His last is fastest by a good margin going in and his pattern seems very healthy to me in that he improved 3 points from his two year old top in his 3rd start as a 3 year old and then he bounced but came back to his top 2 races later and then broke through in a big way in his last. He also comes in well rested after that big last effort.
Seems like a very healthy and sound horse to me.
We know he\'s prefers the one turn closer trip which he gets today and Mr. Irwin has previously said here he wouldn\'t be going to the BC so we don\'t have to be as worried about this just being a BC prep where he\'s not fully tuned up for this.
His odds will be pretty short but I think he is a very soild single in the pick 6 carryover today at Belmont.
Also, speed is holding on the very wet turf course at Belmont so keep that in mind today as well for the other pick 6 races.
good luck
Z Humor - a pair of 5\'s at 2, one going 1M at Bel. ran along dead rail in Met Mile. 1st Pletcher, who is dangerous of the layoff. inside post, 115 lbs. looking for a new top.
You And I Forever - top two back is competitive at the weights. Castellano should save ground. has the speedy You on bottom, and a decent turn of foot. dangerous at a decent price.
Visionaire - his last is good enough to win, even with a 3w trip under 120 lbs. if Da T sets a quick pace, this guy look best. compromised a bit if they slow this thing down early. low odds a problem.
Harlem Rocker - has the negative .5 at a today\'s distance. dangerous. low odds the issue.
Da T - dangerous if allowed to lope along early. stuck with 122 lbs though, and hasn\'t run fast enough to win this.
Cool Coal Man - one fast figure at two and three. should appreciate the one-turn mile. dangerous.
Tale of Ekati - hasn\'t run a fast final 1/8 since the one-turn Futurity at Bel last year. obviously eligible to pop a big one here at a flat mile. dangerous tracking 2w.
this one is impossible. really can\'t toss any of them. I\'ll take a shot with You And I Forever at what should be a decent price. a 1w trip \'1\' under 115 lbs might be enough.
Mike D,
good analysis on TOE.
Not sure what happened with Visionaire. Hope he is ok given that he never picked up his feet. Don\'t think it was the track as he has run huge on the slop before.
Bad capping by me. Back to the drawing board.
covelj70 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Mike D,
>
> good analysis on TOE.
>
> Not sure what happened with Visionaire. Hope he
> is ok given that he never picked up his feet.
> Don\'t think it was the track as he has run huge on
> the slop before.
>
> Bad capping by me. Back to the drawing board.
cove,
you went out of your way to nail Vis in his 6 1/2 win at the Spa, so you\'re still up on the horse.
ToE made a lot of sense cutting back, and certainly had to be moved up at 6-1. I\'m happy with my play on You And I Forever though. 8-1 and $9 to place was fair enough.
Thanks,
This one hurt though as that race was the only one I missed in the pick 6 which paid very well. Wouldn\'t have paid as much obviously had Visionaire won but it would still have been ok as there were some other prices in the sequence which the TG numbers/patterns led me to the right direction on.
Thanks again
I was at Keeneland today, not Belmont.
Did many of the winners wear caulks or bends today?
Visionaire did not.
He never picked up his feet and he came back like he never ran. Perplexing, unless the shoes were the story.
Caulks and bends winners at Belmont is the norm when Big Sandy gets wet. Visionaire never wears caulks/bends according to TG shoe info but has handled wet tracks well before.
Clunkers always perplexing when they don\'t run a step but come back seemingly perfect.
Mike
I can\'t speak to the rest of the card, but in the Jerome, Tale of Ekati and Harlem Rocker wore bends. The Zito entry wore caulks and bends.
One of my complaints about TVG is that they don\'t pass along shoe information.
How is it that the Jerome and Spinster were run simultaneously? You\'d think an exec at one of the tracks would pick up the phone and call the other to arrange a five minute gap between post times of the day\'s two biggest stakes.
Perennial big time trainer, Bill Mott is apparently being tossed under the bus by very wealthy owner Ahmed Zayat.Seems that many runners from the Zayat Stable are being sent to other trainers out of Mott\'s barn. Maybe it\'s just a pure business decision but just can\'t imagine firing Bill Mott.Together these guys won the Spa owner/trainer title just one year ago.Some wealthy owners tough to train for, as they are unable to take those losing periods that most stables seem to have on occasion.
