The Horse's Form Cycle

[SilentRun]

Everyone may have their own method to determine this ---As for myself
l look at the "Velocity screen" Total Energy in conjunction with the 2nd call#.
Yes, I know you can easily see if the horse is improving or not just by
eyeballing how it ran against the pace. But this gives me a give me a quick
quantitative overview as to how the horse is performing over the last 3 or more races.
For example: if the Total Energy #'s have been decreasing over the
last 3 or more sessions and the time to get to the 2nd call has been increasing,
I conclude that this horse is not in form. Conversely if the TE is increasing
and the 2nd call (fps) have been decreasing then this horse is in form and
is ready to win if it has not already done so.
Anything in-between is a judgement call but at least these numbers give
me some clue as to the horse's form cycle.

For horses that are entered after a layoff I like to see if the horse worked
out at least 5 furlongs within the past 2 weeks. I use 5F from a book
written by William Scott, "How Will Your Horse Run Today". The book
is out of print and I misplaced my copy but the author cited studies
made (back in the 80's) regarding the high percentage of layoff horse's
winning or running in the money with 5F workouts.
I also read, "Commonsense Handicapping" by Dick Mitchell and he
mentioned that it was the frequency of workouts that mattered most, not
the distance. So it always comes down to, whatever works for you.

Ernie