The Handicap Wizard had three of the top four finishers correct in the Louisiana Derby with its top four selections. Its first selection, War of Will, suffered a hing leg injury coming out of the gate and was not a factor in the race. The horse that won, By My Standards, defied long odds to beat the Pletcher trained, Spinoff, at the wire.
To put By My Standards performance in perspective mathematically, his mean final speed figure before the Louisiana Derby was 84.75 in four starts with a standard deviation of 4.27. In the Louisiana Derby he put up a 102 figure, which was 4.04 standard deviations above the mean. The equivalent probability is 0.0027% or 1 in 37,417.
If we go off his last fig of 90, the jump to a 102 final speed figure is still 2.81 standard deviations higher. The probability of that happening from 90 as a mean using the same standard deviation is 0.2477% or 1 in 404.
Pro-Handicap Analytics 