Right on. I'll re-read our back and forth and see if I can get on the same page with some thoughts.

Initial thought though here would be that most of my longshots that were completely out of the public's eye were made completely blind of connections. Trainer/Jockey/Owner, throw it out maybe?

The public sets the price so perhaps you're looking for positive handicapping factors the public values the least.

If by "math of payoffs", you mean "value", then yeah. It's always about value.

Think about a horse moving forward quickly overall with faster pace and faster final. Is this good or bad?

Well, if he's 4/5, I'm going to argue it could have took too much out of him and he may be due to regress.
If he's 20/1, I'm going to argue he's just waking up and set to continue the improve.

Value is ultimately the deciding factor in whether something is good or bad. At the end of the day, no handicapping factor is 100% positive or negative, we just want to guess which way it is often enough to have a positive ROI.

#5 would have been a tough one to get to.
My back argument might be the significant improvement on both 4F pace and Final figure between his last 2 sprints as well as between last 2 routes. Possibly just waking up or recovering from minor ailment and kept moving forward here. Began as a turf horse which teaches energy distribution and promotes education in late acceleration so perhaps those dynamics played a part as well when he got the right set-up to go 7th to 1st here.

My longshots are geared toward positive form cycle patterns going into doing something different. New surface, new distance, new track, etc

That is Benny Southstreet's product. Follow his Twitter here: @BSouthstreet

He's sharp when it comes to trips as the program comments almost never tell the true story. Not of much use to the casual capper but is great info to supplement your normal capping if you're diving deep into a card.

It's a nice GUI and all but I really would prefer a format where I can see notes for all horses in the race on one screen rather than runner-by-runner.

My opinion is you reach this status with 100 likes rather than posts+replies.

This promotes productive threads rather than just a race to post whatever 100 times.

Ok, I got you...so it's a little bit of manual estimation to get your actual turn times. That makes sense, was just making sure there wasn't some awesome set of turn data out there I wasn't aware of.

Jim, I've considered playing around with turn times before but it seems to me the reported 2F, 4F, etc splits available fall into different spots on the track for different tracks. What are you using to figure the actual turn time around the turn?

Also, My 2 cents on the concept of inside runners vs outside runners in the turn is a much more difficult question to assess. Many have done the math to simply state that every path out from the rail a horse is, it costs them one length. However, I don't think ground loss can be this easily assumed to be a disadvantage.

From an energy distribution view, the inside horse is having to negotiate more centrifugal inertia while also sometimes on a flatter portion of the track while the outside horse may be on a more banked surface without fighting those centrifugal forces of circling a tighter turn. In the end, I think ground loss vs centrifugal forces can often cancel each other out in a general sense and it really just comes down to a case by case basis on the actual horse, track configuration, pace scenario, etc.

Note to add:
Marche Lorraine in the Distaff was an example of how clocker reports can mislead you in the wrong direction and a good example of what I labelled a "flowchart comment."

Her notes were..."on the wrong lead, no gallop out, C+"

So if you're skimming through and read that it looks like an automatic toss-out. Problem is there's a different direction that comment can go. What if the horse WASN'T on the wrong lead? A bad workout doesn't mean a bad race day.

Only throw horses based on a workout report if the comment is completely objective to being negative to their condition.

I'm on Malathaat in the Distaff and Art Collector tonight. Good luck everyone.

At the end of the day, it's not even about blaming the vet, stewards, track, or anyone involved.

The enabling problem is the racing boards that establish these rules designed to protect the track when THEY make a mistake and transfer all liability to the bettor.

There are no words to describe what just happened.

Conley, I might join but won't know until it gets closer.

I love point #2 Tony. It's a long-term game and you have to look back to make sure you understand why you won so you can make it a habit and also understand why you lost so you can adapt and grow. Cheers.

That menu is available on every card.

I probably made it sound like more work than it is. Workout reports are actually a very small factor overall in my capping. Just a quick assessment...is this comment an edge or generic? There's a good handful of times where I found clocker reports that anchored a big score but definitely not an every race or even every day thing. Let them give you a runner here and there and stick to your primary handicapping otherwise.

As for storytime, I also am not good at all with physically reading runners. I was once on the fence watching a post parade and when the #3 walked by with ears flopped completely to the side, I told everyone that horse is lame and I'll quit horse racing if he wins. I lied because he paid 17/1 gate-to-wire and I'm still playing, lol.

I like to classify workout comments as subjective or objective. Does this observation directly point to a positive/negative? Or does it create a flowchart of positive/negative possibilities?

Objective-
Clockers observed that Exaggerator blew the turn in his final prep for the Belmont Stakes. After a grueling campaign with 2nd/1st finishes in the Derby/Preakness, this would be a sign the horse is fatigued a high percentage of the time. If you did the work to check clocker reports, you were much more prepared on Belmont Day than the public when they made him the favorite and he finished 11th.

Subjective-
Take a runner that had his head high throughout the final workout before a race. A couple reasons can cause this but Clocker #1 and #2 followers will have very different results:
#1 - horse ran with head high, often a sign of soreness or injury, fade this one.
#2 - horse ran with head high, often a sign of uncomfortable equipment, should run fine on race day with that fixed.
The problem here is this creates a flowchart where not only could 2 clockers have opposite assessments but even those individual assessments could split off separate ways as well. Clocker #1 says he's "injured or sore"...Well If he's injured it's a negative but if he's sore, it could be either. There's a possibility he just needs an extra week for his tendons to heal and boom...he runs well on race day...or he remains sore and doesn't. It's a "Flowchart Comment" and it's just throwing darts.