JB,
You are consistent, I will give you that. When I saw your post two days ago that the Gazelle was going to be your race of the week, I looked at the list of entries after they were drawn and thought about what the TG opinion might be. I thought one thing:
\"I really hope JB is not going to consider Capeside Lady a strong contender. She is this week\'s Snookie\'s Boy. Ran two big figures over sloppy tracks and at Monmouth against inferior competition. Monmouth is the home of false figures.
Sure enough, you like her. \"Strong contender, especially if it\'s wet\".
I only wish I knew you, because I would love to offer you a proposition bet of me taking Magical Illusion against your Capeside Lady.
Capeside Lady will be on the lead on the far turn. Magical Illusion will be first of MANY to pass her.
Daydreaming, Bending Strings, Magical Illusion and He Loves Me will all finish ahead of her, wet or dry. I am trying to decide if boxing those four will have any value in the exacta pool.
Good luck
Capeside Lady is the type of horse I generally like to bet against also. She\'s a wire to wire winner that was loose on the lead against softer competition on an off track. That\'s 3 reasons she might run worse tomorrow than she ran last time.
I don\'t think she\' going to be the favorite though. So what\'s the point?
She certainly has some ability. This is the type of horse I like to toss as the favorite, not as second choice. She could easily win.
Class Handicapper,
I am surprised by your \"what is the point\". Do you actually believe there is ONLY value in betting against favorites?
Any time there is a race where a horse that will take a reasonable amount of money is a \"non-contender\" in my mind, there is probably a betting strategy to take advantage of that opinion.
I don\'t like Capeside Lady at all and consider her one of the favorites to come in LAST in the race. I also think there is value in hoping/thinking that Stellar Jayne might not run her best after a couple of tough efforts. Especially with how ICE COLD the Lukas barn has been.
So, I actually think there is very good value for me in the race.
Of course, if I am wrong about Stellar Jayne and Capeside Lady, there goes my \"value\"....
I think she goes off at 8/1 or so, she wont take much action. The most likely action off the 6/1 m/l will be daydreaming IMO.
Pretty good race to bet if you like someone other then the Lukas horse.
I like He Loves Me to win. I\'d box her a little with Capeside Lady and Daydreaming, assuming Lukas\' horse holds up as a 2/1 fave. I have a feeling CLady and Daydream will take money and neither will be higher than 5-1, and He Loves Me will go off at least 8-1. Good luck. HP
Jimbo 66 you wrote,
>You are consistent, I will give you that.
As soon as I saw you had posted regarding the ROTW I knew you would be TGJB bashing with a little DWL ripping thrown in for good measure. You are consistent, I will give you that.
And then we were lucky enough to get this.
>Daydreaming, Bending Strings, Magical Illusion and He Loves Me will all finish ahead of her, wet or dry. I am trying to decide if boxing those four will have any value in the exacta pool.
A maybe on a four horse exacta. The Scarecrow and the Lion on the Wizard of Oz had more courage.
As usual TGJB has nailed this one pretty good. I will be taking the odds and going with Bending Strings.
And that is no maybe, might be, possibly, but only if, can\'t say for sure, etc..etc..etc.
Silver Charm wrote:
> As usual TGJB has nailed this one pretty good. I will be taking
> the odds and going with Bending Strings.
My thoughts exactly SC...
Silver Parrot (I mean Charm),
I am not \"JB Bashing\". I am posting BEFORE the race, my opinion, instead of second guessing him after the race is over.
I didn\'t criticize the rest of the analysis, just Capeside Lady. And only to try and make a point. Some \"figures\" are better than others. Figures in short fields on wet tracks at places like Monmouth seem less reliable to me. I posted here many times in the past few weeks that the Haskell runners were all \"bet againsts\". Snookie\'s Boy and Lion Heart certainly proved that opinion correct. I don\'t count Pies Prospect as a \"bet against\" at 13-1, because I actually thought he was value at that price and used him, so I certainly can\'t criticize JB for using him.
