Please, understand that I was not trying to challenge anyone in any way on the message board. what we have is a difference in how we percieve things. You might look at a glass of water and say " .... it's half empty." I might look at the same glass and say "....it's half full.
The difference of opinion in the case of Hermitz Penguin; # 30684 , falls on two different ways of analyzing the horses potential attributes.
Let's look at both sides:
In the auction, week 565. , omit his 579. race , you will see PP's that show completely dismal results. Herman was unable to win at the lowest class track in the lowest of races; $2000 Claiming. Herman also had descending speed figures with every start, never a good sign. Pretty Ugly!
What did I see?
First of all, let me state that I have started a collection ( if you will ) of sires that won't be represented by their off-spring on the race track until the year 2000, 2001 . This is another great attribute of this game, you can anticipate what the real-life progeny may race like in the future years to come. I have four horses like this, but remember, these sires won't accompolish much on their own, they must be solidly backed-up on their female side.
Sires:
And our subject stallion: Loup Sauvage
So far, I am very happy with the results I'm getting, I had to wait to race a couple of them because they were less than "Ready To Go". What did I see with Hermitz Penguin; Loup Sauvage was a champion middle distance horse in Europe and proved his ability on both, turf and dirt. Trainer Andre Fabre coined him with the nickname; "The Wild One".
Although his PP's were very bad, with a young horse or with a lightly raced horse you have to look at through the eyes of it's inherant potential and dis-miss what has already been done. The first thing I thought is that he is running at a class level too low for what his breeding suggests he will be effective at. In other words it is much harder for him to win at this level than at a higher class level, his "Relative Class Level", that which is suggested by his breeding. If you don't think there is such a thing, try this expierement:
Take a horse that has won stakes races at class A or Class B tracks ($36K+ MSW), and put him in a $2K claiming race at Mexico at his favorite distance and surface, he won't win ..... he'll be claimed too .......LOL!! Alright, put him in a classified allowance race instead, he won't win. The odds will be 1/5-1 but the horse will not win. Why? Because he has left his "Relative Class Zone".
I also saw a very poorly managed horse in Hermitz Penguin; Three races in three consecutive weeks and not one was a maiden race of any type .... HP was never given a chance to win!
In the auction the opening bid was $0 , I could have won the bidding with $15,000, but I really wanted the horse and bid $35,000 . How did I know that he would perform well at the MSW $36,000 level? You are never 100% sure of anything in horseracing, until you try.
I feel very confident that in his next race, which will be at 8.0f's; MSW $36,400 , he will win. If he don't, I'll know also that he put in a very strong performance, his last race was not a fluke.
Ohh, ...... If you looked at Marc's Attic; # 29258 , he will get his An1x race upon his next out.
