Barbaro in deep stretch (606 Views)
Posted by:
bobphilo (IP Logged)
Date: April 04, 2006 03:02AM
P-Dub,
The ability of a trainer to know what schedule gets the best perfrormance out his horse is very relavent.
The so-called "speed-favoring" track at GP that day was really more of an ability favoring track where the best horses happened to be horses that like to run near the pace that day won as expected. Look at my pre-race analysis of the FD based on a fair track and you will see the horses ran as expected.
Before the Holy Bull people were saying Barbaro was only a turf horse. Before the Florida Derby people were saying he would not be as effective on a fast dirt track if another horse "looked him in the eye". After his impressive victory in the FD, despite his horible post, where he battled and defeated a game Sharp Humor in the stretch people started dowplaying his race becase he may have bore out and an alleged speed bias.
Now the latest knock is his "lack of conditioning". He may not win the Derby but if not, one of the horses most likely to beat him, Discreet Cat, is another one that those that cannot properly interpret the statistcs of past results, would be even more likely to throw out. I've already had this discussion here about how the 3+ prep minmum theory for the Derby just doesn't hold water in a proper statistcal analysis. Check the archives.
I too love it when people misintepret the data and throw out the likely winners for the wrong reasons.
Bob