The subject horse is entered in the Risen Star and is suddenly getting a lot of press. Unbridled over Serena\'s Song, I guess you can see why. Pletcher paid 2800K for him. Thats a lot of potatos for a horse that has never run. He\'s gonna win the Derby though, you can just tell. Dying to catch a dry track and go, go, go. Send it in...bet with both hands. The price will never be better.
:)
CtC
three of serena\'s song\'s kids go on saturday - harlington, arbitrate in 9th at OP, and grand reward in the 3rd at SA. harlington should be fun to watch, he could be anything. the risen star is a good early season prep (the whole FG card is pretty good).
Hes liable to take alot of money and from that post I hope he does.
I do like his pedigree. Its about 100 times better than FuSham and to this guys credit he did win against winners around two turns. Thats something FuSham hadn\'t done before they anointed him King.
Aqueduct is a one turn mile and Gulfstream has lots of room. He\'s been going wide with lesser company. If he he can break from the 10 hole here, go wide and win, Pletcher might have something. And at a bargain, only about 3/5\'s the price of FuSham.
Why do i think both of them combined aren\'t gonna get back half of what one hammered down for.
Post Edited (02-10-05 22:09)
CtC,
Last time I checked, \"FuSham\" was the derby favorite and derby winner in his 3 year old year. Interesting that you love real \"shams\" like Lionheart last year, but actual winners like Fusaichi Pegasus and Ghostzapper are frauds.
jim,
FuSam is the one they pinhooked for a few million last year. he ran brilliant last month, then got injured. he was the derby futures favorite when he went down.
ctc,
if harlington runs fast around those tight turns from post 10, he jumps right to the top in my book (with declan). i agree though, he has a tough task ahead of him.
Post Edited (02-11-05 08:38)
The horse that won the Derby was \"FuPig\".
\"FuSham\" is his 4.5 million dollar son. FuSham has more mr. prospector in him than Yosemite Sam.
\"Actual Winners\" of what are frauds? Actual winners of the Derby? or Actual winners of the B.C.Classic? or Just \"Actual Winners?\"
FYI, FuPig was the Derby favorite at about 5-2 and the closest a Mr. Prospector had gotten to Derby Glory was 49er, but that one had a heaping helping of stamina on his back side. Hindsight makes it pretty clear that FuPig caught a very weak triple crown bunch. I just wish my Derby horse had stayed sound. He was star crossed is all.
P.S. FuPig caught the very same \"Actual Winner Favorite Status\" in the Breeders Cup Classic that year at 6-5 and if my memory serves every late developing 3 year old from that crop beat him up and took his lunch money. He\'d dodged the best of his crop and older horses til then is my recollection as well. They saw the writing on the wall and ushered him off to a very quick retirement. Maybe I did mishandicap that year\'s Derby, it was totally out of line with how my selections usually run in that race, but when you know what you\'re doing its easy to reverse a single result.
Chuckles Derby Selection History:
2004-Smarty Jones -1st
2003-Funny Cide -1st
2002-War Emblem -1st
2001-PointGiven/Monarchos Box -Lost
2000-Anees -Also Ran
1999-Menifee -2nd
1998-Indian Charlie -3rd
1997-Captain Bodgit -2nd
1996-Cavonnier -2nd
1995-Jumron -4th
1994-Southern Rhythm -Also Ran
1993-Sea Hero -1st
1992-Lil E. Tee -1st
1991-Strike the Gold -1st
1990-Summer Squall -2nd
1989-Easy Goer -2nd
1988-Forty Niner -2nd
I made the selections for the last three openly on this board. Granted the 2002 winner under an \"Ethel Mertz\" type pseudonyme.
As for Lion Heart, I\'m not sure he\'s an \"actual winner\" like Ghostzapper, but folks want to bad mouth him because a horse named \"My Snookies Boy\", ran him close in a couple races out in Jersey. I think Snookie ran his eyeballs out and Lion Heart did what he had to do. Lion was a much improved horse by the Blue Grass and I can\'t find any complaint with his Derby or Haskell. He was a damn good horse. I don\'t know if he\'d of come out well head to head vs. Ghostzapper, but at least GZ would have had to run.
