- The Daily Racing Form will add pace figures to its past performances in 2007. Called the Moss Pace Figures after its creator Randy Moss, beta testing will commence with opening day at Santa Anita on Tuesday, and yours truly is happy to report that I am part of the group. New York tracks will follow in beta right after the New Year. The paper is hoping to have the figures available to the public for the major circuits by the end of January, and fill in smaller circuits as the year goes on.
Moss explains in a message to the beta group that the figures will not be on the same scale as the Beyers - a Moss Pace Figure of 100 would equal a Beyer figure of 120), though they will be based on the same variants. According to their creator, the figures are the product of an exhaustive process that is still ongoing.
The figs will take into account factors such as track configuration (how much of the early portion of the races are run around turns), the runup distance between the gate and timer, and the wind. More on this once I get a peek at the numbers when the fields for the Santa Anita card are drawn on Saturday.
[Post edited on 12/23]
- The G1 seven furlong Malibu for three-year olds will be the headline race on opening day. Brother Derek is slated to go, but his regular rider Alex Solis has apparently chosen to ride Arson Squad. "You can say he told me he was going to ride the horse," [trainer Bruce] Headley said, referring to Solis' agent, Scott McClellan. [Bloodhorse] So Garrett Gomez is expected to be on board the Santa Anita Derby winner. Also expected to go are Da Stooops, making his last start before going to stud, Latent Heat, and High Finance.
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Friday, December 22, 2006
New Racing Form Figures on Pace for 2007
Posted by Alan Mann at 1:33 PM
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3 Comments:
Congrats on your induction into the Moss Poss-e.
Now Alan, I know you read everything out there and sometimes you even try to present both sides of an argument :-)
So I am shocked and a little disappointed that you did not work Bob Baffert's quote from today's Gary West article into this post.
Bob said "Numbers are for people who don't know how to watch races," referring to the various attempts to quantify performance that are commonly used by handicappers.
I know Bob is rude to security guards but apparently he doesn't think much of you numbers guys either.
Solis has a very long-standing relationship with Headley, so it's not surprising he'd opt for Arson Squad. I don't think it bears much relevance to Brother Derek's chances.
Btw, you forgot to mention the most intersting member (and likely favorite) of the Malibu Stakes, Midnight Lute. He's been training sensationally as far as i can tell, and is gonna be very tough to stop. You can also expect Ramsgate for the race, of that i am certain. He's been virtually unstoppable since his comeback, and if memory serves, he finished within a head of Midnight Lute in their common return try. In fact, i don't think either horse has lost since then. Should be a real battle between a pair of lightly raced 3yo's who appear to excel at the 7-furlong distance. Throw in Brother Derek, Latent Heat, etc, and it could be a real barnburner.
I'm likely mistaken about Ramsgate. I knew he ran recently, but i just looked it up, and it was more recent than i thought. December 17th, to be exact. I suppose he could run back in 9 days, but that's highly unlikely as Frankel no doubt would've held him back for the Malibu if he intended to go in that spot. Even less likely when Frankel has Latent Heat lining up. Could happen, and no doubt he deserves the chance, but it seems unlikely. I can only guess that with Ramsgate's proven affinity for the Cushion Track, Frankel wanted to squeeze one more race into him before Hollywood shut down for the winter.
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