You won\'t see a better field in an ungraded stakes turf race this year than Saturday at Monmouth. Strike a Deal may offer some good value after the wide trips in his last two, and he handled the soft turf in the UN at Monmouth last year quite well. Unusually strong early summer field for what Richie B. lovingly refers to as the \"Snore at the Shore.\"
MONMOUTH PARK
Saturday June 13, 2009 - Race 9
Estimated Local Post Time: 4:50 PM
Name: Monmouth S.
Purse: $200,000
Distance/Restrictions: 1 1/8 Miles, Turf, 3 Year Olds and Up, STAKES
Post Horse and Jockey/Trainer Odds*
1 Proudinsky (GER)
Eddie Castro / Robert Frankel 3/1
2 Banrock (NY )
Kent Desormeaux / Thomas Bush 8/1
3 Fearless Eagle (FL )
Daniel Centeno / Edward Plesa, Jr. 15/1
4 Grand Couturier (GB )
Joe Bravo / Robert Ribaudo 7/2
5 Strike a Deal (KY )
Charles Lopez / Alan Goldberg 4/1
6 Buddy\'s Humor (KY )
Jose Lezcano / Bruce Levine 6/1
7 Presious Passion (FL )
Elvis Trujillo / Mary Hartmann 9/2
8 Richard\'s Kid (MD )
Carlos Marquez, Jr. / Richard Small 30/1
9 Kiss the Kid (KY )
Channing Hill / Amy Tarrant 6/1
*Morning line odds.
Race of the week for HANA.
I may have to take a ride down the road on Saturday without the fear of falling asleep on one of the benches surrounding the Joe Bravo Alter.
Speaking of alter, I\'m praying Grand Courtier doesn\'t scratch as the Bravo worshippers will be all over a horse that probably needs to race a few times before hitting his best stride.
Interesting value on the inside with Banrock and Kent in a race where you may get an unusually strong pace for a 1 1/8 on the grass.
Good Luck,
Joe B.
Agree. GC has not shown a history of running well fresh and may need longer. Don\'t understand why he gets 5 lbs from these though.
Presious Passion,as the house horse, is also a potential underlay even though he has only hit the board 1 time at 9 furlongs b/c he no one lets him get an easy lead. He also wants firmer ground. Think this is a true \"prep\" for him.
Buddy\'s Humor may also offer some value. \"Juice\" and Lezcano are hitting at 70% in 20 races at Monmouth in 08-09! I will use him with Strike a Deal on top.
Banrock loved the soft turf in his last. I will be using him underneath.
Proudinsky is better at 9F but I won\'t be using him on top (been burned too often by this one). Will also use Kiss the Kid underneath.
5-6/1-2-9
Good luck.
Non-winners of a race over a mile in 2009 get 5 lbs.
Bigger question if you look at the conditions is why is Strike A Deal carrying 123?
Good Luck,
Joe B.
MonmouthGuy Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Unusually strong early summer field for
> what Richie B. lovingly refers to as the \"Snore at
> the Shore.\"
That Richie B. is one cranky old man.
I think the words he used were \"bore by the shore\"
In my younger days, no one was more of a \"Monmouth Guy\" than I was.
Lived in Long Branch, worked at the track, didn\'t miss a single racing
day for 3 straight years, 1984- 1986.
This does look like a great betting race, I guess a prep for the United
Nations, which of course used to be run at another Jersey gem, Atlantic
City Race Course.
MonmouthGuy Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Buddy\'s Humor may also offer some value. \"Juice\"
> and Lezcano are hitting at 70% in 20 races at
> Monmouth in 08-09! I will use him with Strike a
> Deal on top.
>
I also like Buddys humor but I like him to win..seems like he might get the best trip..either can stalk or go to the front..should be good up to this distance...Monmouth\'s turf also seems to be very kind to front runners and he should be able to get to the inside with ease...I just hope I get a price as that Levine/lezcano angle could get pounded..anything lower than 6/1 and i\'ll be looking elsewhere.
Not a great race but good imo . Strike a Deal ( 4- 1 ML ) is off a nice concealed number ... All those MTH 8-5 shots can wear you out and probably accounts for any \"RB\" crankiness . . .
att encl : MTH-9- (previously posted on the HANA Race thread )
http://www.thorograph.com/phorum/file.php?1,file=101
Couldn\'t have been more wrong about this one.
Was very suprised that no one went with Presious Passion.
Looks like Mary Hartman has a new vet. Horse was beaten on the turn and roars back on the inside after going :46 and change on a \"good\" turf.
Why would anyone go after a runaway train like that unless they were eating the same \"hay and oats.\"
I\'m sick of the crap that goes on at Monmouth starting with what they let Levine get away with every meet. Place is a joke.
Good Luck,
Joe B.
Joe B,
Mary Hartman was 1 for 36 going in and 0 for 15 at Monmouth.Precious Passion had sharp grass form lately,likes Monmouth, and does not have phony wide \"deflated\" ground loss figs like several in there.Kinda tough to pin that performance on a drug move up but anything is possible.
Cousin Brucie (Levine) finds easy money with a certain owner at Monmouth during the summer, beating up on the local garbage stock. It\'s a plan!You may not know that Jersey did a surprise random raid of Cousin Brucie\'s entire barn last year,tested all, found nothing!
Hang tough Joe!
