A couple of weeks back, my local simulcast room was abuzz with the news that Garrett Gomez had won four races in a row at Santa Anita. By the fifth race half the guys around me were betting Gomez on anything -- mule, goat, didn't matter. Of course, in that fifth race, he lost on the false favorite created by the crowd frenzy.Later I looked up the charts and noted that Gomez's four wins were accomplished on strong favorites, every one of them. What are the odds against favorites winning four times in a row? It will happen roughly at least one time every hundred race days. (.33 x .33 x.33 x.33, assuming favorites win a third of all races.)
So it's not exactly unheard of...
Gomez just happened to be aboard the favorites.
But it got me wondering how we measure the success of a jockey. Traditionally, it's by money won or victories.
But it's one thing to win a race on Bernardini or Invasor. It's another thing to coax home a reluctant, tiring 12-1 claimer. A jockey on a strong favorite has a tremendous advantage.
So I looked at the last few Saturdays at Gulfstream. I noted which jockeys had hit the board, and at what prices. Then I devised a simple rating system. It's meant to
measure how a jockey did against the odds.
Here's how it came out. Remember, it only measures 40 races or so, and I make no claims other than it might be a subject for further research. The higher the rating, the better the jockey did against the odds.
90 BRAVO
207 J.R. VELAZQUEZ
211 PRADO
255 BEJARANO
309 C. VELAZQUEZ
326 GOMEZ
343 DESORMEAUX
348 CASTELLANO
411 CASTRO
869 NUNEZ
1012 CRUZ
1668 GUIDRY
In other words, Joe Bravo might win, but only on an even-money horse. Gomez you can trust with a 3-1 shot. Mark Guidry, on the other hand, seems to be able to win on a mule.
What I'm postulating here is that Nunez, Cruz and Guidry have the skill but not the Gulfstream connections to get the better mounts, and that seeing them atop a longshot ought to cause us to further consider the prospects of said horse.
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