\"Betting her is about as illogical as it gets\".
\"The horse is too slow, plain and simple. A 25k claimer can look great in the paddock and in gallops. No matter how great she looks on dirt, the fact is she is way too slow.\"
\"Wow... Plastic Champion 8/5. Nuggets of gold out there in this race.\"
\"Zenyatta\'s chances involve Quality Road, Blame, Haynesfield, Lookin At Lucky, and Fly Down all crashing into each other and wiping one another out.\"
\"This is the greatest underlay in the history of the game\"
You get the picture. So, all of you that think she\'s a glorified claimer, too slow, biggest underlay ever, plastic champion.
Tell us where you will put your money. If she does lose, there will be 500 posts of people claiming they killed the race. If this is the wagering opportunity for the ages, then step up and prove it.
Speaking of Zenyatta, how is she \"way too slow\"?? Her best is a -1.5, she gets 3 pds worth around a half point, doesn\'t this put her at around a -2?? Her challengers?
-Quality Road has run 1 big number at this distance, over an off track. Its a leap of faith to think he fires his top number at this distance, with a legitimate pace, from that post.
-Blame is consistent, likes the track and has solid numbers. Has a BI 2 races back, followed by a 2 pt regression. Is that BI remark still affecting him. Top of -2.5, last race a -.75. Maybe he runs his top again, which puts him right there. But he doesn\'t have to and if he does, that number isn\'t that much better than Z\'s adjusted top.
-Haynesfield has a nice pattern, and if he sits off QR can rate and get first jump on the closers. For me, this horse is a great price play in here. Ran a half pt new top, as JB says may not be done developing. Can he run that number rating and not loose on the lead as in the last?? He has shown the ability to rate in the past. Top of -2.
-Fly Down exploded to a -4 two races back. A huge 4 pt new top, is he still feeling the effects?? If he is, then his secondary number of 0 is just ok.
-LAL has gotten really good. Last 3 races are -2.5, -1.75, -2. He has the number power to take this, and he will like the distance.
No doubt that several have a chance of winning this race, but looking at the numbers, I don\'t see how Zenyatta is that much slower when adjusting her number for weight. She is a bit slower than some, and for the horses that have big numbers it is very presumptuous to think those numbers will be repeated under these race dynamics.
If I am wrong in my analysis, I have no problem having somebody give a sensible counterpoint. I\'ll admit that on TG she is a bit slower and at the price playing against her is a prudent course of action. But to say she has no chance, and to just throw out one dismissive disrespectful comment after another serves no purpose.
So.......for all of you playing against her, make your pick here. Name a horse and tell me what would be acceptable odds. Best of luck to all of you this weekend. That includes my favorite sparring partners Monmouth Guy and Sekrah.
I\'ll be rooting for Zenyatta, but if I make a wager in this race HAynesfield at anything close to the ML would be my selection. JB summed him up in the seminar, has excuses for his bad ones. To me he is the clear value in the race.
Call me crazy but I think Fly Down has plenty of value.He is less than a length short of being a Belmont/Travers winner.Had those races been a few more yards each we would be looking at one of the favorites.He also gets a huge jockey upgrade from Lezcano to Leparoux who might be able to time the move just right.He is extremely valuable at the very least in keyed exotics boxed.
I am leaning Blame and Haynesfield right now as the two horses I will use on top, and will be using LAL, QR and the 2 FDs underneath. The 2 Haynesfield ran as a 2YO indicates he still has room to move forward, and drawing a line through the Whitney where he broke through the gate, he has a great pattern, and I think it is reckless to to dismiss him as cheap speed.
I understand that QR is the fastest horse in the race, and gallops on his best, but he seems to be going backwards and I can\'t use him on top. If he runs back to the Donn and wins by 10, I will just tip my hat.
Zenyatta will only be in the 3 and 4 spot of my exotics and not on my multi-race wagers.
I used Zenyatta heavily last year in the classic--- Richard\'s Kid and Einstein knocked me out of the exotics. If she finds that other \"gear\" tommorrow and runs the unlikely ground saving -2 that gives her the best chance to win, I will also tip my cap.
Did not like Musket Mans last. He has trouble passing horses and he will have 4 to pass and 3 running past him. I don\'t see him passing First Dude at any point in the race and he will likely offer more value.
My best case scenario would be:
1. Haynesfield
2. Blame
3. Fly Down
4 First Dude
Im looking more and more at 2 3YOs -- LAL and Fly Down.
Will be using these 2 in the Classic Double which starts with Friday\'s Ladies
Classic; in that race I will throw out the 3YOs, Blind Luck and HDG.
Will use the two TAPs, Unrivaled Belle and bombs away Acoma and Persistently over
LAL and FD in the overnight double
Playing Haynesfield to run 1-2.
