I like Light Up The Score, by an underrated but very good sire Even The Score. Another angle is to bet Victor in the last race-normally he won\'t stick around for the last if he doesn\'t have a good chance to win, he wants to get home or whatever. I know that is a lame angle and it doesn\'t really apply as much tomorrow since the last race is a G1. But the pattern is good if you forgive the big bounce at Belmont 10/7 and his last number is competitive. This race usually blows up the tote board, so this is my choice. He will be double digits for sure. I\'ll be there tomorrow, the weather forecast is awesome, the mountains should be coming in clearly and the temperatures mild and the track fair. Merry Christmas & Happy New Year to all.
Looks to me like the key to this race is no Baffert. Throwing out The Factor looks easy. Smash is not that much harder. Assuming those two do not hit the board and the linemaker has got the right gist of the betting public\'s view, there should be some equity available in the pools. I think this is a race that will require some spreading.
On a different subject, what is the deal with Associate? Is that a completely ridiculous jump up? What do you think Linda Rice is thinking/feeling about this? I am not so sure he is as easy to toss as the ROTW Analysis makes it out. I think a lot of Dutrow\'s historically poor shipping to California is from the synthetic track era and a lot of his duds could be surface issues rather than a problem. Also, it is probably such a small sample it is hard to read anyway. As far as acclimating...it is not exactly like it has been that cold here in NY...i was walking around in a t-shirt for most of last week. Admittedly, it is tough for horses to go from a cold to a warm climate, but how extreme is the contrast right now? Also, Dutrow is (in my experience) pretty good about knowing how to handle this in Florida. Anyway, getting 8-1 on a horse with clearly the best fig (paired up no less) trained by a master magician makes this horse very hard to toss. He is not that much different from Rothko in my opinion and double the price. one could construe an argument that he was dirt horse that was futilely raced on Turf. If you only look at his dirt form, all of a sudden, he looks like he could truly be a monster.
Apologies for being a dope on this. How much of Dutrow\'s 17 starts at Santa Anita are on dirt and how many are on turf or synthetic? Did I misread those stats?
I guess I\'m missing how Smash is an easy throwout. He has never raced on fast dirt (and the one dirt track he did try was the very quirky CRC surface when it was in \"good\" condition) and when you look at his siblings there is every reason to expect a good performance on fast dirt, and the pedigree also suggest the added distance will help as well. Throwing him out is an extremely risky move.
I can\'t remember where I read the stat, but there was something about races where Baffert has multiple runners and the horse that is not favored has some insane ROI. It is frequently a longer shot option and not the favorite that wins, but when he has more than one in the race he wins a ridiculous amount of the time. I think this was discussed during the big Cap last year.
Well, easy may not have been the right word (The Factor is the easy toss). The way I look at Smash is the following....the horse has been running nothing by 3s and hasn\'t been able to break through. While it is certainly possible he makes a step forward on dirt, I wouldn\'t say it is probable (and who knows, maybe he is better on synth). He could even move backwards off that line. I do not see any significant dry dirt differential in the siblings or the pedigree. In fact, an argument can be constructed that he should like off tracks more than fast tracks (although i do agree with you that Calder is a quirky surface for a lot of reasons). Even though he has been running on synthetic all the time, even if it is not his best surface, he should show some improvement with racing. If he is not showing improvement, then that tells me that Baffert is already getting maximum effort from the horse and all you can hope for is that he keeps him at that level.
Another part of why I would toss him is his price. He is ML second choice. If you look at the form, he is bet heavily every time he runs. He is a shiny pricey yearling purchase. If he is truly second choice behind the factor and bet the way he is usually bet, there is no value in him at all and the people who are betting him are doing it for the obvious reasons....not because they have any superior information or analysis. I do not think that Smash fits in the Baffert betting profile you are talking about. There are a ton of Bafferts in this race and I think all the others (except for The Factor) will be longer and fit the pattern you are talking about. Smash is not hidden in any way. A lot of times with those Bafferts you are talking about.....they might be slow, but they usually have a pattern based reason to be looking at them. Smash has a negative pattern in my view.
