Have had one for the last three years.
Lets see started with Saarland three years ago, got bet down to 9/2 without a win as a three year old.
The next year was Perfect Drift. 15-1 in the morning line bet down to about 5-1 or 6-1 with Turfway Park form in his line and Sports Spectrum Training Center works underneath him.
Last year it was Ten Most Wanted from the 16 hole bet down as the Friday early bird wagering favorite. Remember that, Empire Maker was something like 7-1 in the early wagering. Burned a lot of money late as did Ten Most Wanted all day Friday and Saturday.
Borrego looks pretty good for that role this year.
Turfway Park form in his line? What does that have to do with anything? Same for the workouts? I don\'t understand your point. He ran a very nice race in the Derby to finish third and no one was beating War Emblem that day.
I agree with Saarland and Ten Most Wanted, not Perfect Drift.
Not exactly the conventional path was the point. He skipped the next set of preps after the Lanes End and his prior races were at Turfway. How many inner dirt at Aqueduct horses do you recall being heavily played in the Derby and again ones that didn\'t run in any of the final major preps.
Training at the Sports Spectrum is not exactly the conventional route of preparation. I can\'t remember anybody EVER doing it. This horse was 15-1 morning, 6-1 at the post. Someone thought they knew something.
Perfect Drift had an excellent SHEET number in the Lanes End and with the layoff was a magnet for players who look for such a thing. Nothing wrong with that, as a matter of fact I bet him along with Proud Citizen who beat him out for second. Now you know why I like Baffert so much. LOL
Seriously, how different did any of these horses look from both winners, War Emblem and Funny Cide. Except for the large variance in odds, not at all. As a matter of fact the last two may have looked better and if you bet them THEY REALLY LOOKED BETTER.
Also let me correct myself, Saarland ran in the same Derby as Perfect Drift. The Wise Guy Horse three years ago was Dollar Bill, and he stayed that way for the NEXT TWO YEARS.
I have to respond regarding Perfect Dread. I hated the horse. I couldn\'t believe T-Graph was as high on him as they were. I threw him in the mix for where he finished but since then I\'ve come to the conclusion he was not a bad horse and T-Graph was right and with circumstances breaking his way, he could have won. I guess thats true of a lot. He did beat Mineshaft.
lol on Dollar Bill, Frankel couldn\'t get him to win so that tells u something
CtC
Post Edited (04-20-04 22:14)
perfect drift went off at around 9-1, and ran a decent third. using the horse in the tri at those odds could have resulted in a decent score. the track wound up playing very fast that day, and in a race with plenty of speed, WE got an easy lead. unless you nailed the winner, it\'s hard to fault people who liked the horse going in. i really don\'t see any wise guy horse this year, although wimbledon\'s name will start coming up more and more after bailey\'s agent made him the choice.
There probably won\'t be one this year because they won\'t get in and there are 2 of them.
Eddington and Rock Hard Ten
Saarland...he was a terrible bet.
Perfect Drift, he did actually run a good third. I wouldn\'t say he was a bad bet. He beat all the horse who were bet more than he was.
Ten Most Wanted just didn\'t show up. I don\'t think he was a wise guy horse. I certainly wouldn\'t say his post was a big hinderance, have you checked the post positions of the winnners the last decade? He certainly proved later in the year he was worthy of his odds that day.
Also, Saarland wasn\'t three Derbies ago, he ran in the same race as Perfect Drift.
Ten Most Wanted was the ultimate Wise Guy horse. Everywhere you went Derby Week he was the name that kept coming up. Probably the best example was a column written by DRF Ed-in-Chief Steve Christ titled \"Ten Most Wanted Six More Likely\". That sums it up.
Perfect Drift seemed to be more heavily played than 9-1 early on and his odds have \"Drifted Up\". You need to look at what he was in the morning line 15-1 or 20-1. And again winter racing at Turfway is not normally a conventional route to be less than double-digit odds in the Derby.
