Hope this isn\'t bad form for a first post, but I\'m always interested in examining races where I really blew it, as a learning experience, and I thought somebody from the office could do the same here.
Below, I\'ve copied the comments of the top six finishers (in order of finish).Maybe now that the horses are in the barn, and the figs are made, somebody could make some sense of this. Everybody has their stinkers, so don\'t take this the wrong way, guys.
Mineshaft has a tendency to
lose ground and could do so again from post 6. He is the fifth fastest horse coming into
the race at the weights. He will probably need a new top to win and even that may not be
good enough. At 9-2 he’s an underlay.
winner @ 5-1
Olmodavor(115)
Non-contender.
2nd @ 7-1
Strive has to run a new top to be competitive. That’s possible but a pair-up
is much more likely. And we haven’t even mentioned the new surface or the likelihood
that Mott-Bailey will be bet, making Strive a potential underlay.
3rd @ 10-1
Overall Booklet shows a strong forward
moving line. He’s a contender and at 8-1 offers some value.
4th @ 6-1
Tracemark (115) (10-1)
Non-contender.
5th @ 10-1
Overall, however, Best Of The Rest shows a very strong line. He races at a consistently higher
performance level than any other entrant and shows the top two efforts at a route. He’s a
strong contender and at 6-1 an overlay.
6th @ 5-1
Don\'t really see a question here, and we leave the ROTW up (you can see they are archived going all the way back) so everyone can go back and look at them (about 500 people a week do)-- you didn\'t have to post it here. But I\'ll leave your post up, as not much is going on here, for a change.
I don\'t believe in looking back at the results of an individual race the way you seem to. All handicapping decisions are ultimately percentage questions-- that is why we built the tru-line, which seems to be too much work for everybody (including me). Since nothing is 100%, we are not trying to pick \"the winner\", but the best bet. Which means, by definition, that you can make decisions that are good in the long term but bad in an individual race.