Here is the latest Ladbrokes line:

Street Sense                   4/1     
    Curlin              5/1    
    Scat Daddy              6/1    
    Nobiz Like Shobiz              7/1    
    Circular Quay              8/1    
    Hard Spun              12/1    
    Any Given Saturday              16/1    
    Great Hunter              16/1    
    Tiago              16/1    
    Dominican              20/1    
    Cowtown Cat              25/1    
    Zanjero              25/1    
    Stormello              33/1    
    Teuflesberg              33/1    
    Liquidity              40/1    
    Sam P.              40/1    
    Bwana Bull              50/1    
    Storm In May              50/1    
    Imawildandcrazyguy              66/1    
    Sedgefield              66/1

\"Having said that, this is the first time I\'ve been looking forward to betting Keeneland. Because I KNEW I couldn\'t beat the old track.\"

* * * *

Just curious about your meaning, Jerry -- I\'ve always understood parimuteul wagering to be about betting the crowd, not the surface, the jocks, the trainers, etc.

That being said, as a Lexington local, I must admit that I have rarley been able to beat the Keeneland crowd (actually the big bettors affecting the margins) on a whole-card basis.  Indeed, I think favorites come home well above average here (often 40% or better), as \"the word\" tends to get out and spread quickly through the grape vine.

Ayhow, my Keeneland wisdom to sheet players is as follows:  

(1) a lot of thoroughbred gentry would rather win here than anywhere else (save Saratoga possibly), thus connections are worth a few points of improvement, often more;  

(2)  winners off huge lay-offs and few or no works are not uncommon for reason number one above;  

(3) if a horse is mysteriously bet way down, ingore the sheets, pass the race -- trust me on this one;  

(4) for handicappers of only moderate ability (like myself), the short Keeneland meeting usually presents only a couple of shots for a solid score -- pick your spots very carefully.

Best of luck to all!

Any of the losers using \"The Sheets?\"

\"Remember, second place ain\'t nothing but first loser\" -- Richard Petty

Hey guys, where\'s the best on-line site for future book odds?

Thanks!

Setting aside Deranged Luckas, it is still clear that the bred is losing hardiness.  American dirt horses have drastically reduced their annual campaignes as have European turf horses.  Good horses with humane trainers are still breaking down too often.

IMHO, perhaps a major part of the equation is to improve the strength and stamina of the bred by banning all race day medications.  Only horses that run fast AND CLEAN should to to the breeding shed.  Owners won\'t like having fast horses that they can\'t race because \"the just need a little help from their friends,\" but it is a price that needs to be paid.  This way, we get brillance and endurance.

Maybe as a compromise, claiming races could allow medications, but Maiden, Allowance and Stakes races would be clean.

As a collateral benefit to strengthen the breed, we could increase weight imposts for humane treatment of jockeys.

Don\'t get me wrong, perhaps better spacing of our Classics (one spring, one summer, one fall?) and polytracks or deeper tracks, more grass racing, etc, are good moves too.  But the bottomline is that Thoroughbred racing is about improving the breed.  As is, we have sacrificed all for brilliance, which results in tragedy all to often.  Time to change.

Rose making good decisions and AA getting a good trip are two different things. Rose went inside when AA made his run and had to check behind a wall of horses and wait for a whole -- whereas Giacomo seemed to get a clear run.  Switch trips, switch winners.  Happens in a lot of Derbs.

Although the Derby is impossible to stay away from, as a handipping race its a bad proposition.  So many things can happen that is it hard to even attempt to assign reasonable percentages to the possible outcome and make intelligent bets.  

Remember, its 20 three-year-old colts going ten panels in the spring carrying 126 pounds in front of 100,000 screaming bourbon tipplers!  Also, CD stepped up the drug testing.  Hard to predict the outcome and hard to learn much from it either.

Nevertheless, I saw three things in the Derb worth remembering:

1.  BR\'s 7th after suicidal fractions looks creditable.  Given some rest, he may yet live up to his billing.

2.  Afleet Alex showed guts despite a load of trouble.  With a better trip, he juast might have won.  (This phrase is accurate about one or more horses almost every year.

3.  Anyone who predicted the pace to fall apart completely and Giacomo have to plod home, but cleanly, for the win may spend the money I put in the pool without any grudge on my part!  Just don\'t blow backing G again!

No huge surprises, though Bellamy may make a come back when the masses starting betting.

If you like anything other than AA or BR . . . !!!