When Ghostzapper has to run a legimate race at 10 marks, I\'ll consider him an \"actual winner\", until then I\'m sure some will understand that I\'m not gonna take 2-1 on him, fastest horse of all time or not...lol
The more good press and popular acclaim a tomato can type gets the more I like it. Its good for business.
CtC
Post Edited (02-11-05 12:15)
BS BS BS BS BS
How on earth could you ever handicap a race when all you do is bloviate on this site.
Lil E Tee??? BS BS BS
post NOT edited 2/11/05 because its takes too freakin long and I didn\'t proof-read it a zillion times.
Lil E. Tee was a very good bet when A.p.Indy scratched that morning. If I said how much I won on that race, you\'d be screaming it even louder...lol That race made my Derby history. If i never win another ...i\'m a lifetime winner on that race alone.
CtC
Ok. I am clear on on Fu Peg and Fu Sam. I have heard you criticize Fu Peg before and jumped to the wrong conclusion.
As for Fu Peg getting beat up by late developing 3-year olds, you are a little off, but not totally. He won the Jerome, beating Albert the Great at a flat mile, in a race with some decent horses. However, in the BC Classic, the other 3 year olds got him, Tiznow 1st, Giant\'s Causeway 2nd and either Captain Steve or Albert the Great 3rd, with the other one 4th.
Nice list of selections, assuming it is legit, congrats on some nice picks.
You are mixing apples and oranges in your Ghostzapper comments. Saying you don\'t want to bet him as the favorite is one thing, and saying he is not at least a very very good horse is a different thing. He is very very good. If you don\'t believe that, you don\'t belong on this board. TGraph gave him a negative 6, I assume since you post here, you must at least respect JB\'s numbers. He is fast, very fast. He got the 1 1/4. Looking for value betting against him next time? Maybe it will be a good call, but even he loses, he is a very very fast horse.
Fusachi Pegasus came back with a very good and very fast win in the Jerome. Then he had some physical problems that interrupted his schedule for the BC. He missed training AND a prep race. That was more than enough of an excuse. I made him a total throwout just on that - let alone the underlay price. However, he didn\'t really run all that badly. He finished in the middle of the pack despite a fairly difficult trip. Judging him off his BC performance is just plain silly. Only 80% of a horse showed up and with a decent trip he might have hit the board.
i remember handicapping the classic that year with the TG #\'s. FuPeg had a nice 1m #, but his routes were too slow. i made him too slow to hit the board. i don\'t remember the horse having any major injuries. drysdale is very patient with his horses. he took ap indy on a similar path; had a few setbacks then brought him into the classic lightly raced. he was the real deal, and beat some good older horses in 2:00.
Drysdale is the consummate horseman. He didn\'t bring a short horse to the B.C. FuPig was probably best at a one turn mile. He beat a very weak Derby bunch. They were weak at that time.
I dont expect to see GZ try 10 marks until maybe the Classic. I think he was the beneficiary of a race that fell apart in the classic.
Post Edited (02-12-05 12:22)
Chuckles, this story is for you. When Lil ET was in the paddock for the Arkansas Derby, the trainer(cab driver) for Pine Bluff attempted to strech his horse\'s legs. The right front went ok, but the horse tried to step on the trainer\'s foot during the second attempt. The trainer clearly was afraid to try it again. I shouted that I\'d be glad to help. He ordered the guards to throw me out of the track. Once again, he failed to complete the mission. History shows the exacta of Pine Bluff/Lil ET was good. After the race, Pat Day said he noticed something about Lil ET that would be corrected in the upcoming Kentucky Derby(a shadow roll), the rest is history. I\'d have cashed the exacta but Pine Bluff bled.
The moral of this story is that Lil ET was very much a live horse.
I\'m not going to be able to find the articles, but I am 100% certain he had training setbacks and missed one of his originally scheduled preps. Even before that, I was comtemplating betting against him because it was clear he was going to have to move forward from his springtime Derby form to win. Of course pretty much every 3 year old on the planet has to move up from their springtime form to beat the best older horses. That much is a given.
The betting value was that with his reputation he would be the favorite despite the fact that he hadn\'t demonstrated he would move forward. Once he went off schedule, it was a no brainer to bet against him.
Drysdale may be an excellent and very cautious horseman, but there\'s no way that horse was 100% of where he would have been without a training interruption and with another prep race.
