1-Corsa Di Cavalli: Seems too slow to be a factor with these toughies.
2- Gun Boat: Pretty solid fig in maiden win; Baffert usually rules this race, too. I would check and see how inside speed is today as it has been sensational lately. I\'ll probably look closer at others, but you could make a case. Juicy price too if you fancy.
3-Sheer Talent: I loved his maiden win; he deserves a BTL notation for it! There is huge upside here. 12-1 is very attractive, too.
4-Majestic City: Didn\'t face anything too special at Hollywood. Competitive numbers-wise but at anything near his am line odds of 5-2, I\'ll have to let him beat me.
5-Basmati: Earned a huge number in his last, and you get Gomez today, a huge rider upgrade! I generally don\'t like maidens in stake races, but he\'s a factor for sure. At 7-2 I wonder if the am odds-maker is using thorographs???
6-Drill: Another Baffert runner. He looks to me like he way want more ground to show his best, and he would need to step up to contend here, so I\'m just not sure.
7-Mighty Monsoon; Ran OK in last, so he could be used underneath in exotics, should get a good trip, too. Competitive sort for minor awards. Huge rider upgrade to smokin Joe.
8-Creative Cause: Hate to put you on the favorite, but this dude looks serious. Can you imagine him on dirt going long??? Could not have won any easier in both races and still earned big figures, should get a good trip if the track is fair. Nice to see old time hay and oats guy like Mike Harrington with a serious racehorse. Can anyone say derby future bets??? Going to be very hard to beat here, so why try?
Hmmmm...I\'m tossing Baffert in the Futurity??? What am I smokin???
Anyway, I like
8-Creative Cause
over 3-Sheer Talent
and 7-Mighty Monsoon
and 5-Basmati
(looks like I\'m playing the speed to fade, huh?)
Same value perhaps in Exactas/trifectas
Good luck & hope you cashed a few in spite of polytrack. Can\'t complain about t-g numbers at del mar this summer- they\'ve been SUPER! next stop fairplex baby where the ferris wheel meets the dirt or something like that!
You\'re right about TG at DMR this summer, 3 of the biggest scores of my life. As for the race, I would note there are significant weight differentials, pending overweights.
I believe you!
I found the data to be incredible this meet. I made some good scores, not exactly in that category, but pretty damn good!
I\'m guessing Gomez won\'t make 116, right?
I do think Creative Cause is a serious racehorse though. I\'ll be excited to see if he stays sound and stretches out at Oak Tree regardless of the result today. Harrington has had it tough during the synthetic track era b/c offspring of Swiss Yodeler (his main sire) HATE synthetic tracks! I hope this horse takes him to all the big races next year.
6 min to post and Basmati (who with weight adjustment) is faster than CC, is 19:1. I\'ll take some of that please. Plus, he is drawn inside of Harrington\'s potential star.
Wow did Basmati and Gun Boat get hammered just before post.
Crazy finish, bumpy as all hell but it actually doesn\'t look like CC was interfered with, more so MC comes into Drill, while CC was far enough back that they don\'t really touch. Drill was crazy wide just at the end of the turn, coming to straight, but he did save ground into the turn. At any rate a blanket finish with 5 of them so tough to see a huge new top. At a guess CC regresses a couple of points to an 8, and Drill moves up to around a 7?
Phil,
I have to assume you didn\'t see the head on replay. In a game that often has marginal calls, this one was as obvious as they come. Bejarano was lucky to stay on the horse. I will give you 10-1 odds that Flores gets days, and he deserves them. He is hitting left-handed as the horse bears out.
Bejarano wasn\'t winning the race. Drill was a clear and deserving winner, but Bejarano had a very good shot at 2nd as Majestic City was tiring.
AGree the race won\'t get a big number on TG, but I would take 25-1 on the Baffert to win the Derby, if I could get it. I like the way he leveled off when he got outside and I believe he will get dirt as the bottom is certainly dirt and while it is too early to tell about Lawyer Ron\'s offspring, he certainly was a dirt horse.
I think it is a difficult race to take too much away from b/c of the track surface and the bumping. I got there late, but I heard the track was all inside speed, very screwed up, so I\'ll still take Creative Cause stretching out on dirt at Santa Anita, and I do think the winner ran very well and probably would have won regardless of the bumping and will also get better as the distances increase. Those two really stood out. No one else ran a step. Baffert is always live in that race. He wins it almost every year. As far as O\'Neil\'s horse, a typical performance, you never have any idea what his horses are going to do, always a complete crapshoot with that guy.
Dana wrote:
\"I got there late, but I heard the track was all inside speed\"
That\'s when you should have known that there was absolutely no chance that the track was all inside speed or even close to all inside speed.
Jimbo - I agree that Drill was always winning, regardless of the bumping. Be very interesting to see what number is assigned here, from our host and from beyer.
Well, I checked out the charts and replays and speed seemed very good, not necessarily inside though. In fact, the track played more fairly toward speed horses this meet than at any other time I can recall during the Polytrack era. As much as I complain, it wasn\'t really that bad. Perhaps they tweaked it some or watered it more, I don\'t know, but it was better than past years. Actually, I was thinking about a big bet on Cause, but the scuttle butt about a bias tempered my enthusiasm as did the price. I thought 9-5 would have been fair, and when I saw 3-5 that was insane. He\'s going to love the dirt and two turns at Oak Tree though. I hope he comes out of the race in good shape. I\'ll say again though Baffert\'s horse really stepped up and looked very good to me. He\'s going to love more ground as well. . . on to Fairplex (I can\'t think of a good phrase). .. where the midway meets the freeway. . .and where Pedroza is king! Tomorrow\'s he\'s riding Link Suances in the last race, that\'s the horse that \"should\" have been put up in a horrible non-call at Del Mar and cost me untold thousands, tomorrow he\'ll win at 4-5 most likely!
Anyone agree that there are fewer close finishes at Del Mar than Saratoga?? And what does that mean??
I means the placing judges are probably overpaid.
\"Be very interesting to see what number is assigned here\"
Drill received a Beyer of 90(like a TG 4 on a non Cali synth track).That field fairly slow going in on TG so don\'t expect too much with the blanket finish on a fast surface that day.
Creative Cause may get the best/same fig as winner which will be ground loaded and weight adjusted. Connections should have taken the reported $2 million offered for CC before the race, no real excuse in a fairly ordinary effort.
Top 3 worth following on dirt.
Mike
Boscar Obarra Wrote:
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> I means the placing judges are probably overpaid.
A sinecure, for sure. Those who attended both of the Brown seminars at Saratoga heard one of my favorite stories in this area, which regrettably cannot be repeated, here . . . suffice it to say it involved both gross negligence and free money, two facts of life which frequently run as an entry.