Stop at Scat Daddy

If I'm not sounding like a broken record at this point, I'm sure I will soon, but how did two Scat Daddy firsters get away at 15-1 and 54-1 in a maiden special weight at Keeneland on Thursday? I can understand missing dams who were standout runners or have been standout producers; there are so many to know that actual research might be necessary on that score. But Scat Daddy is not only currently the leading freshman sire, he's the current juvenile sire, too. As the second choice in the BC Juvenile, and the 3rd choice in the Kentucky Derby, bettors and fans had awareness of him before he began accumulating a record as a sire. Certainly they have noticed or read that he is doing well?

The funny thing is that I think they have. They know, but oddly separate the knowledge from the undertaking of making their bets. For some handicappers, they may relegate the sire information subconsciously. Perhaps they've just gotten accustomed to using jockey, trainer, workouts, and early betting as their guides. They have awareness of the good sires and sire lines, but the knowledge may not be solid enough in their brains to trust it, the same way that I've heard of actors and singers but can't place them. If you suggested that they should incorporate pedigree information, with some guidance, they would be open to it.

What flummoxes me is the people who have command of the pedigree information but still ignore it. There must be a fair number of these, or there would not be Scat Daddys debuting at 54-1. Most of us have encountered first-out winning percentages for sires and know there is considerable variability from sire to sire. If you know a sire is a 20 percent first-out win sire, why would you not think the information relevant to the race at hand? That 20 percent winning percentage was made up of races like the one you're examining: it has predictive, not just historical significance. I don't understand the intellectual argument for ignoring a variable that is, in fact, a variable. (I could make an intellectual argument for doing it, actually. I guess what I am saying is that, on face value, sire is obviously predictive. The onus needs to be on those who ignore it to demonstrate that their stance is logical. But when I cite discrepancies between odds and sire capability, I feel like I am being humored, and not presenting the bordering on overwhelming and unassailable.)

So, as for this race with the two overlooked Scat Daddys, 54-1 Daddy's Rose led for the first three calls and ended up second by a length behind Indyniable. The 15-1 Swaythisaway, long on pedigree even setting Scat Daddy aside (she's out of Dance Number's daughter Oscillate, and a half to Mutakddim) made it a Scat Daddy exacta for the first 3f or so of the 7f race before fading to 7th by 6 at the wire. Scat Daddys are instilling confidence that they will run well, or at the very least have speed. Sires are doing this or not doing this every day, and it's prudent to pay attention.