Randy Moss

    A couple of races on Saratoga's Travers Day card are tailor-made for pace handicapping.  Unfortunately, one of them isn't the Travers Stakes itself, where much of the pace scenario will depend on a cat-and-mouse game of jockey intent.     The Ballerina Stakes, for example, is a relatively paceless race in which Indian Blessing should control the running if she hasn't regressed significantly in form.  When Bob Baffert decided to focus on sprints midway through her 2008 campaign, Indian Blessing ripped through victories in the Prioress, Test and Gallant Bloom in which she recorded half-mile Moss Pace Figures of 99, 95 and 97, respectively.  Although Informed Decision is going for her sixth win a row, her last two half-mile pacefigs on dirt were 92s.  If those numbers hold, Indian Blessing would hold

Thanks for the responses/questions during the two weeks since this blog was launched. I'll actually try to answer some of them now, and maybe get to some of the others later. From Kevin Sullivan: I remember the Derby, the only one without pace figs, or at least one of very few, was Mine That Bird. I don't know if you ever calculated that race (Sunland Derby) but pro figures that I have seen show an extremely high pace, something that might have helped find the Bird. The Sunland Derby indeed had much higher-than-par pacefigs, and the change in Mine That Bird's running style in the Derby seemed to be instrumental in his upset. Unfortunately Sunland Park wasn't on our list of pace-figure tracks at that time. Now it is. From Saratoga_Mike: Are variant adjustments for the Moss Pace Figures based on Beyer variants for any given

  In the Union Avenue Stakes at Saratoga, Dance Gal Dance should be a heavy favorite, and deservedly so.  She has been beaten twice in eight starts.  In her first defeat in May 2008, she suffered a knee chip and went to the sidelines for surgery.  In her other defeat, she was returning from a 13-month layoff following that operation.  And in both losses, she finished second.   She has a big edge in Beyer Speed Figures, and although she has never trailed at any pace call on her past performances, she has shown she can run "hooked."   But from a pacefig and general handicapping perspective, she might be worth taking a small shot against Monday.   Dance Gal Dance breaks from post No. 2, and to her inside is the Bob Baffert-trained Under Serviced, who hasn't run since Novemb

   Pardon the dust on the blog.....I've been on Brett Favre duty here in Minnesota for NFL Network.    Some posters have requested a preview of upcoming stakes races from a pacefig perspective. I'm planning to do that each weekend.  Others have wanted an example from past races of how pacefigs can be used to a horseplayer's advantage. I can do that right now.    One of the most recent - and best - examples was Saratoga's Test Stakes Aug. 8.  This spotlighted one of my favorite pacefig plays: a route-to-sprint turnback in which a horse's six-furlong pacefig is faster than the final figs of the competition.     On the scale used in Moss Pace Figures, Heart Ashley had set swift pacefigs of 99-96 in the Prioress Stakes before faltering to an 85 final figure

    The Moss Pace Figure blog has officially arrived on your computer - or your Blackberry, or your iPhone, or whatever instrument you use to surf the web. In future posts on this page, I’ll preview upcoming major stakes from a pace perspective, answer questions about the pacefigs and how to decipher them, and occasionally discuss or debate other handicapping topics while trying to stay out of Steve Crist’s way.  But be forewarned: when it comes to pacefigs and how they are calculated, I’m quite a numbers wonk, so if you ask a technical question, you can be assured to get a very technical answer. Now, down to business.      This seems like a good time to announce that a major revision in Moss Pace Figures for synthetic tracks has been uploaded into the DRF computer system and should be available beginning with cards draw