After two days of works the times a distributed in an almost perfect “Bell Curve”
- 7 works of 10.0
- 39 works of 10.1
- 57 works of 10.2
- 57 works of 10.3
- 37 works of 10.4
- 14 works of 11.0
- 8 works of over 11.0
The Ocala sale had a bigger ‘bulge” toward slower horses. So in general, it seems Timonium has fewer bad horses. If you look at the distribution above only one strategy suggests itself. The 10.0 and 10.1 will be too expensive, the 10.2 are the place to shop, and the 10.3 are too risky.
Remember a 10.3 can be anything from 10.60 to 10.79, the convention is not to “round” off the numbers. So a reported 10.3 could mean almost anything, it be an ok top 42% or it could be a pretty poor top 74%. That is too wide a range to accept 10.3. if you only accept 10.2 your range is top 22% to top 47%, which is acceptable.
What is more confusing is that the number of two furlongs works is down considerably to only 13% of all works, down from nearly 30% at Ocala. That makes the 2f works harder to judge because the sample size is almost getting too small.
In the first two days the 6 horses I focused on all worked 10.3 or worse, and none even tried 2f. My “expected slow horses” all worked slow, not one was even average becasue you really cannot call 10.3 average, it might be bottom 25%.
I hope all the money chases the 10.0 and 10.1’s, and leaves some bargains in the 10.2’s,
Right now my top ideas are:
- #228 a Bodemeister colt with 5/31 birthday whose 10.2 was better than expected
- #277 a Fed Biz colt, I am warming to the story of this son of Giant’s Causeway
- #279 a Golden Lad filly with plenty of slow Euro-pedigree that went 10.2
- I am hoping #415 and #482 go 10.2, because 10.1 will raise too much attention, and 10.3 is too slow even for me.
This seems like a strange way to look at things, but if you stare at that distribution for awhile it is the only possible conclusion. Would you pay $100,000 for any 10.3 even a Frosted or a Honor Code (stud fee $40,000)? I would not.
Buying A Race Horse 