Chris,
where have you been? miss your usual ROTW thoughts. the racing is starting to get good, time to jump back in.
He\'s waiting for some good weed to smoke!!!
Very funny & very clever, assuming no one gets the idea that you\'re referring to wacky tobacky. This race & AB\'s analysis are much more interesting than the \"big\" football game, so I thought that perhaps a few comments might lure you & derby1592 into a discussion--before the race takes place.
Smr Service: Nice overall line, as the analysis pts out, but he\'s had a fairly long cmpgn & the case can be made that he\'s better at 5.5f. Also seems like a middle move kind of horse which has trouble finishing for a trn who has a terrible recd in stakes. Add in the gap in his wk pattern & the 4-1 odds, & he\'s a poster child for the kind of horse I play to run out.
Cpt Sq: I\'m rarely a fan of the history is going to repeat itself school of hdcpping, but I much more inclined than AB to think that this horse is sitting on a huge effort. Has shown the ability to press & finish when facing the kind of pace scenario he is likely to face today, & as much as I\'d like to see him run 2nd again at 6f today, I think he has to be included in the top 2 spots of all exotics.
Tough Game: My inclination is to consider his sprint & route lines separately, & not discount the possibility that after 3 races Mulhall has figured out how to get top efforts. Perhaps it was an adj or 2 to the blinkers she added, & my speculation is that the bls & racing close to the rail, rather than stress, explains the \"bo\" notation in his last. He did get an uncontested lead in his last 2, but finished very strongly in both, & has demonstrated an ability to rate in the past. At 8-1 or higher, the kind of gamble I like to make, & the horse which will make my exotics worthwhile if he runs 1st/2nd.
Boston Cmn: I\'m much less inclined that AB to incorporate bull ring races at CT into a pattern read, & much more inclined to consider separately his efforts after the transfer to Mullins. The very weak finish at 5.5 in his last is a big concern, but he demonstrated improvement in that dept in his 1st start with Mullins. But that improvement came in a race in the mud on a different trk, when he got an easy lead. At 6-1, I\'ll gamble that he makes a middle move & hangs on for a piece, with 3rd/4th more likely than 2nd.
Marino: Tough to figure, as AB pts out. He\'s relatively fresh with a positive short term line for solid connections, which is why the extraordinarily slw wk on 1/18 is puzzling. Demonstrated an improved ability press & finish in his last, but the pace was much slwer than is likely here. At 5-1, I\'ll use him some in 2nd, but a lot more in 3rd & 4th.
Bluesthestd: If he\'s as fit & ready to run as AB thinks, I lose. After long cmpgns at 5 & 6, I view the 3+ mos off as a neg., given the 12/9-1/7 gap in his wk tab, as his line can be read as suggesting he needs a race before he runs a top effort. His style, post, & odds make him the kind of horse I\'ll include in 3rd/4th, while hoping that he doesn\'t hit the bd.
Best of Luck on this intriguing contest.
I didn\'t see this until after the race but I could not bet standard or Tough Game, unfortunately Standard ran very well. I actually keyed on Our New Recruit but he could not close on the top pair. Marini broke my heart the last time he ran but he was too low today.
I could not have been more wrong about the race, which ended up costing me the late pk4. I don\'t know if you saw it, but the betting leading up to the race was pretty bizarre. TG was way overbet from the outset, especially considering the 1st time front bandages, & very close to post MM was even money & Blues was 9/2. That may have been due to what the HRTV crew described as a number of private clocker reports which indicated that Blues recent wks were subpar. However, Ms Ball interviewed tr West, who said that Blues\' recent works were his best ever. The late money was all on Blues who, as AB correctly predicted, was ready to run. Pretty remarkable training job on a 7 yr old who once raced in a 10k clming race. Hats off to AB & trainer West.
I figured I better respond to OPM\'s whitty post just in case we have any law enforcement lurkers on this web-site. The \"weed\" is his clever reference to turf racing which is my preferred surface for handicapping.
There are pretty slim pickings right now for turf racing enthusiasts. The best is at FG and GP but both are somewhat difficult for me to wager on from home right now given the current politics. California has mostly small fields and is not shown on TVG (I enjoy watching the races live on TVG much more than on the delayed on-line streaming even with DSL) and TUP has had their turf course closed for a while.
I also don\'t get real excited about winter racing in the northeast either (although I know some TG players that are doing pretty well at AQU this winter).
So I have been taking it easy right now trying to catch-up or get ahead on some other stuff at work and home.
For example, this weekend I was on the road to watch some live college basketball in between my son\'s high school basketball game and my daugher\'s indoor soccer match and the obligatory annual super bowl party.
Once the TC preps start heating up and the spring turf racing gets rolling again, I will get back to spending more time on racing.
In the mean-time, I will try to offer an opinion on the ROTW as they come up for what that\'s worth
Anyway, I appreciate your asking about me Michael.
Chris
P.S. OPM (AKA Dr. Pick-4) is the one who has been red-hot lately. Ignore any of his opinions on SA races at your own risk.