I clearly want to state that this is my HUMBLE OPINION.....
First off....I probably wouldn't have touch this race with a ten feet pole...
But to try to understand some aspects of how we "could have" got the winner....let's point out some things that we do know...
The #4 horse
All of these horses are newly turned 3 year old colts...so some of these are still developing...some are natural routers...some are just sprinters where they can't stretch their speed a route of ground...
Some of these contenders ran hard races as a two year old without proper foundations. They got hurt by those hard races.. They just are not going to develop further in terms of improving whatever figures they earned as a two year old....
This philosophy is from Thorograph...
A newer turned 3 year old colt should improve or match his top figures ran as a two year old in his first couple of races back as a newly turned 3 year old colt or this colt is considered to have stopped developing....
Now back to the race in hand.....
First off...using Bradshaw's Matchup .....we noticed that this race is loaded with early speed...or positional front runners who want the early lead....now assuming that we determined that this race will be run OTE...or Other Than Early....let's focus only at the first two calls of each contenders only....Bradshaw stressed that we must ignore what happens to the final time after the 2nd call....
I can see how you landed on #5 for best positional early......
But we are looking for other than early.....
Looking at the #4, we see that the trainer is trying to harness his horse to run from behind versus how his horse ran route races as a two- year colt....
I don't see the rest of the past performances to determine who or who else runs from behind to make any matchups....
But just focusing on the contender that won the race....we see that he ran from 7 lengths back at the first call in his last paceline....He will be considered as a contender because he is other than early...Also, in his second paceline, he ran from 5 lengths back at the first call and made a strong move to the second call only to fall short...which is expected after the two month layoff...
Remember...that a horse that wins a race by default due to a speed duel is inferior on speed performance figures...He may not have the best speed figures...but he can win the race by default due to the early speed front runners dueling on a hot pace in the early pace of the race..
Again, I would not have touch this race because I have no route pacelines to compare using my tools...I am not going to project a horse's 5 furlong line into a mile or today's distance of a mile and 1/16th...
Hope this helps....
Good skills