I thought my post was pretty clear that I like Magical Illusion. I asked a question at the end whether boxing four horses in an exacta would have any \"value\". It is a bet I almost never make. I agree that it is too safe. I wish that being too safe was my gambling problem. Unfortunately, I am almost always on the other side of the extreme.
Try to think on your own sometimes, you will be surprised. It is possible to have opinions other than JB\'s. Disagreeing with him, isn\'t disparaging him.
Some people would regard intellectual debate about handicapping opinions/analysis, a good thing.
But good luck with Bending Strings. If she can handle the 1 1/8, she might be very very tough.
scratches are going to kill the price and this disagreement. the pletcher horse is out, magical illusion as well. mambo bell scratched too.
Good point. Scratches killed the race and the debate!!
I have a question. Anybody out there ever notice that NY races have SO MANY MORE late scratches than the tracks in California? Any idea why that might be? ARe there different rules about late scratches?
Today\'s race is part of my \"pet peeve\" about racing. The Gazelle was going to be a great betting race. Why the hell do Pletcher, Bond and the other trainer enter their horse and then scratch him? Don\'t tell me they all got hurt this morning. Trainers shop around for weak, bullshit spots to enter their horses and if a race comes up tough, they scratch. No guts, no glory. And we, the bettors are left with a substandard product. Now you get 1-1 on the Lukas, 4-1 on Bending Strings.
In socal the way is setup is its easy to scratch out of stakes but difficult to scratch out of anything else, believe it is a \"jail\" term of 7 or 10 days to re-enter. I dont understand either when there is no bad weather to deal with.
Its really irritating to spend the night handicapping for nothing. Its one of my peeves about saratoga grass racing, I handicap 15 horses only to have to redo it once it rains.
The Haskell was run at Monmouth, but it contained horses who had been running in races around the country. As I recall (and I did it as ROTW, it\'s still there) the two fastest horses had earned their figures AT MTH. They ran 1-2, keying (along with Pie\'s Prospect) a big hit for me, and others who played the race with our figures. That those horses did not run well the next time is totally inconsequential when looking at the accuracy of those figures-- they were both coming off a pair of lifetime tops, and one broke down. They had already given strong evidence (there is never proof) that the MTH figures were right-- in the Haskell. That\'s why we put them on a graph.
As far as I\'m concerned, Capeside Lady (and to a lesser Magical Illusion) coming out is a good thing. CL was impossible to evaluate due to the tops on a wet track (fast is probably why she came out), and those two added a bunch of hard to quantify variables that in no way made it a better betting race, and made coverage tougher. Since the edge in the race is in betting against the favorite and there are two that we like, what was the advantage in bringing in other handicapping questions?
I do not have any problem with your comments before the race, Jim. I will point out that a bad effort by CL would not have proved anything-- I pointed out in Rotw that she was tough to deal with because of the wet track tops. But since she was as fast at the weights as a favorite we did not like, we have to use her-- she pretty much becomes an automatic overlay, variables and all.
One more point-- the scratches completely change the pace/ground loss scenario, and I\'m surprised there hasn\'t been more talk about that. We have gone from a 9 horse field with a contested pace to a 6 horse race around one turn-- who does it favor?
JB,
I read your response and I honestly think it supports my position, as much as yours, with the Haskell.
I know you hit the Haskell. So did I. My point about Monmouth is that it is a quirky track, sometimes horses run well there and CANNOT run as well elsewhere. The reason I hit the Haskell is because i suspected that Lion Heart had a big edge over RHT, having had a race over the track. Snookie\'s Boy also had proven he moved way up at Monmouth.
