Sunday Seminar

[drbillym]

With Frank D. absent, I will take the opportunity to recap a successful Sunday seminar.  I texted some of Jerry\'s picks, so I hope he used them.
JB has alerted us to an improving McPeek, and preferred the #2.  I noted that his other entrant (#4) had been scratched out of a 15,000 clm and was now in for 20,000, a positive trainer move.  Boxed them in ex and used them in the double with Jerry\'s selection in race 2, Dust and Diamonds, who wired the field and beat the odds on Fantasy of Flight.  Nice $137 dd to start the day.
Race 3 tried to beat the Mott but fave, but no luck there.
Race 4 JB gave out Southbeachsandy as a solid play-won convincingly at 2-1.
Race 5 he liked the inside and outside horses, nailing Piano Man at 5-1.
Race 6 thanks to Jerry I am live in the pick three where I singled Heart of Destiny.  I am staying with a classmate named Doc, who has early alzheimer\'s and for the first time in 30 years could not come to the track with me.  The mare of the 7 is Doc\'s Destiny, so we had to play her.   $700+ pick three-better lucky than good!
Race 7 JB liked the 3 and 10 for exiting a very fast msw and facing firsters.  A Mott second timer beat us.

Race 8 was labelled a chaos race and no bet.  The faves finished 1-2 anyway.
Race 9 he had Brilliant Speed as even money to win and a single in all horizontal bets.  Won at twice the price he should have been, and now I am live in lots of pick 3\'s and 4\'s.  
RAced 10 chose to use the 1a and 5, going against the two publicized favorites.  Grace Hall (1a) won sharply at 7/2.
Race 10 preferred the 4, but said the favorite had to be included, and the fave Silver Screamer won easy.  So hit the P3 and was looking forward to a couple shots at the P4 when a gigantic storm cancelled race 12.  The all bet produced a few more bucks.
In summary, I had some great guidance and some good luck.  I also enjoyed seeing Frank D. again and meeting Richiebee, who is just as funny in person as he is in his posts.  Thanks for the beers, Richie, glad I could help lighten the load you had to carry home!

[richiebee]

Doc:

Thanks for admirably filling in Frank\'s shoes in recapping Sunday\'s
proceedings. JB had a solid day, with strong opinions on four horses,
three of whom won their races rather easily -- Asmussen\'s Dust and Diamonds in
race 2, A. Dutrow\'s Southbeachsandy in race 4, and Brilliant Speed in the
Saranac. JB\'s fourth strong push was on Schillerette in the 11th, who ran
fourth in a race that NYRA never should have run, seeing as it was run in
almost total darkness (except for intense lightning strikes) and while the
Saratoga area was under a tornado warning.

Some ancillary comments: Apparently JB gave a tip on My Piano Man to a woman
pushing a stroller walking by the Carolina Q. After MPM won, the young woman
returned, wanting to buy JB, who was away on an errand, a drink. Someone at
the TG table explained that JB would not drink while he was working. An
interesting conversation followed where the TG table tried to explain to this
young woman that indeed, sitting with some comrades and playing the races on a
Sunday is, for some, a days work.

Also need to point out that JB gave out a cold exacta in the Saranac, and was
negative on a lot of runners who didn\'t fire, most notably the first and third
favorites in Race 1, and Connie and Michael in the 3rd race.

Great to meet some new faces, notably DrBillyM and Topcat. I had fascinating
exchanges with \'Cat, who spent some time in the midwest and was familiar with
the two leaky roof tracks (Fairmount Park and Cahokia Downs) where I spent too
much time while I was allegedly enrolled in college in St. Louis.

Got to chat a little with NC Tony, who to his credit, seems more obsessed with
becoming a scratch golfer than with winning a big handicapping contest, though
knowing NCT I wouldn\'t be surprised to see him accomplish both.

Also present was Rocky, who said he doesn\'t post, but who related his tale of
sharing and inheriting his father\'s infatuation with daily double wagering.

A word for FrankD, who being native to the Capital region area, is a
tremendous source of information on and off track. Frank did all patrons of
Saratoga at Living Room Downs a huge service by giving an almost daily weather,
course condition and rail placement report via the TG board, not to mention
his ribald recaps of Saturday seminars.

All you need to know about Frank is that he demanded, and received, written
notes from both Jimbo and Michael D explaining their absence from the weekend
festivities.

I gave Frank a lot of crap about his weather reports, but karma kicked in at
about 5:00 PM. With a vengeance. When I got back to the trackside parking lot,
my car was partially submerged in calf deep water. I would have been very upset
but for the SUV about 50 feet away which was covered by a huge tree limb which
put things in perspective.

One piece of business Billy forgot to address: Thanks to Steve Byk for access
to the Carolina Q facilities. The food has improved each year, and this year
the young man who took my order earned a large tip by correctly answering in
the negative the question \"Is the pork sandwich kosher?\"

Mr Byk needs to begin formulating plans for a Carolina Q midtown Manhattan
lunch truck so I can have a taste of Saratoga the year round.

Shill outs:

I spent most of the summer, along with others, bashing NYRA and the quality of
racing at Saratoga. The racetrack and the town remain magical places. Every
racing fan or lover of the thoroughbred needs to visit Saratoga (and to a
lesser extent Keeneland, Belmont and I would imagine Santa Anita) for these
are historic facilities basically unchanged by time.

If you do get to the Spa and you have been involved with this board, you need
to sit in on the seminar. You will learn and you will meet good folks.

