Quote:
Originally Posted by Bill Lyster
You might get in trouble using the average mile time. You should assess all entrant's mile times and positions for Saturday's race in case this lot of three year olds is really fast or really slow. Find the likely leaders and consider it good if they rally from 3 or less off at the mile call. You might have to check charts for positions in 8.5 furlong races to get a better understanding of time between calls that are shown vs somewhere in between.
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You are certainly correct with the matchup in general.
You can't make generalizations, that completely defeats the matchup.
My hypothesis, which I have not proved one way or the other yet, is that the derby is a unique race and that it is more often run and won by its own rules and you can't really use other handicapping truisms on it.
You are probably correct.
But looking at the last 6-10 years or so, it seems like a whole bunch of them run very similar. And I get that the horses each year are different, but they are basically the top 18 US horses with the UAE derby winner and a japanese horse thrown in. Those 18 US horses tend to come from the same bloodlines and be trained by the same folks. I think there might be a pattern there to be discovered - kind of like those historians that say there are stages to every empire. Who knows? Maybe I am looking for something that isn't there... why I love handicapping, keeps the mind active.