My EXACT point is that when these types of horses LEAVE Monmouth, they don\'t run as well. Snookie\'s Boy and Lionheart both SHOWED this. And I was guessing that Capeside Lady would have shown this also. Pointing to the Haskell to validate Monmouth figures is not correct. Point to the races after the Haskell, where the horses leave Monmouth and run at other tracks, and see if they run their Monmouth Haskell figures.
ground loss wise, to me, it favors He Loves Me, she won\'t have to go 4 or 5 wide into the stretch. Now for pace scenario, I think Bending Strings sits just off Stellar Jayne and maybe, hopefully, Daydreaming will be in the mix. This would set it up very nicely for He Loves Me\'s run. I think SJ chance of getting into the top three improves, however, I will keep her out of my exacta which will be HLM-BS. With a win on HLM. Odds will help determine the play, as always.
A lot of that is something we\'ll just have to disagree about, and look at future events to support or positions. But you can\'t possibly still believe that what happened with LH in the Travers supports your position-- it could at LEAST as easily support the position that two huge efforts and short rest broke him down.
And LH certainly didn\'t need a race over Mth (he ran huge in the Long Branch)-- don\'t remember MSB...
JB,
I think the scratches help Stellar Jayne. This won\'t surprise you, because I think change in pace scenario makes a bigger difference than the potential better trips due to less ground loss for the closers.
I am guessing you think the scratches help Bending Strings and He Loves Me, because they won\'t lose as much ground.
I sincerely hope you are right, as I have nice sized Pick-3\'s live to your two horses as well as the rank outsider with Cornelio Velazquez.
But I have lost confidence in betting against Stellar Jayne because she figures to have an easly lead if Albarado sends.
Jimbo66
Nice call on Stellar Jane.
Has Bending Strings crossed the finish line yet the race was run over hour ago.
I think the slow pace did have an effect, at least to the degree that the bunched up field caused severe ground loss, which may or may not have affected the outcome-- I won\'t know until I do the day.
But here\'s my question-- how come the pace helped SJ and not BS, who totally spit it out?
Bending Strings was a question mark at the 1 1/8 distance. She may not have wanted to go that far.
Could be, but she was cooked after 5f. Also have to point out that the slow pace in the turf race mattered only to about the eighth pole, and the fast pace in the Woodward didn\'t seem to matter at all. Point being, results can be-- to use your term-- retrofitted. My guess is that SJ backed up a little and won because she saved ground, BS and the Shug filly didn\'t run their tops, and HLM ran her race but lost a ton of ground on the turn.
I am biased with these comments because I bet HLM, but what was Santana thinking. How can a jockey get caught 5 wide in a 6 horse field? He must of thought that this was Pimlico. I can understand Mr. Small sticking with his regular jock, but he can\'t be happy. All Santana had to do was wait until they straightend out from the turn and he would have had a shot. He would have had to work to run down SJ and Daydreaming, but he had plenty of horse, at least put the horse in position to win. He should have talked with Edgar Prado before the race.
JB,
Early pace in turf racing in less relevant than in turf races. Even the most devout pace handicappers will give you that.
The turf race was a lousy betting race. The Europeans towered over the field, especially on soft turf. I threw Ballingarry into my three horse box, to try and get some value, but he didn\'t run.
Boxing Balto Star, the 3 year old from Frankel and Request for PARole, on yielding turf? Please..............
I don\'t mind you saying who you bet after the race, it\'s sometimes annoying but otherwise innocuous. But don\'t knock our picks unless you go on the record in advance. I\'m going to leave that one up-- I won\'t next time.
JB,
Take it down.
I don\'t post lies. I said very clearly in one of my posts that I did worse than your negative 18 percent return at Saratoga. That certainly ain\'t braggin or gloatin..
Jimbo-- it\'s not about bragging or gloating, and I don\'t think you are lying. But anyone can pick spots to take shots after the race-- if my box had run 1-2-3, would you have come here afterwards and said boy, what a ridiculous pick?
Jimbo,
>I am surprised by your \"what is the point\". Do you actually believe there is ONLY value in betting against favorites? <
I realize it\'s all moot now. I thought Stella was going to be the deserving favorite and Capeside\'s negatives weren\'t strong enough to consider her a non-contender. So I had a tough time seeing where the value would be.