Not really. Hoping to run into Britney Eurton!

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

Roiland could hit the board. I'll make it Sueno, War of Will and Roiland for my tri-fecta.

Sueno is still my money pick to win, but I'll take a nibble at Roiland, too.

Sueno looks great in the post parade.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

6-9 exacta box

_________________
I'm going to bounce from the spot for awhile but I will be back at some point to argue with you about this hoops stuff again. Playoffs have been great this season. See ya up the road.

I'm out.

Are you fucking kidding me?

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

I was waaaaay off.

That was the only horse I thought couldn't win the race.

Oh well, everyone takes a beating some time.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

I just ran into James Carville and Mary Matalin. So it was a worthwhile trip.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

MenageaJoe

_________________
I'm going to bounce from the spot for awhile but I will be back at some point to argue with you about this hoops stuff again. Playoffs have been great this season. See ya up the road.

I'm out.

There was no quantitative evidence to support he had any chance at all. 0.3% winning probability by speed and 4.4% WP, adjusted for stakes. He was the last choice in my model.

The quants got hosed, unless they were betting Spinoff and Sueno place and show, which is possible. I had them both high, but behind War of Will.

Don't like anything the 1st Saturday in May

_________________
I'm going to bounce from the spot for awhile but I will be back at some point to argue with you about this hoops stuff again. Playoffs have been great this season. See ya up the road.

I'm out.

Mott has a strong hand and Hidden Scroll is easily the best horse of this generation. I hope he can handle the California EPO Express. I think he will.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

Actually, I shouldn't say Hidden Scroll is the best. He's the most talented.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

For By My Standards to have defied probability, I guess the only explanation left is that he was juiced, and I don't mean O.J.

Thankfully, we have Mucho Gusto tomorrow at Sunland to recoup. I'm fine with getting 1 on him.

I wouldn't jump to that conclusion. I'm not saying Calhoun is a totally square guy, but I don't think he's Navarro, Servis, O'Neill, or Baffert. Nobody races horses on just hay, oats, and water at this level, but not everyone does the shit Baffert does.

These are lightly raced horses that are developing and going progressively longer distances. There are a lot of ways a horse can improve that don't have anything to do with lighting one up.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

There was 1,000,000 reasons to juice him, JORR. Sometimes money makes you do things you wouldn't otherwise do.

And I'm not accusing. It's speculation. This group of three year olds was too good to have let remote chance beat the top of them.

That was a hell of a ride by that jock.

Yes sir. Just perfect.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

OscarTango's suggestion that War of Will didn't need to win this race could very well explain why the horse did not perform today. Maybe Casse wanted to keep his horse fresh, but not overextend him before the Derby with a month and a half to go. The best thing he could do now is rest him.

I think it would be a mistake to toss War of Will in the KD just because of this race. The horse didn't just suddenly become bad. I expect that Casse will have him ready.

Well, when was the last time a horse out of the LA Derby won the Derby? Risen Star maybe? It's not really a top prep.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

WRONG

Okay. Grindstone maybe? Two winners in the last 50 years? Last 70 years?

EDIT: I just realized why you gave me that capital WRONG. Risen Star didn't win the Derby. He probably should have though. Greatest son of Secretariat.

Anyway, my point stands. The Louisiana Derby isn't a top prep.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

On the topic of math, these were the combined winning probabilities based on a five variable algorithm---four for speed (SPD, E1, E2, LP) and one for WP---of the Handicap Wizard for the LA Derby. The first four use estimates from 1000x simulations of the race. The only place the model did not get right with its top four was 1st due to the highly improbable performance of By My Standards and War of Will getting hurt out of the gate. This is out of 7,920 possible permutations for 11 horses for four positions.

Post Total Winning Est.
1 6 WAR OF WILL 24.49%
2 8 COUNTRY HOUSE 15.44%
3 10 SPINOFF 13.88%
4 4 SUENO 10.03%
5 9 BANKIT 8.18%
6 7 MR. MONEY 7.41%
7 11 HOG CREEK HUSTLE 6.70%
8 2 LEMNISCATE 4.99%
9 1 ROILAND 3.56%
10 3 LIMONITE 3.43%
11 5 BY MY STANDARDS 1.87%

Our friend, Emily Gullikson, was not close with her choice of Limonite, who came in second to last, which is where the model had the horse. She might be able to write well, but if she's trying to handicap purely qualitatively and be cute with a horse like Limonite in this field, she's going to be disappointed a lot more often than she'll ever be right.

I'm glad to be a math nerd. "Winning is fun. Fun is winning." --- Ozzie Guillen

I'd bet a lot of money that Emily is a winning player. But what you said is right. Anyone who is a successful horseplayer is going be disappointed more often than not.

I don't claim to be a great handicapper. I'm adequate. Just from what I've seen him post I respect OTE as a very strong player.

My real strength is managing my money. Most guys bet the rent on short-priced favorites and put pocket change on longshot winners. I'm not afraid. I have a decent opinion and huge odds never scare me. I don't need to be right a lot.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

JORR, thanks for the kind words. But I never trust anyone who says they are a great handicapper. This crap will humble you rather quickly.

To put By My Standards performance yesterday in perspective mathematically, his mean final speed figure before the Louisiana Derby was 84.75 in four starts with a standard deviation of 4.27. If we assume that he put up a 96 Brisnet figure yesterday, which would match War of Will's best effort in his priors, that would be 2.63 standard deviations above the mean. The probability equivalent is 0.43% or 1 in 234.

If we go off his last fig of 90, the jump to a 96 final speed figure is 1.6 standard deviations higher. The probability of that happening from 90 as a mean using the same standard deviation is 5.5% or 1 in 18. This happens to be close to the implied winning probability of his post-time odds of 22-1.

The final speed figure By My Standards actually put up on the Louisiana Derby was a 102. That was 4.04 standard deviations above his mean for the last four races, equating to probability of 0.0027% or 1 in 37,417.

If you go off his last figure of 90 as the mean, it's still 2.81 sigma higher, equating to a probability of 0.2477% or 1 in 404.

That's how unlikely it was that he won the race. Now tell me, was it juice or freak growth in velocity that caused him to get that much better in a little more than one month?

If the performance was legit, you certainly can't ignore the force of this horse heading into the 1st Sat. in May.

Beyer changed his fig for By My Standard's previous race. Also, he thought the New Orleans Handicap (won by Core Beliefs) came back too slow so he arbitrarily changed the fig. That isn't math. It's opinion.

Beyer was a pioneer but there are a lot better tools available now. I'd recommend Thorograph, Ragozin, OptixFigs, Timeform.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

I was talking about the BRIS figure for By My Standards of 102. If Beyer is going to change his figs, because he feels like it, how good can his methodology be? You shouldn't adjust past figs in hindsight to make a horse look better. I mean, c'mon, that's pretty shitty.