Well the big question on everybody's lips is can Dawn Approach win the Derby for Godolphin? If you look at ratings and form then it should be a matter of him only having to go down to come back and win! However, there is no such thing as a certainty and at the price you won't get rich backing this one.
Epsom is a weird course and actually I don't rate it all in terms of course quality. Yes, the Oaks and the Derby are run there and they like to talk about the hill and the camber but come on, it doesn't really have much more going for it.
Speaking of the camber and the hill I just wonder if that could cause Dawn Approach a few problems? In last year's Dewhurst he look a big old boat as he galloped along and it took him some time to find his stride. SO tomorrow on the slopes and cambers of Epsom I would be worried about taking a short price. If he loses his stride you might find him changing his legs a few times and by the time he finds the correct lead leg well you never know, something else may have pinched a lead he cannot claw back.
Can he win? Yes of course he can. Would I back him at 2.4? Hell no! I reckon we may see a drift to say 2.66 but even then I would not be tempted. I was going to say a drift to 2.76 but perhaps that is wishful thinking. We would need to see strong support for 1 or 2 others and I am not sure that will come.
I'll watch in my dizzy state but I will not be paying to find out who wins...so to speak!
The Derby 2013 UPDATED to include Dosage Index
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JollyGreen
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Last edited by JollyGreen on Sat Jun 01, 2013 11:48 am, edited 1 time in total.
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pdupre1961
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Dublin_Flyer
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I think Ruler Of The World might come in a bit, closer to race time. Previously O'Briens winners of the Chester Vase have been talked up a lot on the day of the Derby to be a maybe place chance (Treasure Beach 2011, Golden Sword 2009, Soldier of Fortune 2007)
None have seemed to handle the undulations to perfection at Epsom because on their reappearance after, all 3 have done quite well in the Irish Derby at the Curragh,1st,2nd and 1st!
So my plan of attack will be to see how Ruler of The World runs, back or lay nothing in Epsom, back him heavily on course should he run in the Irish Derby, and courtside it!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpIzPuiDN60
One of the videos I watch after a shit day or week to remind me why I love racing. Pretty sure todays Derby won't have the winner striking the front just after Tattenhams corner, and leading till the line.
"There's only one horse in it, you need a telescope to see the rest!"
None have seemed to handle the undulations to perfection at Epsom because on their reappearance after, all 3 have done quite well in the Irish Derby at the Curragh,1st,2nd and 1st!
So my plan of attack will be to see how Ruler of The World runs, back or lay nothing in Epsom, back him heavily on course should he run in the Irish Derby, and courtside it!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpIzPuiDN60
One of the videos I watch after a shit day or week to remind me why I love racing. Pretty sure todays Derby won't have the winner striking the front just after Tattenhams corner, and leading till the line.
"There's only one horse in it, you need a telescope to see the rest!"
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JollyGreen
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A good spot but it's not his full sister and Talent's Dam is a Peintre Celebre mare. That classic Northern Dancer breeding line would add stamina to the progeny. If however, you look at the Dam line of Dawn Approach you will see it is very much a USA pedigree. In fact you need to go back 5 generations to find any GB/Euro influence. This line is pretty much screaming sprinter or miler; you may push 10f against weak or questionable opposition. This is 12f so if, and it is an if, he gets 12f it will be right at the end of his stamina.
Now obviously he may get 12f and win the Derby with ease but my main point is the price is too short and you have to hope he will see out the trip.
There is one piece of information that to the best of my knowledge has received no media coverage. Jim Bolger who bred and has a share in Dawn Approach also bred three other horses from this mare (Hymn of the Dawn) and the furthest they manage to win over was 7f. The sires were Medecis, Rock of Gibraltar and Peintre Celebre. The latter of those two sires should/could impart stamina through the Dam but that was not the case. Now obviously you cannot make a direct comparison but you can look at breeding lines to give you a pretty good idea of how a horse will perform in terms of distance. You will always find the exception to the rule but as I always maintain that exception won't pay the bills long term.
I would like Dawn Approach to win as Godolphin has been put through a torrid time of late and Sheikh Mohammed is a true supporter and lover of racing.
It will be interesting to see how this turns out!
Good luck if you play!
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JollyGreen
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I probably should have included this earlier but I decided to add it in now just for information. When I look at pedigrees I can generally see if a horse is a sprinter, middle distance or stayer. Then you can start looking at breeding for action and the type of surface they should excel on. If we forget the latter and concentrate on distance there is another tool you can use called the Dosage Index. I first started using this in the early days of the internet, in fact it was probably pre-internet days!!
The idea is that certain sires produce a particular type of runner. So a sprinting Sire like Danzig if mated with a sprinting mare like Lochsong is unlikely to produce offspring that will win anything beyond 6f! Yes, there are always exceptions to the rule but I prefer to deal with the norm.
One thing I like to do is look at the Dosage Index of previous winners to see if there is a trend. Here are the last 15 winners of the Derby. The first number is the Dosage Index (DI_)and the second is Centre Of Distribution (CD)
Camelot 0.94 0.16
Pour Moi 0.78 -0.04
Workforce 1.00 0.23
Sea the Stars 3.00* 0.81
New Approach 0.89 0.22
Authorised 0.86 0.08
Sir Percy 0.54 -0.50
Motivator 1.43 0.46
North Light 1.13 0.15
Kris Kin 1.05 0.12
High Chaparral 0.82 0.00
Galileo 1.11 0.28
Sinndar 1.56 0.41
Oath 1.86 0.45
High Rise 0.82 -0.10
*Sea the Stars was the exception, his breeding suggested speed. However, I recall his jockey saying he was so relaxed in his racing he could settle and maintain the gallop so perhaps that helped him be so brilliant
The DI generally runs from +2 to -2 where 0 is middle distance and to the left a speed and to the right stamina.
