The Derby & Irish Derby 2009

Warbler said:
Right having given it a re-think in some areas, and finally haing gotten round to levelling everything off at 9.0, (which adds to the case for F&G, and detracts slightly from the Chester runners)

1st....Fame & Glory
2.5....Sea The Stars
1.5....Masterofthehorse
0.5....Golden Sword
nk.....Gan Amhas
0.25..Rip Van Winkle
2......Black Bear Island
1.25..South Easter
0.75..Kite Wood
2.5...Crowded House
3.0...Debussy
3.25..Age of Aquarius
2.75..Montaff

Easy then!!!

Not only have I given you the finishing order, but also supplied you with the beaten distances too:p
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Great stuff Warbler....agree with alot of it...perhaps swap Golden Sword with AOA.
 
Galileo said:
Great stuff Warbler....agree with alot of it...perhaps swap Golden Sword with AOA.
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The Lingfield trials are the ones that worried me the most Aiden, as I'm increasingly in agreement with David Johnson that the race distances aren't right, and I should have squiggled it. I tried mucking round with throwing speculative numbers at it to try and see what he'd have to do to bring him in line with a place, and I tentaively hit on a figure that they were 51yds longer than advertised. This seems unlikely, but I think this is the amount of ground AoA would have needed to have handed back to bring him in at the 100 mark.

In truth I'm more concerned about how I'm penalising Midday as she's another victim. She ran 86.96 at Epsom and was about 4.25L's down on this at Lingfield. This would put her hypothetically on a projected 90.00 for the Oaks, which would indicate she's been penalised by the Lingfield running rails to the effect of about 7.25L's, which if this is given back to AoA he'd hit 94.25 (between Kite Wood and Crowded House)
 
Of all the trial runners I think AOA will improve most of all - not necessarily to the highest level. He had a set back in the spring and was probably starting out from as low a point as any of them.
 
I'm puzzled by your conclusions Steve (even if I agree with the verdict), or perhaps I should say, I'm struggling to see how your line of investigation has led you to the selection (even if it is a winning a selection)



"The optimum blend of speed and stamina for the Derby is often expressed as a Dosage index (DI) of 1.0 and a centre of distribution (CD) of zero. The average DI for the past 11 winners is 1.09 and those in a band between DI 0.8 and just above 1 appear best suited to the stamina requirements of the race (see table)".

Alright, I don't want to necessarily go over old Guineas ground about using a mean or a median, and the affect that outliers can have on the fomer expression of an average, but there's two horses in there who are spot on your average (Kite Wood 1.09 & Rip Van Winkle 1.10). Why aren't they your 1-2?

I can understand you want to cover a range of possibilities, as it cuts any analysis more flexibility, but are you not contradicting yourself a bit in that your conclusions are at odds with your rationale?

For instance you say the range is 0.80 to "just above 1" is where the winners come from. Now "just above one" can cover a subjective spread, but since you give a list of previous winners to vindicate this assertion, we can reasonably assume that you've set the threshold at 1.43 (Motivator) as Sindaar 1.56 isn't cited?

That being so, you seem to be implying that the winners come from a range 1.50 to 0.80 and produce a list that covers High Rise and High Chaperral (both on 0.82) up to Motivator (1.43), and one that also takes in 5 other recent winners.

Now if you apply this range to the current field, the only upper end omission is Sea The Stars. Now that's reasonable enough, dosage suggests the horse will fail to see the trip out and finish last, and it's consistant that you have him down as not being in the first 5.

What I'm struggling to see is why you haven't been so trenchant on the lower end though. Fame and Glory, Gan Amhras, Masterofthehorse and Debussy should all be omitted too if you applied your logic fairly surely? Yet you've included 3 of these in your projected first 5? Indeed, Black Bear Island on 0.82 only just matches your low end outliers of High Rise, and as such RVW is the only horse in your first 5 who really matches the coherence of your logic with any sense of objective consistancy.

Now I'm not really bothered about what the best approach is, and i can't pretend that I didn't snarl when i found Sea The Stars so prominent on my own ratings as I don't think he's as good as others, and don't really give him much chance. But since he had genuinely got to that position on merit, and in this case on a consistant and even application of a formula, I had to reflect it rather than move the goalposts.

