Troubled trips are the most overrated aspects of handicapping and troubled trips are the most underrated aspects of handicapping. Horseplayers love them!
It's quizzical, only logical, like, the great Tina Turner 'What's love go to do with it!'
Yes, I am going to have my cake and eat it too, meaning I will use the good parts of a troubled trip, without dealing with the bad parts of the troubled trip, just like relationships, right or wrong.
"Ok, Bruno, I think your flu bug has gotten to your common senses! you make no 'cents'"
Troubled trips are simply and most expressively outlined in the eye of the beholder.
For example, a slow start, is it caused by simply poor racing fortune or a product of a horse's sharpness?
80% sharpness and 20% racing luck.
The 20% would allocate for a horse ducking at the start from the inside post or ducking out from a far outside post. It would also be racing luck of if the horse on the outside or inside slammed into your horse, but a slow beginning is usually a sign of lack of mental sharpeness.
We wrote a blog about the bounce factor, many moons ago, where we discuss that the bounce is a mental state more often than the physical state. So, when a bounce happens it shows in the form of antsyness, keenness, lack of mental discipline, horses going too fast too soon and or loss of concentration, breaking slow, etc.
Handicappers zero in on a troubled trip and only see the trouble, but how did the horse get into trouble, is it an habitual thing, just like Cousin Jimmy, sweet guy, but you know you can't rely on him the day or two after one of his all nighters. How many of you have a Cousin Jimmy? It's habitual.
Horses have habitual tendencies, so when I watch a race I don't focus on the trouble, I focus how did the horse finds the trouble.
Sometimes its a simple read, the horse was not fast enough to get thru that hole, so it didn't have the territorial right to that hole and if it closed on him or her then it was their inability to make it thru, but you know as horseplayers we choose to have our cake and eat it too, we ignore the reality, the horse wasn't fast or nimble enough to get through, so, he had trouble.
If you scroll down the right side of past performances:
This is a snipet of Daily Grind, a Lukas router:
Going from bottom up, you can see the trips this guy endured, all self caused:
5-4W "hung"
Tight Start, wide
4-5 Wide, even
No match late
2nd best
weakened
no kick
no kick
no rally,
finally out of the blue finds a way to get up late.
He hasn't changed his stripes, and it wasn't because of the troubled trips prior, it was simply the competition allowed him to overcome who he is.
Daily Grind showed us who he is. In my book, he has shown to be a hanger, but horseplayers are way too fearful of being wrong in their assessment and in some warped way they are right, they have poor judgement and don't trust themselves.
In all those races, only three times the horse was under 10-1, two of them, once he was 2nd and the other he won, thus, the assesment and confidence of the public was well warranted the odds.
Example number 2:
Again from the bottom up:
Wins art 15-1, 4 wide surge, driving.
3rd place finish willing, trying
4th pace finish 5 path turn, 9 wide in lane
win, Vied inside, cleared upper stretch
win, chased inside, up final 70 yards
4th place, lost footing stretch.
This filly is a trier, she has won 3 of 6 and last time we got a clue of what happened, she lost footing in stretch. Tells you a lot about the horse and what it tells me when she is locked in and has a good trip she is tough to beat.
This is without numbers, figures, works, just a synopsis of performance.
So, when I says, troubled trips are both overrated and underrated, the horse in context needs to be examined, if its a perennial troubled type that gets into situations he can't handle talent wise, he fails, so when
he got up in last at 7-1, should have been 25-1.
The latter filly has showed heart and guts, and when she gets her trip she can overcome almost anything, that's why she is 3 of 6.
By the way, the first example was a million dollar purchase named Daily Grind, the filly is a Justify filly named Miss Justify, both well bred, one is a willing type and the other a 'bum'.
In these cases Tina Turner 'whats a pedigree got to do with it' is the right song.
