Pace Meltdown

[jetcity]

In LV, I think that Glen mentioned the term Pace Meltdown. In looking at the PSCAN report the Querin points are displayed. ?? - Has anybody developed a forumla to determine if the pace will be too hot. For example if the top 4 E type horses have a total of 30 points or more, watch out for the R and S types. An comments or examples.

jetcity

[hurrikane]

I used the Randy Giles hot pace (works to 21pts for all E horses with >4 qpts).
It held for about half the races. When the number got into the high 20s to 30 it was all from behind....
haven't found any real play in the db for this but I just use it as a piece of information. Much like the brackets in the TLC program..

[Bruce]

Sometimes the Giles stuff doesn't hold up because the closers are stiffs, too slow to win or too far back when the real racing starts. That's why I don't like to use last fraction that much because it can be misleading. As Giles points out why give a horse credit for a huge final fraction if he walked the first two fractions?
If a horse runs a fast final fraction in slow pace race, race shape cappers will give that horse a lot of credit. But why? If the horse was 6 lengths back of a 47 pace (6f race), of course he's going to close.
But if the same horse was 6 lengths back of a 45 pace, he might be dog-tired by stretch-time and hang.
That's why I don't believe in running databases on these stats: they treat all fast paced and slow paced races alike. You can have two Randy Giles 25X3 races and they'll run differently because of the nature of the closers (or the front-runners if one is in good enough shape to track a very fast pace). Or the track may have been ultra-biased and closers had no chance.
Hurrikane is 100% correct. It's no automatic play, just a good piece of information to have.
Often horses in 35X4 races that are lone closers win with lousy speed figures because everyone else collapses to a :28 final fraction while the closer does a :26.

bruce

[Glen]

Good post Bruce. Pace meltdown is always tuff to predict. When there might be 5 E horses or (x) horses in TLC, only 2 might break well...As a result the pace duel doesn't materialize like it should. Usually in a pace duel, one survives and the others fold...Tuff to predict who will survive...Sometimes is is the Ev1, sometimes it is the top CLA horse, sometimes unpredictable...

But I do think the (x) in TLC is a very valuable tool...Especially for Ev1 w/o (x)...Just a guess...

[Bruce]

My point, Glen, isn't that you should ignore pace meltdowns, but to get good value on closers who don't necessarily look that good on paper (speed figures) but could benefit. Since most people still bet speed figures and form, closers who don't otherwise "qualify" on most contender selection methods will win these types of races at huge prices.
Of course I've seen it happen on lone early speed horses, but it's much harder nowadays since everyone's hip to lone speed. That's why I look for it on the grass. People bet closers on the turf.

bruce