QR and Musket Man would look better in the Dirt Mile.LAL is strong but the post hurts with his style.Blame seems logical for a check.Zenyatta tough to get off the board-with a decent paced 10f\'s.Drops back to last and saves ground on the first turn.First Dude maybe for a slice.
musket man to win and place...hope he\'s 20-1 or better...key in tri and super boxes with zenyatta, lucky, fly down and blame....tossing quality road, just got a bad feeling here...him and haynesfield running each other into the ground...musket man get the jump on the others i mentioned above...good luck to all...
This should be a great race. I think it will take a negative 2 or better to win. I only see three horses that have run better than a negative 2: Musket Man, Fly Down (FD) and Quality Road. The odds look a lot better on Musket Man, but I think I will be watching to see how the Pletcher horses are doing leading up to the Classic. If Pletcher is doing well, then I will bet Quality Road a little stronger. I will have at least some on Musket Man though. I don\'t see Zenyatta winning unless she has a hidden gear she has not tapped to date, but do love her in the 3 or 4 spot. My bet looks like this in the tri: QR MM / QR MM BL FD HF LL Z / MM BL FD HF LL Z.
Blame is my horse- He bounced in the Jockey Club off of the big race running down QR. He should get a good setup and I think he is one of the few to handle the distance..
Looking at Lucky and Fly Down are the two I will back up with. They both have good numbers, and the right style for this race. The jock switch on Fly Down is huge..
If those guys are not running I hope Z mows them down and I\'ll sit back and enjoy the moment after..That should offset some of the pain from losing my bets.
After a second look I think the most likely winners would be Fly Down and Lookin\' At Lucky. The former does not have to run his best race to win. Lookin\' At Lucky should run his number and a pair or a little better is probably good enough. Both are faster than Zen and are equal weights.
I see Blame as more likely to pair that last one than to recapture his best. Quality Road has been backing up all year and will probably continue to do so here. I don\'t see Haynesfield pairing that last race either.
In the \"under\" spots...Zenyatta is probably going to be in the money. I can\'t see her winning and I can\'t see her running badly. Pace fits. I\'m going to bet she does no better than third. I like Musket Man a little underneath. I may refine a little more but I think this is essentially it for me.
HP
Here are picks from a non-numbers guy. Alot of chatter about Haynesfield. I can\'t take a 10 furlong race with a slow 6 furlong split around 1 turn at Belmont and transfer it to Churchill. The split will be faster and he will have more pressure. And a two-turn 10 furlongs may be a little too much. To me he will fade. TAP said he wants a quick pace for Quality Road. He is right in that respect. The horse is free running and needs to be able to use his speed and stride to their advantage. But he has to break sharp from the 1 hole. He may end up in front. But Haynesfield and First Dude will be up there also. I like Quality Road better than Haynesfield, but I don\'t really like the speed horses here that much. I respect Quality Road\'s talent, so I will include him. Blame is back at Churchill. The race should shape up better for him. I\'m not sure 10 furlongs is what her really wants in top company, but you can say that about alot of horses here and he will be closing at the end. He doesn\'t have an explosive move, but he does keep running usually and two turns should help him. Lookin at Lucky has blossomed of late. His prep was just that. It showed he could handle slop but he beat nothing. I\'m assuming he will be in contention at the top of the stretch and kick on. He has guts, is a very honest horse and loves to win. Fly Down has the potential to finish better than all of these, but he will have to put it all together. I have only seen one race where he had a killer instinct, to me, and I see him hanging instead of passing. Zenyatta can finish fast and explosively, and always does so. She moves better on dirt than on synthetic, as you can tell from her gallops. She can outfinish these horses, She can easily do a 22 and change last quarter, and I feel she can repeat her last mile split of just under 1:34. There is no horse in this field that can do that. Smith will probably give her his best ride ever. I don\'t see her going wide as as big an issue as some might, but she has proven she is very willing to knife through if Smith needs her to do that. I will pick her on top with Lookin at Lucky, Quality Road, Blame and Fly Down. Good luck everyone.
I\'m strictly horizontal on this race. I posted Lucky a couple of weeks ago when the dialogue started and am sticking to him on my A tickets.
Very few here feel QR will run neg. 5 or neg. 7, he could run neg.3.5 or a 3 and win. Blame is very consistent, likes the track but I still have trouble with his last race and can\'t see him moving forward. Lucky is a well rested 3 year old and logically has the greatest chance of moving forward and could post a 2 point top ?
Fly Down just doesn\'t get it for me, one monster and Zito was as cold at Belmont as he was a Saratoga and Zen, well enough said for a kool aide drinker.
I\'ll post a pick 4 tomorrow and will use QR and Blame a bit but it\'s Lucky for me.