Good points David Rex,

The Derby is a very unpredictable crap shoot.  Sure, Bellamy could go gate to wire, or he could get left standing in the stall like Holy Bull.  X,Y & Z could get great or horrible trips, etc., etc., etc.

I say look at a few horses you really fancy
(5 or so with a top already capable of winning or, less likely, a great forging pattern plus the likelihood of a good pace and trip scenario) and put a small wager on the highest price.  Most years you lose, but this approach works for me every few years or so [Thunder Gulch (25-1), Charismatic (15-1), Go for Gin (9-1), Unbridled (10-1)].  You can\'t make a living this way, but you\'ll keep you\'re shirt!

Charismatic would waltzed away from Fager and Seattle Slew.  So, sure put a contemporary horse with at least a rats chance in hell.

Why do you think bigger horses are faster?  Wouldn\'t Clydesdales dominate then?

As a matter of physics, sleeker horses with frailer legs are likely to go faster, at least until they break down.  Charismatic would be a good contemporary example.  

While Dr. Fager might have beaten Charismatic in Sumo wrestling or in races over pavement, but I doubt he could do it on a track with a good 3 1/2 inch cushion.

I think that the idea that the breed must level off at sometime is incorrect. Indeed, Roger Bannister ran the first recorded sub-4 mile decades ago and the record is nearer 3:40 now.  And, even though no one is using eugenics to breed faster humans, the records keep going down.  Human track runner\'s are not leveling off, so why should horses?

Moreover, with t-breds, eugenics ARE consciously applied and the time between generations are even shorter.  Thus relatively rapid improvments in overall, absolute performance are to be expected. So, I would be very surprised if a decent handicap horse today couldn\'t handle a hypothetical Secretariat simply because the contemporary horse should have genetic advantages (possibly passed on from Big Red himself).  In sum, we can pad the tracks to slow the real times or not, but if the performance figs don\'t show a speed inflation, then the figs are not accurate across generations (they may, however, be accurate for comparisons within a given generation).

With the above in mind, I am not worried about the Sheets\' incorrect assumption that all generations of horses are equal (10K claimer as a constant), as I don\'t bet Bandini vs. Secretariat.  But, what does worry me is that the Sheets fail to account for the fact that track variants change over the course of a given card and are not necessarily the same for sprints and routes.  Likewise, Beyer is often too cowardly to give out big numbers when he see them run right before his very eyes.  When I buy TG, what I am personally buying better (not infallible) judgment regarding variants for individual races and hence more accurate figs on average.

Often, Beyer numbers, the Sheets, and TG will all say about the same thing about a horse.  Obviously, Bellamy Road ran a whopper last out.  Anyone can tell you that.  But when the figs vary across brand, TG is on the mark more often because JB calulates them as he sees them and is less restrained by the prejudices that blind his competitors.

For instance, why shouldn\'t I believe that Bandini ran well in the BG?  Looked damn fast to me from the rail and on the clock.  So why is Beyer only giving him a 103?  Did Frankel\'s horse really fun that poorly in second -- I doubt it.  That doesn\'t mean I don\'t think Bandini may have had help reaching a big fig based on pace and track conditions and may not run that good again this year.  But, nobody\'s final-time figs accounts for track bias and internal pace (nor should they).  That\'s for us \'cappers to do with the figs after thay are otherwise objectively calculated.

I also got the feeling that the middle of the track was playing better on BG day than it had in the ealier days of the Keeneland meet.  Put all that together and I think throwing out Frankel from the exotics (even the win picture) would be a big mistake.

Of course, tracks do try to juice things up on big days, but that doesn\'t mean that t-breds are not getting faster (and frailer).  Indeed, the whole point of t-bred racing and breeding is to \"improve the breed,\" which means make them faster.

Look what animal husbandry and breeding has acheived with other animals -- dogs, cats, birds, etc.  And think about how much more money is and has been in the t-bred industry relative to the others. So, if you can bred a dog to look like a cat and vis versa, surely you can breed faster horses.  So, it should surpirse no one that t-breds ARE actually getting faster on average all the time and will slowly continue to do so.

(Unfortunately, they also seem to be getting frailer, too.  But that is another issue.)

I think the rail was dead (read deep) that day, just as it had been fair live (hard) ealier in the meet.  Perhaps an overreaction by the grounds crew?

Anyhow, I would (but who am I) down grade Bandini and upgrade Frankel\'s horse.  Not that is matters if Bellamy and Alex are fore real.