Quote:
Originally Posted by jms62
Congrats however Why the 8.5 line for Ruler on Ice and 9.0 minimum for everyone else even when he had lines > 8.5. It resulted in Ruler on Ice projecting at his best where others were handicapped by the fact you didn't use 8.5 lines. Regardless, nice get.
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I recall my thought process for line selection being erring on the side of recency, and distance. There were no other horses where I used lines as far back as March, and one line (for Nehro) were I used an April line. I agree I violated the 'prefer longer distance' rule, but I believe I thought something like: the last line was significantly better Total Energy, and against a faster PoR than the 2nd Sunland line (as was the 3rd back Philly line, as a confirmation of ability) and perhaps best represents what the horse can do today. The Sunland 9f line was a notably slower PoR and thus PoH, so even if he won it, it would not have looked much better, BUT he did have a wonderful power-move in the middle, and he did close to within 1.6 lengths, so perhaps he's not a complete dud at 9f (or longer).
Perhaps that's not completely consistent, but with improving 3YOs, I do like to be guided by more recent signs of improvement/decline and I guess I thought I'd let the software take care of projecting lines to today's distance (if not accurately, to 12f!, then at least equally inaccurately for everyone).
Actually, I thought much better of Nehro and Shackleford's chances among the contenders. It reinforces my observation that most times I have no idea who
will win, but I do have pretty good confidence in which horses have a good
chance to win, so after that, it's a mutuels game and it pays to be having your bets down when your good price contenders are going to pay well.
The race ended up being somewhat of a crap-shoot after Animal Kingdom's equipment mishap at the beginning - it would have been a different race with him in contention. Sh*t happens - all the time ...
Ted