What i can't understand therefore, is why you've come to the conclusions that your own arguments wouldn't lead you to?. If you use your own mean of 1.09; then at 0.65 Fame and Glory is some 0.44 pts away from it. To put this in context, the two furthest horses away from your winning mean are Sea The Stars and Fame and Glory. That's the two market leaders.:blink:

The top 5 most distant horses from your own mean are;

Sea The Stars 1.91
Fame and Glory 0.44 (forecast winner)
Debussy 0.39
Gan Amhras 0.33 (forecast 3rd)
Masterofthehorse 0.32 (forecast 5th)

To make things even more inconsistant only 2 of your first 5 seemingly fall inside your own nominated range (what you've previously called a 'sweet spot'). If you're asking us to extend the lower reaches of this years spread to encompass the likes of Fame & Glory, Gan Amhras and Masterofthehorse in the name of selective flexibility, then you've basically enveloped the whole field by now, (bar Sea The Stars). Surely the article should read "lay Sea The Stars for a place" as this would be the only thing that dosage could be telling you by now through virtue of casting the net so wide?

Why haven't you simply nominated Rip Van Winkle and Kite Wood to fight it out with Crowded House chasing them home?
 
Conditions at Epsom are described as "spot on" ahead of the two-day Derby Festival starting on Friday.
The ground is currently good, good to firm in places after the six millimetres of water applied to the course in the last 36 hours.
The forecast is for dry conditions and for cooler temperatures than of late with the chance of a slight shower overnight Friday into Saturday.
However, officials at the Surrey venue do not expect it to amount to more than about two millimetres.
"The ground is currently spot on and I am glad we took the decision to water when we did," said director of racing Andrew Cooper.
"I would have no hesitation in calling it good in the main. It is a little bit quicker in places, mainly on the climb up the back straight."
 
I'm sure Steve will give his reasons, but right now, at face value, it looks like a piece of subjective pre-conceived preference and then formulating a justification around it.

Using his own article, the only horse he could objectively omitted on dosage would be Sea The Stars, in which case it has to be questionable as to whether its even a dosage article, even if that's the flag of convenience that's being flown over it?.

It could have read "13 line up, and 12 can win it", which wouldn't make particularly enlightening copy.

In fact, it would be a moderately interesting idea to deploy some journalistic skills to the same data and say write me an article that demonstrates that neither Sea The Stars or Fame and Glory will win the Derby using doasge, and I suspect you could build up a more convincing argument.

People like Nick Mordin are often lamented but he does appear at least, to have the courage of his convictions to seemingly select what a system tells him (even if one suspects he does it precisely to generate a headline).

No method hits winners after winner and as such no investigative tool is perfect. It is inevitable that you will encounter selections that don't suit your opinion from time to time. I used to assess races using numbers. That is to say race 1, race 2, race 3 etc and it was only when a figure leapt off the page that I looked up the horses name (sometimes with a degree of shock) but it was at least objective and prevented me from applying any subjective tinkering and kept the methodology honest.

At first read it seems to lack a bit of integrity to me.
 
Warbler said:
I'm puzzled by your conclusions Steve (even if I agree with the verdict), or perhaps I should say, I'm struggling to see how your line of investigation has led you to the selection (even if it is a winning a selection)
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There’s nothing to get too confused about. The long-term optimum blend of speed and stamina for the Derby conforms to DI 1.0 and a centre of distribution (CD) of zero.

The average DI for the past 11 winners (taken for convenience) is DI 1.09 (very close to the long term average of about DI 1) with those in a band between DI 0.8 and just above 1 being best suited to the stamina requirements of the race.

The best fit this year is Black Bear Island (my choice to finish runner-up), but Fame And Glory’s turn of foot at distances short of his best is the deciding factor for me, even though he should get further than 12 furlongs, this is clearly better than falling short of 12 furlongs.

The shortlist of those who are likely to stay 12 furlongs and or get further is: Fame And Glory (DI 0.65), Debussy (0.70), Gan Amhras (0.76), Masterofthehorse (0.77), Golden Sword (0.80), Black Bear Island (0.82), Age Of Aquarius (0.89), Crowded House (1.04), Kite Wood (1.09) and Rip Van Winkle (1.10) – of this shortlist Fame And Glory is most likely to get the trip and Rip least likely. However Rip should just about get it and in this analysis is more likely to than those below him, including STS.

Hope this helps.
 
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Warbler said:
At first read it seems to lack a bit of integrity to me.
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I have always tried to apply the most exacting standards and take exception to this.

