Barriers Aren't Everything

(MON) February 16th, 2026

8:50 p.m. While I've been bickering about my losses, the time has already come for this year's first G1, February Stakes before I knew it. So let me start reviewing the race.

It's widely known that Tokyo dirt 1600m gives advantge to horses drawing outer posts, because the course starts with turf and horses starting from outer posts can run on turf longer than inner post drawers. I went on to check the performances of outer post starters as I've always felt suspicious about this commonly accepted notion. It turns out that there were 12 horses starting from outer posts finishing above third place in the past 10 years. To be more objective, the top-3 finish rate for horses starting from barrier six, seven and eight for the past 10 years were barrier six 20%, barrier seven 15.0%, barrier eight 15.0%, respectively, which can't be called significantly high rates. Continarily, barrier four and five both showed the rate 30%, the best percentages of all barriers.

As I'd thought, barriers aren't everything.

The End

Caterpillar