Analyzing The Preakness

[philcski]

Originally Posted by Rupert Pupkin

I understand that. My point about the Beyer figure was simply that the final time was so slow (the slowest final Preakness time in 50 year), that you would expect the Beyer to be really slow, unless Beyer felt that the track was really slow, which he obviously did.

Pimlico is obviously a much slower track than many other tracks. There is no debate about that. A horse like Zee Bros runs 1:08 and change at Santa Anita. At Pimlico, he doesn't break 1:10. We know that Pimlico is a slow track. I'm not comparing Pimlico to other tracks. I'm comparing the Preakness this year to other years. We know the track was slower yesterday than some past years but how much slower? Was the track slower than last year? Maybe, but if it was I don't think it was by much, maybe a couple of ticks. I think the pace was slow yesterday, but I think the best horse still won. If Goldencents would have gunned out there in :47 3/5, I think Stevens would have stalked (3-5 lengths back) and I think Oxbow still wins.

No runup at 6F at Pimlico. You routinely see horses ship in from Parx, etc with :22 first quarters run :24 or worse. There's literally 5 feet of runup. Compare that to Churchill, which is damn near a 6.25F race when you factor in the runup.

The 45.16 half he set yesterday is maybe the fastest I've ever seen there. I'd have to think with as slow as the track was yesterday that would be a +30... and he still won relatively easily. He's a serious sprinter.