Santa Anita Derby 2010

[Michael D.]

How about the Ark Derby ...

Tiz the One is out. It\'s looking like a 6 or 7 horse race with 3 main contenders. I have nothing to add on Dublin or NP. Borel gets back on Super Saver though. I have futures action on this guy, in part because I thought Calvin would be up on the big day. This guy is bred to go long, and has the good run over the CD surface. Had little punch last, though he again had trouble changing leads. Might soon have to admit that I\'ve settled on a colt that just won\'t get the distance, but I\'m willing to give him another shot on Saturday.

[ajkreider]

Keep hearing how Esky\'s beaten nothing, but surely part of this is due the way he\'s beaten them.

We\'ll know a bit more after this next weekend, as Aikenite and Pulsion are running.  But leaving these two aside, he\'s beaten the 1-2 finishers in the Florida Derby, a horse in Jackson Bend (twice) who has never finished worse than 2nd in eight starts.  He beat everyone\'s flavor of the week in Awesome Act (DRF had him #3 on their Derby Watch list, for Crist\'s sake).  People loved SchoolYard Dream\'s pattern - loved it until he got spanked last weekend.  

Seem\'s he\'s beaten as much or more than anyone else this year with the possible exception of Sydney\'s Candy.

[Dana666]

This is so worthless, but just for the record, you just said 3 of the 7 races were won by horses from dead last, right? One of them being Life is Sweet, who was in a race with an insane rabbit-like pace and the other was Zenyatta, one ofthe greatest horses of all time. Taking those two out, 1 of the 7 races, namely the marathon, a very unusual distance, and he ran up the inside, by the way. Lastly, the \"2 path\" and \"pocket trips\" don\'t sound like they were wide either?!

I\'ve said this many many times, one of the great things about racing is so many people can look at the same race or races, and all come to completely different conclusions (which also can make it profitable). So to each his own. In fact, BC day WAS a strong closers bias, with wide trips paying off - I agree with you. 100%. Lucky should have won easily, esp. from post 13 (even though to my knowledge no horse has ever won from post 13 in a 1 /16 route race in Santa Anita History - as least as far back as I can remember 20+ years. I can\'t remember too many post 13\'s in mile &  1/16 route races anyway,but, seriously, can we talk about something productive. You win. I\'m too exhausted to keep this thread going.

[Silver Charm]

The Ark Derby Michael D? That\'s in 5 days.

We\'ve got guys still going back on forth on a racing day five MONTHS ago.

[jimbo66]

Silver,

We could go \"back and forth\" on your handicapping of the SA Derby or the pace of the Wood, if you like?  I believe you insisted Esky was \"gunning to the lead\" as he sat off two horses who crawled in 49 and change.  You also gave a \"free pass\" to LAL on Saturday.  Not exactly a huge performance by him, trouble or not.

Michael,

Good luck with Super Saver but the race from Schoolyard Dreams in the wood did nothing to inspire my confidence in any of the Tampa Bay Derby horses.  I am hoping the race fills out with a couple other horses so I can get 7-2 on Dublin, but I am not optimistic.  Although I give up on guessing odds after I bet Miff that American Lion would go off less than 2-1 this weekend and told him I was HOPING to get 9-5 on Sydney\'s Candy.

[sekrah]

Stating that Esky is going to go off at 8-5 is absolute lunacy.   3-1 is 10000x times more likely than 8-5.   Only 1 horse in the past 10 years went off at less than 2-1 and that was Point Given at 9-5 in 2001 who had risen to god-like status in the media in a year with absolute NOBODY else.  

The 4 others to go below 3-1 were:

Big Brown, 2.4-1,
Bellamy Road, 2.6-1,
Empire Maker, 2.5-1
Fusaichi Pegasus, 2.3-1


Esky\'s resume is strong and I expect him to be the favorite and perhaps in this 5/2 area that other favorites have gotten.. but 8/5?  Get serious.  His media hype is late-arriving, unlike Point Given who was the talk of the world in the months leading up to 2001.

He\'s a very easy no-bet at any price coming in off that top.