Del Mar has officially kicked my butt. I\'m done for a while.
I was in with a few guys (pick 6) and was alive for a mountain of money yesterday and couldn\'t close out the last race. Yet we had the two best horses BY FAR in race 10. They both battled every step of the way and McAnally\'s horse tripped out and went by in the final sixteenth. Del Mar is the only track in the history of the sport where you can consistently handicap the best horse and get beat 95-98% of the time.
Not to be dishonest, if I had more money, I\'d jump back in today, but I don\'t. The next thing I\'ll be collecting thrown away tickets and putting them in the machine, and I\'d rather not get to that point. It would take some kind of multi-millionaire or the most disciplined dude on planet earth to last more than a week or two at that meet.
I\'ve never been so beat up mentally and emotionally in my life. I feel physically ill today.
On a positive note, Syndney\'s Candy finally ran the race we were all expecting from him for so long - one of the most amazing races I\'ve ever seen in my entire life. If Sadler rests him and trains up to the Breeder\'s Cup mile, I think he\'ll be very tough. The race he ran yesterday has to be one of the fastest grass races ever (maybe up there with Rachel or Quality Road figures on dirt). Watch the replay - it is simply amazing!
Take care everyone.
Very fast race by SC,negative territory.Sadler would be crazy to ty try this one back on anything but grass.Prior to yesterday speed on the grass was poison at Del Mar. SC worked fantastic on grass prior to the race according to \"informed eyes\"
Mike
Right, the National Turf crew said he was coming off the ground in his grass workout. That grass course hasn\'t been that fast lately either, and the fractions of his race were insane (I can\'t ever remember another 1:08 6 furlongs in a grass route race at Del Mar when the course is deepish as it is this year - sometimes when they cut it way down it gets like a pool table and is super fast, but it wasn\'t that kind of course at all). He has to be rested though. I\'d just train up to the Breeder\'s Cup. If I had to predict his number, I\'d give him a neg. 3 to neg. 5 In other words, horses don\'t run any faster! I\'m glad he finally reached his potential. I always thought he was a great one, but Polycrap often muddles the true evaluation of a horse. Heck, he broke a track record last summer at 5 1/2 furlongs, too. That\'s the sign of a real champion -- any distance, any surface. Old school type of horse.
Dana,
Considering the extreme pressure he took, the race is much better than the figure that he will get(I think closer to zero than neg-3 or -5)
I can hear the Kool Aid drinkers already saying that the race ISN\'T as good as it looks because SC was on the fence all the way, forget the warring brutal up front splits.
Mike
Mike
Yeah, you\'re probably right! Probably will get a O.
Atleast one Koolade drinker who makes figures for a living will tell you there is no chance that\'s a negative figure (because of what the others would get). You\'re free to give extra credit for the pace scenario, but it doesn\'t go into the figure.
\"because of what the others would get\"
JB,
Why did that theory not apply to the James Jerkens horse, Afleet(something) that you gave like neg -4 and the common slugs that finished behind him lifetime tops in like the zero range(from memory)
Re SC,Beyer people have same problem, raw Beyer is coming up in your zero range but then the 2nd and 3rd place runners would have big move ups Beyer wise.
Interesting to see what the outcome will be on the figs which will not be totally reflective of SC\'s performance on this occasion.
Mike
I feel bad for you, i went in small in the pick 6 because i felt it was too hard. I didnt think the Sadler horse in the feature race was a lock because i thought the Baffert would press him, shows you how much i know.
You\'re totally right about Del Mar, you have to change the way you handicap, its not about the best horse or athlete, its about random luck, this is why they have so many carryovers, the track wins the races not the horses.
I know personally that if i was alive for a ton of money with live runners (im guessing you had the O\'Neill firster) i would have bet a HUGE cold exacta with the winner over my 2 or 3 live ones. I\'ve made huge scores this way by backing up the horse i\'m alive with, once that horse kept getting bet and was hovering at 6 and 7 to 1, i knew she was dangerous.
You had a couple of conso\'s, didn\'t they pay well?
\"By memory\" is right. Second horse behind Afleet Express ran a new top, nobody behind them did. Third horse ran a 4, rest ran many points worse. You have presented a bunch of \"facts\" here recently, not so good with actual facts.
In this case there would be a lot of them running tops if SC gets a zero, which makes it unlikely. I say this not having looked at the day yet.
One of the things that guys who make serious figures for grass races (meaning us and Time-Form, and to a lesser degree Beyer) realize is that because grass courses usually are much faster than dirt and the pace generally slower, pace has a much bigger effect on final time than in dirt races-- this is why 95% of \"S Pace\" races are on grass, with virtually all the other 5% on synthetics.
\"By memory\" is right. Second horse behind Afleet Express ran a new top, nobody behind them did. Third horse ran a 4, rest ran many points worse. You have presented a bunch of \"facts\" here recently, not so good with actual facts.
pssst, dont tell anyone you had the Afleet horse and the 2nd horse 3-4 lengths faster than Beyer and Rags. Thats an actual fact!
It may or may not be an actual fact (I haven\'t seen their figures and for obvious reasons seen here recently am hesitant to take your word for it), but it\'s definitely not relevant. You made a factual statement. It was wrong (again). That was the point of my post. That, and explaining how even doing it the way I did was far different than the situation you compared it to.
Leave the figure making to the pros.
Don\'t know what factual statements you are referring to, but I said speed was good at routes at Saratoga and it is, if you have a clue, and you gave a huge top to Afleet and the second horse(a slug) which no other service did.
There are no \"pros\" making figures only guys with different methodologies, about 10 at present count.
Mike
That would be another \"fact\"-- what you said was something quite specific in both cases, and in both cases proven untrue within minutes. Look it up.