CD is similar and shows Brilliant (Sprint) to Professional (Stayer) you can use a distance scale here where +2 = 4f and -2 = 2m+
Basically a high DI leans toward speed as does a high CD. In the list above you can see they are pretty similar with Sea the Stars being the exception. I tend to look at CD and then try to dig deeper to see if there is something I have missed which may alter my view.
So Dawn Approach has a DI of 1.67 and a CD of 0.38 putting him very close to Sinndar and Oath. This is where I would start digging to see why those horses seemed to be an exception at first glance. If we look at Oath you don't need much digging. The sire was from the Northern Dancer line and the Dam's sire was Troy who won the Derby in 1979.
Sinndar is slightly different in that his sire was Grand Lodge and whilst he was from a Northern Dancer line the Grand Sire was speedy in the shape of Danzig. This early factor speed suggests Sinndar would also be pure speed but on the Dam side there is the influence of Mill Reef and Top Ville which offers the stamina.
If we look at the list of winners and calculate their DI it gives us 1.18 if we include the 3.0 from Sea the Stars. If we strike that figure as being too high and work on the rest we get a figure of 1.06
On the CD we have an average of 0.23 with Sea the Stars and 0.18 without him.
So you can see that is breeding and dosage are anything to go by Dawn Approach isn't really value at 2.44 because there has to be a doubt about his stamina.
Mind you this could all be a load of b****cks and he'll win hard held!
I hope I didn't bore you too much!
The idea is that certain sires produce a particular type of runner. So a sprinting Sire like Danzig if mated with a sprinting mare like Lochsong is unlikely to produce offspring that will win anything beyond 6f! Yes, there are always exceptions to the rule but I prefer to deal with the norm.
One thing I like to do is look at the Dosage Index of previous winners to see if there is a trend. Here are the last 15 winners of the Derby. The first number is the Dosage Index (DI_)and the second is Centre Of Distribution (CD)
Camelot 0.94 0.16
Pour Moi 0.78 -0.04
Workforce 1.00 0.23
Sea the Stars 3.00* 0.81
New Approach 0.89 0.22
Authorised 0.86 0.08
Sir Percy 0.54 -0.50
Motivator 1.43 0.46
North Light 1.13 0.15
Kris Kin 1.05 0.12
High Chaparral 0.82 0.00
Galileo 1.11 0.28
Sinndar 1.56 0.41
Oath 1.86 0.45
High Rise 0.82 -0.10
*Sea the Stars was the exception, his breeding suggested speed. However, I recall his jockey saying he was so relaxed in his racing he could settle and maintain the gallop so perhaps that helped him be so brilliant
The DI generally runs from +2 to -2 where 0 is middle distance and to the left a speed and to the right stamina.
CD is similar and shows Brilliant (Sprint) to Professional (Stayer) you can use a distance scale here where +2 = 4f and -2 = 2m+
Basically a high DI leans toward speed as does a high CD. In the list above you can see they are pretty similar with Sea the Stars being the exception. I tend to look at CD and then try to dig deeper to see if there is something I have missed which may alter my view.
So Dawn Approach has a DI of 1.67 and a CD of 0.38 putting him very close to Sinndar and Oath. This is where I would start digging to see why those horses seemed to be an exception at first glance. If we look at Oath you don't need much digging. The sire was from the Northern Dancer line and the Dam's sire was Troy who won the Derby in 1979.
Sinndar is slightly different in that his sire was Grand Lodge and whilst he was from a Northern Dancer line the Grand Sire was speedy in the shape of Danzig. This early factor speed suggests Sinndar would also be pure speed but on the Dam side there is the influence of Mill Reef and Top Ville which offers the stamina.
If we look at the list of winners and calculate their DI it gives us 1.18 if we include the 3.0 from Sea the Stars. If we strike that figure as being too high and work on the rest we get a figure of 1.06
On the CD we have an average of 0.23 with Sea the Stars and 0.18 without him.
So you can see that is breeding and dosage are anything to go by Dawn Approach isn't really value at 2.44 because there has to be a doubt about his stamina.
Mind you this could all be a load of b****cks and he'll win hard held!
I hope I didn't bore you too much!
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JollyGreen
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I imagine some will be asking where the DI and CD figures are for this year's entrants so here you go
Battle Of Marengo 1.67 0.54
Chopin 1.15 0.21
Dawn Approach 1.67 0.38
Festive Cheer 0.80 0.06
Flying the Flag 1.35 0.30
Galileo Rock 0.78 -0.08
Libertarian 0.65 -0.29
Mars 1.29 0.33
Mirsaale 0.74 -0.05
Ocean Applause 2.33* 0.6
Ocovango 0.88 0.10
Ruler of the World 1.05 0.26
* This is very high suggesting it won't see out the trip. 500/1 with the bookmaker and 1000 on Betfair
If forced to choose one I would go for Ruler of the World each way
Battle Of Marengo 1.67 0.54
Chopin 1.15 0.21
Dawn Approach 1.67 0.38
Festive Cheer 0.80 0.06
Flying the Flag 1.35 0.30
Galileo Rock 0.78 -0.08
Libertarian 0.65 -0.29
Mars 1.29 0.33
Mirsaale 0.74 -0.05
Ocean Applause 2.33* 0.6
Ocovango 0.88 0.10
Ruler of the World 1.05 0.26
* This is very high suggesting it won't see out the trip. 500/1 with the bookmaker and 1000 on Betfair
If forced to choose one I would go for Ruler of the World each way
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CaerMyrddin
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- Joined: Mon Sep 07, 2009 10:47 am
JollyGreen, again and again congratulations on the brilliant assessment!
Great stuff! As usual
Great stuff! As usual