My view is that by tossing The Factor and Smash, I open up a lot of value. While either one of them could kill me, that is the type of risk I am willing to live with. It is there....but it is not as big a risk as the people betting those horses think it is. Look, horses I toss kill me a lot. But, I never get upset when a short priced horse I toss kills me. That is a necessary part of the game to keep that type of money in the pool. What kills me (and happens to often) is that I correctly throw out the top two choices...but then still do not hit the race and it comes back boxcars like I thought was possible. To me, that is the greater risk than throwing out Smash and regretting it.
Kinda like the Ellis horse at 8-1 ML.
Already won on the SA dirt and he could move forward off the 2\'s with a decent trip.
I do like that Ellis horse.
SoCalMan2 Wrote:
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> Apologies for being a dope on this. How much of
> Dutrow\'s 17 starts at Santa Anita are on dirt and
> how many are on turf or synthetic? Did I misread
> those stats?
Any chance for an answer on this before the race? If it is too oblique...I am looking at Dutrow\'s trainer profile for his at SA stats. It shows 17 starts. What I can\'t figure is -- are those 17 starts all on the new SA dirt course or do they include any turf or synth races?
None of them were on the new SA dirt. Two of them, back in 2007, were on the old SA dirt (both horses finished 3rd). All the others were on turf or synthetic.
thank you very much. Very much appreciated. Not sure I would rely on this sampling to say Dutrow can\'t ship to Santa Anita.
well, looks like the secret is out. Still using associate, but based on odds, my keys are now wine police and the Ellis horse. Still tossing the two heavily bet bafferts
guess there are some limitations to the analysis here
The Factor decided to toss all of you!
no all............
You\'re right - there are limitations to this analysis...have an infallible one to offer up, or are you simply satisfied earning/reinforcing your reputation as a troll?
The Factor ran a big one. Relished being outside, recovered from the huge effort at Del Mar on a track that likely isn\'t his favored surface, not to mention getting away from the Breeder\'s Cup goo. Rothko ran well. The favorite was IMO a justifiably questionable proposition given his odds. Kudos to the connections.
At 5/2 and considering how many times this horse had been \"off the board\" he wasnt that hard to TOSS. The Grade One win stood out against these but so did those last two bad back ups.
There a lot opinions on this race, including \"The ROTW\" and everyone was taking someone different. This was not an obvious winner.
Hey, this is the way I love to lose. You have to know going in that you are going to lose more events than you will win (and if that is not the case, then you are definitely doing something wrong and chances are high that your losses are swamping your wins). The issue is not that you lose a race. The issue is how do you lose the ones you lose and how do you win the ones you win. I have got no issue with a loss like this one. I look at the payoffs and I have zero regrets. Not one payoff up there that I feel I should have had or feel wistful about missing.
Beautiful day out there today in Arcadia, it was nice to see more than 44,000 in attendance. I describe the crowd as \"Lots of hot women, and lots of human debris\". There was a Spanish-speaking gentleman one table over in the clubhouse with a ridiculously fat wallet of 100 dollar bills, I watched him bet - get this- a $500 trifecta 2/5,6/5,6 at Golden Gate for a grand in the middle of the card. He lost. I think he was laundering money for the cartel. He couldn\'t cram money into the machines fast enough. He ended up hitting the superfecta on the race with the $162 winner, at first he thought he won $163k but I think he only had it for a dime. He played a few more races heavily with no luck and I didn\'t hear much from him after that, he left quietly. His head is probably bobbing down the LA river right now separate from his body.
The two sure things on the card were Mr. Bossy Pants and Mr. Commons and I singled them in all the horizontal wagers and spread around them. Didn\'t cash a ticket but what a gorgeous day to be at the track. I\'ll be back in the area in a week with tickets to the Rose Bowl. I\'m hoping the weather isn\'t this gorgeous next weekend otherwise 100,000 more people will move here...