Re: Super Derby (604 Views)
Date: September 22, 2003 07:17PM
>3-- BUT-- while there is a certain logic to discounting bad efforts from horses who contested a hot pace, explain to me how it makes other horses, who raced further back, run faster.<
I believe there is evidence that in the typical/average race, when the closers make their move into contention they eventually are forced to battle reasonably fresh horses that are in front of them to either advance their position into contention and/or take the lead. That is often enough to take a little startch out of them. When the horses in front of them are all tired from their own contentious early efforts, that task is much easier. An easy way to think about is to break the race up into early, middle, and late. If the middle is easy, that helps closers just as much as soft "early" helps the front runners and vice versa.
>There were other horses who raced behind that pace in the Travers, and they did not run jump-up figures because of the "optimum conditions." The second and third finishers contested the pace, in fact.<
Well as far as I am concerned both 2nd and 3rd place horses were impacted negatively from their early efforts.
The others I would have to take a closer look at, but I would least make this point. The impact of the pace is a somewhat individual thing related to individual ability. What is a perfect pace for a very good horse, may still be fast for a mediocre one.