Also let me say that both of these horses are very good horses--no dispute there. But were they good bets on Derby Day at much lower odds than they should have been. Would you bet a horse who had lost half his value from what you thought was a reasonable morning line ??? Compare their numbers to the winners War Emblem and Funny Cide who went off at 20-1 and 13-1 respectively.
Finally there will be a Wise Guy Horse this Year MORE SO THAN EVER BEFORE. As confusing as things are the masses are looking for something, anything to be pointed in a particular direction. The slightest hint of a recommendation from Brown, Beyer, DRF, Finger, Greenie, etc is likely to send the masses running to the windows like the Pits in the CBOT after a strong Jobs Report. The minions will be more \"clueless\" than ever this year. Who knows maybe some people will actually come and read this Board for help. That\'s a scary thought.
LOL
My vote goes to either BORREGO or WIMBLEDON as the wise guy horse.
My buddy likes both of them and I\'m convinced that if he ever bet on the sun rising tomorrow morning, we would all be in trouble.
Good Luck,
Joe B.
Yeah they\'ll be a wiseguy horse, maybe four of them...lol
When I bet the Derby I always think I\'m just looking for the best horse. I don\'t really look at odds in the race regarding the winner. I factor odds in the other exotic spots. If you pick the Derby winner and have the exotics your gonna score. I won it with Strike the Gold at 5-1 is my recollection and the Perfecta was generous. If Captain Bodgit had got his nose up I\'d of had a nice Ka Ching. I think I got 5-1 on him to. Those days, you could shop your odds by placing the bet at various tracks. Its all comingled now as far as I know. I\'ve bet low price favorites like 49er and Easy Goer. In hindsight I\'m a better handicapper now and I probably wouldn\'t have bet Easy Goer on that surface that day, but I\'d still of taken 49er.
Like I said, I try to win the Derby but if you were looking for a plan of attack to score in the Derby one way is to take horses that ran \"competively\" in their big prep leading into the Derby.
The number of horses that finished second, third or fourth in them and turn it around Derby Day is significant. From that perspective this year points out the following:
Borrego
Pro Prado
Master David
Imperialism
Song of the Sword
Lionheart
In total my guess is that in aggregate one of these six horses stands upwards of 50-75% chance of winning. (I said it so i\'ll leave it but I\'m revising to 40-60% chance of winning) The divergence is based upon potential improvement off the prior figure) Factor the best of this bunch and you may have your Derby winner.
Post Edited (04-21-04 12:29)
agree
Master David looks like the wise guy horse so far.
I posted on 4/13 that I really liked Borrego based upon the way he ran his last two preps. I also questioned what kind of odds I could expect and I was worried that he would bcome \"the wiseguy\" horse. I strongly feel that he will but still like him. He should be 15-20 to 1 but I bet he\'s around 12-1 at post time.
12-1 is a little low I think, I think the lowest he will go is around 15-1, ML 20-1
How about Tapit ??
Really look at who he is, a two time Maryland late fall winner. No threat in the Fla Derby and only one more prep which was a marginal win in the Wood.
So what does he go off at Derby Day??
Probably about 6-1 because of the Dickinson mystique.
What has been Dickinson\'s track record in the next race after he pulls his magic act? Pair up, move forward, bounce?
You really don\'t want to know.
I won\'t sleep a wink tonight after looking it up.
Silver Charm, I\'m in New Jersey and its past my bedtime.....
TAP 8-1ML down to 7-1
TCE 8-1ML down to 6-1
SJ 7-1ML either 7-1 or up to 8-1
TAP gray,close well.
TCE ran good last out, Nick Z.
SJ no name jockey will help his odds.
Who will Pay Day be riding?? count on his odds going down.
as for tapit, i see more skeptics than fans around. when was the last time dickinson pulled a rabbit out of a hat going 10f on dirt? no wiseguy horses around this year...