Any system is a tool. It does not supply all the answers, but helps with defining stamina aptitude (not ability). To this end you need to see what the system is telling you and then make a rational choice.

Anyone that was not being willful would accept this as sensible.
 
Steve ... if those between 0.8 and just over 1 are best suited, why does FAG get included t 0.65?
 
I'm not puzzled.

Dosage is a best guess of best distance, not ability. The best guess with Fame and Glory is that he will improve on what he has achieved at a shorter distance. We know and can interpret for ourselves what he has achieved to date, so this tool is telling us to reckon on a bit of improvement.

Steve's conclusion is merely binding his subjective interpretation of the form enhanced by the pseudo objective science of dosage.
 
I don't see any lack of integrity.

For me, Steve's article answers the following 2 questions:

a) Using dosage, who will stay.
b) Of those, who has already shown the ability to suggest that they will be top class at the trip.

b) is down to Steve's judgement. The article is clearly informed by Dosage, but not a complete slave to it.

It just so happens that this year, Dosage isn't much of an eliminator. As Steve clearly mentions in the article, Dosage suggests that all but 3 of the 13 will stay. The only real advantage it's offering this year is to eliminate the likely favourite. After that, it's of limited use and Steve's own opinion comes into play.
 
But the dosage 'tool' suggests between 0.8 and just over 1. I would have imagined subjectivity regarding the respective ability of each horse is applied after those within this bracket are selected, not before. Otherwise, if you want to choose FAG as your Derby horse, you are better off basing this on other reasons rather than dosage.
 
The Dosage tool is telling us that FAG will probably be at his best at, say, 14 furlongs. That is not to say he is not the best in the field at 12 furlongs. He has already achieved as much as many in the field at 10f and should "need" rather that "get" the extra distance.
 
Melendez said:
The Dosage tool is telling us that FAG will probably be at his best at, say, 14 furlongs. That is not to say he is not the best in the field at 12 furlongs. He has already achieved as much as many in the field at 10f and should "need" rather that "get" the extra distance.
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Well put, but the dosage tool also tells us that certain other horses should also improve for the extra distance.

I'm already on Fame And Glory, but my reading of Steve's article points me towards Rip. He hits the sweet spot on the dosage index, had an interrupted preparation for the Guineas and Johnny Murtagh has chosen to ride him. I think I'll do a forecast on the pair.
 
Gareth Flynn said:
As Steve clearly mentions in the article, Dosage suggests that all but 3 of the 13 will stay. The only real advantage it's offering this year is to eliminate the likely favourite. After that, it's of limited use and Steve's own opinion comes into play.
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Does he say that?. He's clearly invoked Motivator (1.43) in his list of successes, and omitted Sindaar (1.56). By my reckoning he's drawn the line at 1.50 then?, which brings 12 of the 13 into consideration and thus eliminated just the one. Curiously though, he hasn't applied the same discipline on the lower end, as this would have the effect of knocking out 3 of his first 5.

Now you could argue that Sea The Stars is so far out of the range that he can be dismissed with a degree of confidence, where as the others that miss out are much nearer to the 'exclusion zone'.

Even if we use the long-term trend of DI 1.00 your rank order of deviation from the optimum would be

Crowded House - 0.04
Kite Wood - 0.09
RVW - 0.10
Age of Aquarius - 0.11
Black Bear Island - 0.18
Golden Sword - 0.20
Masterofthehorse - 0.23
Gan Amhras - 0.24
South Easter - 0.25
Debussy - 0.30
Montaff - 0.32
Fame & Glory - 0.35
Sea The Stars - 2.00

The only horse you could eliminate is the last named, and perhaps that should have been the headline? Otherwise he's just drawn up a long-list of 12, and told us who he thinks is the best horse is, based on - well I don't know what? probably form and trainer reputation one suspects.

I've got no problem with doing this incidentally, we all come to conclusions through a mixture of approaches and perspectives, I just find the use of dosage a tad disingenious under the circumstances when the selection appears to be the second least qualified to be at his optimum trip. If you break it down into its nuts and bolts the only real insight is that Sea The Stars won't stay, and after that, everything else will.


"b) is down to Steve's judgement. The article is clearly informed by Dosage, but not a complete slave to it."

I'd be more inclined to say that in this year, the selection is down to Steve's judgement and dosage is merely background scenery. It's not quite a case of the tail wagging the dog, but I'm still struggling to see why when 10 of the other 12 horses appear to be closer to their optimum trip on either the long-term trend, the DI mean, or the sweet spot cluster, the verdict has landed where it has?

