How Will He Run Today?

It was the shank end of a gray winter afternoon - last Sunday, to be exact - and I was sitting on the couch and playing with the dog, watching TVG, when I looked up and saw the final odds for a race from Santa Anita. It wasn't a live race, of course - TVG can't show them, and don't get me started on how stupid that is - but was rather a replay of the previous day's Sunshine Millions Classic.

I had intended to play some of the Sunshine Millions races on Saturday - I had played a few small early Pick 3's at Santa Anita - but after the NBC telecast was delayed by hockey - ice hockey! - I bagged the whole thing and went for a bike ride with my wife. I didn't look at or call for results, but when I gave up on the races, I had a hunch that I should call in a $50 or $100 win bet on Lava Man and check in the morning. I ingored the impulse, and I remember thinking later that night that he'd probably won easily, and that I was a fool for passing the race.

Well, by the time I saw the replay, I had gotten over my remorse, and was instead watching to see how the race played out. And after seeing the result, and more important, the fractional times, I thought that there were two possible ways of looking at Lava Man's performance in the race, and both point to a fundamental issue facing handicappers.

Before the race, it was inarguable that Lava Man was the most accomplished horse in the race. The common wisdom - which this time happened to be correct - was that if Lava Man ran anything close to the three impressive races he put together in Southern California last year (wins in the Californian and Gold Cup at Hollywood Park, and a third in the Pacific Classic at Del Mar), he would be tough to beat. But since those races, he had thrown in a couple of clunkers, and the question was which horse would show up - the Southern California world-beater, or the traveling stiff?

Lava Man stalked the leaders, made a big move on the far turn, and won by open lengths. The SoCal champ had returned. Or had he?

One way to look at the race, as Mike Watchmaker pointed out in his column in tomorrow's Form, is that Lava Man beat a bunch of tomato cans, and was not all that impressive doing it. He ran a pedestrian Beyer speed figure - 98 - and he was all out to do so. If he replicates that the next time he's in a GI or GII race, this argument goes, he'll have no chance of winning.

But there is another way to look at the race, and it is one that disciples of pace surely noticed immediately. The early fractions of the race were 21 4/5, 44 4/5, and 1:08 3/5; for a nine-furlong race, even on the souped-up main track in Arcadia, this is madness. The horses who were 1-2-3 at the six-furlong mark finished seventh, tenth, and sixth, with the closest about nine lengths behind Lava Man. Lava Man was the only horse near the pace who was still around at the wire, and his 2-1/4 length win, and even the 98 Beyer, are impressive under the circumstances.

These conflicting interpretations bring to mind a fundamental handicapping question. All the methods one can use in plying this great game - I don't use the word "system," because systems, with their inherent rigidity, are destined for failure - fail in one crucial aspect: no matter how accurately they predict the quality of a horse's recent efforts (and there are hot debates about the relative merits of various methods), they cannot predict with 100% accuracy how a horse is going to run today. And what's confusing about this is that a failure in the method can be blamed on a thousand outside factors: bad luck, poor jockey decision, a bounce, an unfavoring track... the list is endless.

So how do I look at it? I am a believer in both speed figures and pace figures. I believe that both, when used in conjunction (with trip notes thrown in), are the most comprehensive and effective way to play the races. Handicappers who favor speed figures without taking pace into consideration, I believe, are destined for failure, as are those who blindly focus on pace. The two are inextricably related, and the horseplayer who doesn't realize this is up against it. The best plays are the horses who have an edge in both in speed and pace figures. This is true at every track, and at every distance.

And what of Lava Man? When he comes back in his next race - the Santa Anita Handicap, for example - the player can either take a stand against him and his 98 Beyer, or can single him enthusiastically, with the belief that his run in the Sunshine Millions Classic was much better than it appeared. But it's impossible to project how he's going to run without knowing who he's running against, not least because the makeup of the rest of the field is going to go a long way in determining his price. And price is another big factor in handicapping... but I'll save that for another post.