Post Edited (02-12-05 13:57)
FP earned a 115 Beyer in the Jerome, his first prep back from the injury that kept him out the Belmont. That was far and away his best lifetime figure. So many presumed he would continue developing heading into the BC. Then he had a recurrent foot problem, missed some training and missed his final prep. He looked good in works coming into the BC, but I rarely see horses like these fire their best shot and have been making money betting against them for a long time. In this case - I would estimate a new peak at leas than 5%-10%. With a another prep etc... for a 3yo, I would make it quite high.
http://www.drf.com/drfNewsArticle.do?NID=23257&subs=0&arc=1
Post Edited (02-12-05 13:26)
This is actually a pretty interesting race. If it weren\'t for the fact that Harrington has such a great pedigree and is trained by Pletcher, I would love betting against this horse if he takes money.
I hate when a horse develops his reputation off his 1st start and it was in the slop. You can be certain that some percentage of them just liked the slop. Yet they will get bet as if they earned their figures on a fast track because that\'s the only info the public has to go by. In this case the horse has 2 slop races and an outside post! That\'s 2 ways he can lose. He can lose because he prefers the mud and he can lose because of the trip.
The problem of course is that since it\'s Pletcher and a 2.8M horse, he probably IS the goods.
Iced Out, Rush Bay and a few others are decent and moving forward. Whoever wins will have to run a decent race.
Post Edited (02-12-05 17:11)
spa wrote:
> Chuckles, this story is for you. When Lil ET was in the paddock
> for the Arkansas Derby, the trainer(cab driver) for Pine Bluff
> attempted to strech his horse\'s legs. The right front went ok,
> but the horse tried to step on the trainer\'s foot during the
> second attempt. The trainer clearly was afraid to try it again.
> I shouted that I\'d be glad to help. He ordered the guards to
> throw me out of the track.
lol, thats what you get for making a trainer look like a turkey. Pine Bluff?...Thomas Bohannon? Did they actually kick you out of the track?
Once again, he failed to complete
> the mission. History shows the exacta of Pine Bluff/Lil ET was
> good. After the race, Pat Day said he noticed something about
> Lil ET that would be corrected in the upcoming Kentucky Derby(a
> shadow roll), the rest is history. I\'d have cashed the exacta
> but Pine Bluff bled.
> The moral of this story is that Lil ET was very much a live
> horse.
>
I caught Lil E Tee in his first two starts in Florida. I was doing my own figures and had him HUGE. (2 yr old) Right after that race he was purchased privately by Whiting on behalf of Cal Partee and poof he was gone. I liked him from the start because I had good reason to believe he was super fast. I seem to recall him losing his two preps in Arkansas. One to Al Sabin and the other to Pine Bluff. Cal Partee had finished 3rd in the Derby a few years earlier with Lil E. Tee\'s sire \"At the Threshold\" (Damascus Line I think) and Cal Partee was an older man getting to the end of the road, was serious about winning the Derby and had the right trainer to do it. Anyway the preps were building preps and I was encouraged by them. I felt all along the goal was Churchill Downs. The only thing that caused me some reservation was that Lil E Tee. went off his feed for a day after the Arkansas Derby. But I believe Whiting is true blue and he shot candidly from the hip on it and I was convinced it wasn\'t worth not backing the horse. I thought he would handle Pine Bluff. I think he was getting to him in the Ark. My only concern was AP Indy and when he scratched that morning I interpreted that as an omen for Cal Partee.
Lil E. Tee was injured in the Preakness and ran two nice races as a four year old I believe. Lightning caught briefly in a bottle. I lost that Preakness, but I had A.p. Indy in his return and your Pine Bluff and My Memoirs. I think that was the year. Alzheimers you know.
Pine Bluff was a good Danzig. His moms line is what carried FuPig as far as he went. I hope you bagged that Preakness.
CtC
just watched the Belmont from that year. i forgot just how game pine bluff was. also looked up his pedigree again.. a ton of stamina on the dam side. i think that was arazi\'s year. fav in both the derby and BC mile, flopped in both. the winner of the classic: ap indy. second: pleasant tap. third: a french filly that killed my tri. i will always be a huge ap fan. i guess that\'s why i like declan\'s moon so much.