When someone puts up the PPs of a race to look at the first thing I do is try and match it up. I do this reading books and magazines, watching videos and on websites. Whenever possible I skip over the introductions and explanations so as not to influence my decision. I go right to the PPs and start matching. I've found this to be excellent practice.
Gotta be honest here. I got this race
very quickly down to two contenders--the 2 and the 5. I went with the 5, Go Legs Go. Why? With a lot of speed in this race, I felt the 5 would be sitting around 4th, 5th or 6th and be in great shape to pass em' all by. In this case I ignored the "closest to the pace of race" admonition, because I thought the 2 would get sucked into the early pace.
I'll give you a bit of insight into my thinking. It's like I have this little conversation with myself.
"I really like this five."
"Yea, but what about the two?"
"He runs too close to the early pace. He'll just get sucked in."
"Yea, but he runs closest to the pace of race."
"I really like the five."
"Look at these other races. He doesn't have to be that close. He's got some other good races there."
"He'll get sucked in. I'm going with the five."
And that was that. As long as it took you to read that is about how much time I spent on my decision between those two horses. I made the same mistake I frequently make--
handicapping too fast. Sure, if you use the first line back you might think he'll get sucked into the early pace, but like Richie said, in his second line back he won from 5th position and farther down the PPs he won from third position and he also came 2nd by a neck from third position.
So yes, he won from close up in 2nd position, but he can
also win from 3rd and 5th position.
A very versatile horse, who just happens to have the
fastest pace last race. Not to mention the race sets up beautifully for him.
The real good thing about this example is the way it ties in FPLR to the most logical contender. It's another added plus for the horse. It shows yet another way you can incorporate FPLR into your handicapping when and where it's appropriate.
When this race was originally posted, I didn't think about Matching Up the way I do now. Sometimes when you first try something new it can seem overwhelmingly difficult. Concepts foreign to you have a way of flying right over your head. But if you keep working on it and practicing, and maybe put the whole thing on the back burner for a while (letting your subconscious regurgitate what you've learned), when you come back to it you just might wonder what was so gosh danged hard in the first place. You will see and understand things you didn't see and understand before.
And I gotta be honest again...I didn't even think about FPLR, when I capped this race.
Thanks for tying things together the way you did and making me think about this race from a different perspective.
(I'm also going to slow things down a little bit.)