Mott having a sub-par year, win percentage wise, but is always dangerous,imo.When asked who was the \"best trainer\" some years ago, an old time Hall of Fame trainer said,\"Don\'t know, but I can\'t imagine anyone getting one better to run than that kid Mott\"
Mike
Interesting. I think that one of Zayat\'s horses (Riley Tucker) is named for Mott\'s son.
I\'ve always thought it must be especially tough to train for an owner with a racing manager.
My general impression is that the Zayat horses are often very (too?) ambitiously spotted.
This is a TG board, right? Nobody but me (and Alan) looked at Visionaire\'s sheet, saw a two point jump to a negative figure, and thought the horse would bounce?
I just made a small win bet on the second finisher, myself. But Visionaire was a bet-against. Has nothing to do with any position on him as a horse.
TGJB Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> This is a TG board, right? Nobody but me (and
> Alan) looked at Visionaire\'s sheet, saw a two
> point jump to a negative figure, and thought the
> horse would bounce?
>
> I just made a small win bet on the second
> finisher, myself. But Visionaire was a
> bet-against. Has nothing to do with any position
> on him as a horse.
I also felt Visionaire was overbet off of his last and would bounce where he got a perfect trip and exploded..Problem is I went the same way you did and took the second place finisher. The thing that kills me is that I along with a lot of others felt that Tale of Ekati wanted shorter distances thann he has been running but I still went against him...not even a small backup exacta with him on top. Bad betting on my part.
JB,
I tossed him for other racing reasons but the Thoro Pattern showed a 37% chance of a new top and a 24% chance of a pair. Guess you don\'t put too much stock in Thoro Pattern either.
Mike
The Thoro-pattern is a VERY general tool meant for those who haven\'t got experience reading patterns themselves, and doesn\'t take into account lots of things, as I say in my explanation of them. The new top being a negative number is certainly one of them. As you know, anyone who has looked at sheets for a while would not think the horse was 60% to at least pair up, let alone 1 in 3 to run a new top. I would have made him about 1 in 3 to at least pair up, with about a third of that (11%) being a new top.
My simple take was that he\'s a one run closer going into a pace less race.I thought he would have a tough time outrunning at least two horses who would be in front of him,Harlem Rocker(pressed and main ticket) and TOE(saver p6 ticket)
His previous two races were nice set up\'s and that was my main reason to toss him.I thought he would run well and did not necessarily read bounce as you did. A slight regression still made him tough if he fired.
Like I have said before, a fig must be looked at in the manner in which it was earned.This was a classic case but did not capitalize.
Mike
I clearly made a bad read on this but I thought he had been given the proper rest after the big effort and the fact that he showed a healthy overall pattern (i.e. 3 point improvement overall from his 2 year old top, back to his 3 year old top quickly, etc) suggested that he had a better shot than normal of pairing that top or regressing only slighly which made him a solid choice.
Clearly the wrong analysis on my part.
Mott is much better off without Zayat. Zayat and team have forced Billy to run horses where they had no business running and where Billy would have never run them if not for the pressure of Zayat and team.
Mott and Zayat are not a good match notwithstanding the fact they won the Saratoga title together last year. Rushing two year olds to be ready early is not Billy\'s game, never has been and never will be.
Watch Billy\'s win stats go back to where they belong next year now that he won\'t have so many of Zayat\'s to train.
Also note that Mott is still 5th in the money title standing amongst trainers this year so it\'s not like he forgot how to train a horse.
And yes, I am a Mott apologist as he trains 3 of my horses and I think the world of him and his team (as do all of his other owners that I know who use him).
The guy Zayat is a pretty heavy gambler also. During this Mott cold streak he has probably taken a beating at the windows also.
Similar to a lot of Hedge Fund Investors who liquidated yesterday causing most of the 800 point Dow sell-off, he got to a point where he just said,
\"I can\'t take it anymore. Get me out\"..........