I take Melendez's point;

"The Dosage tool is telling us that FAG will probably be at his best at, say, 14 furlongs. That is not to say he is not the best in the field at 12 furlongs. He has already achieved as much as many in the field at 10f and should "need" rather that "get" the extra distance".

but dosage wouldn't really be adding much to our understanding. In fact what you're saying is that Fame and Glory is the best in the field despite his dosage profile, and not because of it, which in any other language would be called 'form study', as what you're suggesting that he's so good he'll be able to defy the fact that he's not running at his best trip which you suggest would be something more akin to the St Leger

Still that's why people write articles, and that's why we read them. I'm sure Steve would be disappointed if we all said 'O.K and thankyou'
 
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Warbler said:
Does he say that?.
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From the article:

The best matches to the required stamina for this year’s race are: Fame And Glory (DI 0.65), Debussy (0.70), Gan Amhras (0.76), Masterofthehorse (0.77), Golden Sword (0.80), Black Bear Island (0.82), Age Of Aquarius (0.89), Crowded House (1.04), Kite Wood (1.09) and Rip Van Winkle (1.10).
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Warbler said:
Curiously though, he hasn't applied the same discipline on the lower end, as this would have the effect of knocking out 3 of his first 5.
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The lower the number, the more likely the horse is to stay. As it gets lower, the worry becomes whether the horse has enough speed. As it read it, this is where Steve's opinion comes into play, and he is satisfied that Fame And Glory has already shown requisite speed in his trials over 10f. (Apologies Steve if I'm putting words in your mouth!).

Again, I would agree with you that Dosage doesn't really provide any great insight this year. But it does kick out the favourite, so it's not exactly valueless either.

(For the record, I'm choosing to ignore it totally and will continue to believe that Sea The Stars stays until it's proven otherwise on the racecourse :D)
 
Personally, I think when you get this close to the race dosage will rarely add very much. I would categorise it as informed guesswork. Fair enough if you are backing a 2yo in July whose just won over 6 furlongs first time out, for the Guineas but as time goes by you can substitute guesswork for what you see yourself.

Dosage says Sea The Stars may not stay (there are horses with his figures who have before). Logic says Guineas winners may not stay (but some do). The manner of his victory says you wouldn't be too sure either way.
 
I just wanna congratulate Warbler for expressing him/herself is such a polite way. I couldn´t do it myself.
I checked Steve´s three previous selections for the Derby and he picked Casual Conquest as second choice last year (0.68), Tartan Bearer as 4th (0.60) and Visindar as 3rd in 2006 (2.53), so it is not uncommon to him to select horses that don´t fall into that "sweet spot" if form tells him they are gonna be in the mix.
 
The manner of his victory indiacted to me that STS would be better stepped up in distance. To me anyway...

What was Sir Percy's dosage?

Not ideal I would bet...

He benefited from the race being run at a slower pace of course, but given that probably stable choice RVW is not an abolsute stayer either, are we going to see this race run as a stamina test?

In some ways, JM's (and stables?) choice of RVW, is best news for STS backers...

I would never go near possibnle non stayers in the derby at one time, but times have changed....maybe
 
That's what I thought Gareth, he doesn't say

"Dosage suggests that all but 3 of the 13 will stay".

What he talks about is "best matches" - I'm sure you'd agree there's a difference, between horses that might fit some kind of flexible profile, and stating categorically that 3 won't stay (which he doesn't).

It then becomes confusing because he invokes a list by way of supporting track-record that curiously (or perhaps conveniently) includes Motivator on 1.43. Using this threshold then, you don't eliminate 3, but just the one. Now in fairness to Steve, he didn't say that three wouldn't stay (presumebly Sea The Stars 3.00, Montaff 1.32 and South Easter 1.25) that's your interpretation. What he's done is provide a long-list of 'best fits' even if he should perhaps have extended this to include two of the horses he hasn't.

In effect he's invoked Motivator in one piece of analysis (probably because he won) and then deftly removed him from another when drawing up his 'best fits' (probably because he'd bring in two unconsidered horses, and would also leave him with 92% of the field still standing).

At this stage the only meaningful insight that dosage has given us, is that Sea The Stars is without hope, and that Fame and Glory is going to waltz the St Leger.
 
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