The new (I guess they\'re not so new anymore) TG figure-based trainer profile for Dickenson shows he get\'s another top out of his runners 60% of the time next race out after a new top by at least 1 point. It\'s a small sample though of only 15 starts. Tapit is slower than several others with just the one 2 in his last and Tapit will need some luck to get a clean come-from-behind trip. He has less racing experience than I typically want to see. And he\'ll be an underlay. I\'ve eliminated him as a contender. I\'m leaning hevvily towards Friend\'s Lake and Pollard\'s Vision. I\'ll get into the details of what I like about them soon.
Best of Luck to all.
Phil
Hate pile on top of your post Upper Nile becasue you make some VERY GOOD points but I need to run.
I am not sure who the Wise Guy Horse/Horses will be but I know who the wise guy is and its Dickinson. The articles by Dave Greening at DRF and Rick Bozich at CourierJournal.com were hysterical. I kept thinking I was in the lead car at the trotter tracks or better yet Lion Country Safari with Animal Kingdom or Crocadile Dundee.
Also as someone who has been a critic of the media for standing around the Baffert barn like they\'re his 24/7 security guards. I tip my hat to them for getting up there (Tapeta) and seeing firsthand what is going on. The Derby is too important for some horse to come in from the farmland fog with no one knowing what has been going on.
I\'ll be the Tapit fan. The horse was lollygagging around in the stretch in the Wood and he still managed to get by. I posted this before - what are the odds that this horse goes backwards here? I assume he\'s healthy and I think he stands a very good chance of moving forward another point or two after a solid prep (but probably didn\'t knock him out) and three weeks at Fair Hill. If he gets a decent draw, he has the stalking/closing style you want in this field, which should have plenty going on the front end.
Getting a horse fit and ready to go 10f is right up Dickinson\'s alley. The \"lack of preps\" thing is going to get some people\'s attention, and others have better Beyer (and TG) figs - so I\'m thinking he\'ll be more like 8-1.
The big issue I see with Tapit is, will he like Churchill Downs? At 8-1 or better I\'m in and he\'s a key.
As for the others, it\'s early but I agree with Upper Nile on both Friends Lake and Pollard\'s Vision. Master David will probably be no value but can\'t be ignored. Imperialism (Desormeaux), Minister Eric (Day aboard) and Wimbledon (I\'m more skeptical here) are others that may be sleepers. I\'m on the fence with Borrego (I\'d like to get at least 18-1) and I would be happyto see Pro Prado in there (30-1 at least with a real chance).
Good luck.
HP
HP--
Not sure you will see 18-1 on BORREGO. as for MINISTER ERIC, I think they will need an hour glass to clock his finishing time.
POLLARD\'s VISION has a nice pattern if you look at TGJB Derby sheets. He needs to relax early and I\'m betting that Johnny V. is the right one to get him to do it. Still must improve slighly to get the roses.
Good Luck,
Joe B.
Thanks, UpperNile, for the Dickinson profile info. How does he stack up against some of the other major player Derby trainers? At first glance that percentage jumps out at you even though a small sample. Are others close to that number?
I agree with you at first glance on Minister Eric. However, if there is one race where I\'ll give the jockeys a little more weight it\'s this one. I would really be upset if Day rode a longshot that came in third and knocked me out of the tri or super (he\'s done it to me before on horses I dismissed in the Derby). Minister Eric, even with Day aboard, will be 25-1 easy.
Personally I\'m upset that Eddington won\'t get in. Based on this board, talk about a wise guy horse! HP
If Pro Prado gets in and unfortunatly it\'s looking like it is a big if, he will be added to my list with Pollard & Friend\'s. This horse has never gone backwards. Starts off the year with a 5 1/2, a good figure to start off the year-not too fast-a nice progressive 3 point improvement from last year and then his new top of a 1 gets duplicated 2 more times! If a pair up of a new top is reason to expect another forward move with developing 3yo\'s then this line surely is reason to wager he will improve. Especially at the big price. But it\'s looking like we will have to wait for another day with Pro Prado.
Phil
The wise guy horse(s)are Eddington and Rock Hard Ten for the Preakness. Is there anywhere I can lay a bet that niether will win.