Mike
Miff:
I hate when I rant and rave over a tough beat taking the easy way out by figuring it had to be an \"enhanced performance.\"
However, PP did something yesterday that brought back Oscar and Pete Ferraiola memories. You know, the ones where the horse is hopelessly beat on the turn only to re-rally in deep stretch as if finding reserves that are not there under normal conditions.
If you check out the internal fractions and final time, it has to make you wonder what exactly that was. This is without a doubt a very nice horse, but not exactly Lure. Carrying 123 off of a layoff adds more fuel to my steam.
Perhaps Mary Hartmann has some bad stock in her barn which may better explain her record.
PS: Bottom line is that Banrock\'s price was a joke (as someone else mentioned on this Forum) and I should have passed the race. My mistake and I deserve the pain.
Good Luck,
Joe B.
Miff-- WRONG. They did not \"find nothing\". They only tested for ONE thing, EPO. And again, testing and testing properly (blood testing instead of urine) are two different things.
JB,
The FACTS are they found NOTHING for whatever they tested for and how they tested.More move up conspiracy voodoo.
FYI, Mike Repole(very sharp owner) is running his superior horses cheaply and no one is taking them.They don\'t need to cheat at that place.
Mike
JB,
It seems Jersey did the \"out of competetion epo test via blood for Levine!
RE LEVINE test:
\"The out-of-competition testing program has thus far yielded six reported EPO positives on harness horses that have raced at Freehold Raceway and Meadowlands in New Jersey this year, and at tracks in New York and Pennsylvania as well. The blood was drawn from those horses stabled at a farm in Burlington County, N.J., in May\"
Miff-- seriously, if you are not going to carefully read the stuff I post here, stop commenting on it, or I\'ll just delete it. I\'m not fond of having to say the same things over and over again.
YES, the test for EPO is a blood test. It is expensive, which is why they seldom do it. It also has NOTHING to do with what I am talking about, and have been here for quite a while. And that\'s the point I was making. The test was a waste of time.
AGAIN-- the problem appears to be the raceday use of Clenbuterol. This is problematic for a couple of reasons-- first, it\'s a legal drug when used other than when horses are racing, so if you raid a barn and find it, it is not a violation. Second, the test used everywhere I know of other than California and theoretically in Kentucky (I have some doubts) is a urine test, and if given on raceday Clenbuterol evidently does not show up in urine. SO THE ONLY WAY TO FIND IT IS BY BLOOD TESTING. And of the 18 labs currently used by tracks for testing, very few even have the equipment do that testing.
The gentlemen of the Jockey Club Committee investigating this problem would be comforted to know that it is a voodoo issue, not a real one. I\'m talking about Phipps, Dunker, Janney, Bramlage and all the others in the room when I spoke last week (I was one of several speakers who went before that committee during the day). At one point someone mentioned that NTRA polls have shown that an even larger percentage of those within the industry think there is a major drug problem than bettors do. Phipps (senior) said, \"That\'s because we know better\". I was the only one that laughed.
Not for anything, but this discussion seems out of place related to Mary Hartman. She is not on any reasonable persons list of move up trainers.
Joe B,
Not sure how many of Precious Passions races you have seen, but what happened yesterday is not an aberration. The horse has come again many times when passed. I can think of 3 or 4 in the past couple of years in stakes races. He is a strange racehorse. Runs hard early, seems to dawdle a bit about 2/3 of way through a race, then runs hard again in the stretch. If you have access to replays (and care enough to check), you will see it. Considering this is the only horse that Hartman wins with, it seems a bit unfair to call it drug enhanced.
Anyway, tough beat on Bancock. I played him also and could have sworn late in the stretch he was getting up.
For what it is worth, probably not much, I didn\'t view the race\'s finish as having Precious Passion \'dig in\' and come back. I think he was passed by a tiring horse who couldn\'t finish the job. PP\'s natural stamina put him back on top.
And as for the continuing and ongoing and ongoing and ongoing palaver about drug use, can\'t we just live with the expert advice we have from Jerry and let it go? It offends me to think (and know) horses are being drugged, but that\'s it. It doesn\'t affect my betting, because I take it into account when I think it may be relevant.
What\'s the upside of letting it go?
Jerry,
I think he may be referring to the constant allegation of drug use any time a result looks suspicious or doesn\'t go a certain way from an individual\'s betting perspective. Precious Passion being the latest example.
I don\'t think anyone wants to just let it go, but its the constant reference to drugs without any proof that gets tiresome.
Your work and the work of others, those that have statistical irregularities to back up claims, is important and well worth the effort.
Its the ones that scream drugs based on nothing more that 1 random race that gets tiresome.
I\'ve bet Precious Passion before - but not on Saturday . I might have used the horse if could have guessed that all the faster ones would bounce - but it remains to be seen if that\'s actually what happened . . .
Agreed. It was very hard to bet that horse on saturday. There were 5 faster horses, PP was 0-6 at the distance and had run his tops on firm turf.
Strange race though. Very unusual for a horse to open up 7 lengths on the back stretch, have the pack catch up to him on the far turn and still have enough to re-break in the stretch.
Entire field finished within 3 lengths, it will be interesting to see the numbers.
I think Strike a Deal was 3W3W so he might have another \"concealed\" number. In reality, he ran around the track like it was a merry go round. I don\'t think he passed anyone the whole race.