Ladies Classic x Classic Double
Life at Ten, Malibu Prayer, Harve de Grace & Unrivaled Belle with Lucky
I agree with both of you that Musket Man isn\'t getting enough respect here IMO.
QR, FD, Blame, Haynesfield are the other contenders.
I\'m not that high on LAL.
QR has scary numbers, but I don\'t think 1 1/4 is his best distance, he beat a very weak Woodward field and no one from that race has come back to do anything. He has been backing up figure wise all year, and I don\'t think the rail helped him at all. I think he will get out kicked down the lane.
Looking at Lucky could pop a nice race here. I would feel better about him if he hadn\'t gotten sick 2 months ago. I think you have to include him in the exotics.
Haynesfield has a punchers chance to win this. I don\'t think he\'s going to get another trip around on an easy lead, but he may hang on for a piece
Fly Down could win this if he runs back to his Travers.
Musket Man is a hard knocking sort who usually picks up a check.
Zenyatta... well, I think you have take a position against her at the odds. To my eye she should be no better than 3rd or 4th betting choice, and at 2-1 or so I will pass. If she beats me I can console myself knowing she will go down as one of the all time greats, undefeated in 20 races and I never made a dime on her.
My key horse is going to be Blame. I think he is sitting on a big race, he fits number wise, loves Churchill and should get a decent pace to run at down the lane. The long stretch really suits his grind it out closing style. So I\'m going to bet him to win, key him with HF, LAL, MM & FD in a smaller Exacta & Tri wager, and single him in the PK4 and PK6 so I can do deeper in a few of the other races. I think Goldikova can be beat tomorrow and that could trigger some big payoffs. So you single her on some tickets and go really deep in some of the other races, and then you play against her on some other tickets.
IMHO, too many horses in the mix here to attempt to figure out who\'s likely to fire. Will bet exclusively on who has the longer odds, which means no Z, execpt on the bottom of exotics.
Haynesfield or Fly Down at anywhere near the opening lines are must plays.
Love to see QR win it, but has looked off his best for a while.
Tri-Box: Haynesfield, Fly Down, LAL
Master (I hope) Of the Obvious: Quality Road is the fastest horse and will win. Zenyatta\'s style means she is the least likely to get burned up chasing him and will finish 2nd. May be a lot of reasons it might not happen that way, but a pretty good chance that it will--at least enough of a chance to justify taking a shot at a $28 exacta.
Well...this is one of our biggest race of the year besides the Kentucky Derby and the Triple Crown races...It is at Churchill Downs and the distance is at a mile and a quarter and the race is on real dirt.
Since this race is on dirt and at the same distance of the Derby and every entrant is at equal weights. It must be handicapped the same way. Since the winners of the Derby are almost always won by the best sustained prep moves. It is no surprise to conclude with two logical winners of this race. It will be either Quality Road or the Champion mare Zenyatta.
Quality Road has run the best energy race this year 4 lines back in the Donn Handicap and yes, even though he ran on the pace, QR ran the race sustained. I have to conclude that TP has aimed Quality Road to peak for this race, period, after his race performance in the Donn Handicap.
As for Zenyatta, this is a Champion Mare and/or Horse!!! who has always ran just enough to just get up in every one of her races..There are no need for more comments. This year, all of her races are mediocre, performance-wise..So this is her one and biggest knock.....I only got her to qualify off her race last year in the BC Ladies Classic...All of her races are sub-par compared to this year\'s field in the BCup.
This race will be guarantee to have fast fractional splits with so many early runners but the one who should set the mile mark (1:35:4) should be QR.
Good Luck to all and especially when you are still alive with this leg to run in the Pick Six!!!!
ajkreider Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> ...
> Love to see QR win it, but has looked off his best
> for a while.
QR is the one horse I see in the field who doesn\'t have to run his best to win. He can run less than his best and still crank out a -3 for the win. Can\'t ignore 12-1 if that holds as compared to 3/5 for Z and low odds for LAL.
If I am going to try to beat Zenyatta, I might as well go for all of it with Etched.
This horse is no Invasor (although his record is eerily similar coming into the race), but Kiaran has the leisure of picking only the very best spots for the Godolphin horses, and Etched has the tactical speed to lay close to the pace and run by late. Obviously, 10 panels is a huge question, but the odds will be enormous. I\'ve made worse bets.
TG said in the seminar that the last two races may have take a bunch out of him, but I see an older, lightly raced horse that has been managed very carefully. Absent specific information about injuries and problems, the normal assumption is that there must have been something wrong for this horse to be raced so sparingly -- but I have found that line of thinking to be deceptive when assessing horses owned by the Sheiks and Godolphin: they simply don\'t race their horses that much.
Finally, it would be delicious irony if A. Garcia were to bring in a big one for me after I ripped his ass royally here for his Canadian Int\'l ride on Al Khali last month.