Pop Quiz

[cliff]

Saturday night's (11/11) post mortem:

Question 1. How many of the 14 winners had won one of their two previous starts?
Answer: 8 of the 14 winners had won at least one of their two previous starts.

Question 2. Of the six remaining winners, how many had finished on the board within two lengths of the lead in one of their two previous starts?
Answer: Three of the remaining six had finished within two lengths of the lead in at least one of their two previous starts.

Question 3. What had the other three winners done in their previous two starts?
Answer: Royal Sugar the 50-1 bomb in the 2nd race finished fifth in his only start since qualifying (Why are trotters always messing up my stats?)
Sharky Osborne finished 4th, 2 1/4 lengths off in his last start.
Silver Duck finished 4th, 3 3/4 lengths off in his last start.

Question 4. Of the 14 second place finishers, how many won at least one of their previous two starts, or finished within 2 lengths of the lead in at least one of those races?
Answer: 11 of 14

Question 5. Of the total of all the on-the-board finishers (42 total), how many raced within the past week?
Answer: 38 (90+%)

Question 6. Who were the exceptions and how many days had it been since they raced?
Answer: Royal Sugar - 11 days
SS Two Sox - 10 days
Ringo With A Star - 19 days
Southwind Go Go Go - 16 days

Question 7. You mean to say that no horse that hadn't been in a real race (qualifiers excluded) within three weeks even hit the board?
Answer: Yes, that is correct.

Question 8. What percentage of horses starting from outside posts hit the board?
Answer: 119 horses went to post last evening; 82 (69%) had inside posts (pp1 - pp5, pp9); 37 (31%) had outside posts (pp6 - pp8).
Eight horses starting from outside posts hit the board (8/42 = 19%), 34 inside horses hit the board (34/42 = 81%)

Question 9. How does that compare to a typical Saturday night?
Answer: Nineteen percent is actually higher than normal. Generally it is ten percent or less. Last night we had two (d**n) trotters do the trick, and two renowned mudders, Norman Pheeny and Fox Valley Sting get there as well. Those accounted for half of the outside horses hitting the ticket.

Question 10. What does one make from all this analysis?
Answer: I don't know about anyone else, but these numbers seem pretty powerful to me. I talk about post and form, form and post, everything else being secondary when handicapping Northfield on a Saturday night. Now you know why.

Question 11. Do you do this kind of post race analysis every card?
Answer: Yes

Question 12. Why?
Answer. $$$$$

[jay44224]

Cliff- thanks for this post- like anything else you need to do your homework without cutting corners- Many times you read something that reminds you of that, and how important it is - this is one of those times.