JB summarized the weekend and maybe my entire life around the track, with a
classic line. Trying to describe the racetrack experience to one of his girls,
JB explained that \"Its like a zoo, with only one kind of animal\".

[Silver Charm]

Probably what he meant to say is a that unlike a Zoo, the animals are free to roam about the premises....

Like the fact when you mentioned his \"girls\" it was plural....

Sounds likes it been fun. One of these days for me!! Other priorities holding me back but maybe just maybe....

[Topcat]

richiebee Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Doc:
>
> Thanks for admirably filling in Frank\'s shoes in
> recapping Sunday\'s
> proceedings. JB had a solid day, with strong
> opinions on four horses,
> three of whom won their races rather easily --
> Asmussen\'s Dust and Diamonds in
> race 2, A. Dutrow\'s Southbeachsandy in race 4, and
> Brilliant Speed in the
> Saranac. JB\'s fourth strong push was on
> Schillerette in the 11th, who ran
> fourth in a race that NYRA never should have run,
> seeing as it was run in
> almost total darkness (except for intense
> lightning strikes) and while the
> Saratoga area was under a tornado warning.
>
> Some ancillary comments: Apparently JB gave a tip
> on My Piano Man to a woman
> pushing a stroller walking by the Carolina Q.
> After MPM won, the young woman
> returned, wanting to buy JB, who was away on an
> errand, a drink. Someone at
> the TG table explained that JB would not drink
> while he was working. An
> interesting conversation followed where the TG
> table tried to explain to this
> young woman that indeed, sitting with some
> comrades and playing the races on a
> Sunday is, for some, a days work.
>
> Also need to point out that JB gave out a cold
> exacta in the Saranac, and was
> negative on a lot of runners who didn\'t fire, most
> notably the first and third
> favorites in Race 1, and Connie and Michael in the
> 3rd race.
>
> Great to meet some new faces, notably DrBillyM and
> Topcat. I had fascinating
> exchanges with \'Cat, who spent some time in the
> midwest and was familiar with
> the two leaky roof tracks (Fairmount Park and
> Cahokia Downs) where I spent too
> much time while I was allegedly enrolled in
> college in St. Louis.
>
> Got to chat a little with NC Tony, who to his
> credit, seems more obsessed with
> becoming a scratch golfer than with winning a big
> handicapping contest, though
> knowing NCT I wouldn\'t be surprised to see him
> accomplish both.
>
> Also present was Rocky, who said he doesn\'t post,
> but who related his tale of
> sharing and inheriting his father\'s infatuation
> with daily double wagering.
>
> A word for FrankD, who being native to the Capital
> region area, is a
> tremendous source of information on and off track.
> Frank did all patrons of
> Saratoga at Living Room Downs a huge service by
> giving an almost daily weather,
> course condition and rail placement report via the
> TG board, not to mention
> his ribald recaps of Saturday seminars.
>
> All you need to know about Frank is that he
> demanded, and received, written
> notes from both Jimbo and Michael D explaining
> their absence from the weekend
> festivities.
>
> I gave Frank a lot of crap about his weather
> reports, but karma kicked in at
> about 5:00 PM. With a vengeance. When I got back
> to the trackside parking lot,
> my car was partially submerged in calf deep water.
> I would have been very upset
> but for the SUV about 50 feet away which was
> covered by a huge tree limb which
> put things in perspective.
>
> One piece of business Billy forgot to address:
> Thanks to Steve Byk for access
> to the Carolina Q facilities. The food has
> improved each year, and this year
> the young man who took my order earned a large tip
> by correctly answering in
> the negative the question \"Is the pork sandwich
> kosher?\"
>
> Mr Byk needs to begin formulating plans for a
> Carolina Q midtown Manhattan
> lunch truck so I can have a taste of Saratoga the
> year round.
>
> Shill outs:
>
> I spent most of the summer, along with others,
> bashing NYRA and the quality of
> racing at Saratoga. The racetrack and the town
> remain magical places. Every
> racing fan or lover of the thoroughbred needs to
> visit Saratoga (and to a
> lesser extent Keeneland, Belmont and I would
> imagine Santa Anita) for these
> are historic facilities basically unchanged by
> time.
>
> If you do get to the Spa and you have been
> involved with this board, you need
> to sit in on the seminar. You will learn and you
> will meet good folks.
>
> JB summarized the weekend and maybe my entire life
> around the track, with a
> classic line. Trying to describe the racetrack
> experience to one of his girls,
> JB explained that \"Its like a zoo, with only one
> kind of animal\".


Two kinds of animals . . . the two-legged and four-legged varieties . . .

And the better the racetrack, the better the people-watching . . .

[TGJB]

First of all to clarify, the woman I gave Piano Man to was a friend of the people who meet us at the track once a year, and she asked me who I liked. She would have asked anyone standing there, she had no idea who I was.

That whole setup at the Barbecue has become its own very interesting thing over the years, not just the seminar but throughout the day. If you are a purist and like to look at horses in the flesh its not for you, but the hanging out is great, and there\'s a TV unit ten feet away with both Saratoga and simulcasts. And lots of good stories and one-liners. At some point Richie will have to tell the story here about the unusual method of getting a sick horse well he discovered in New Orleans. He can omit the names to protect the... I don\'t even know what to say there.

SC-- the \"girls\" are 4 and 8.

[banditbeau]

JB - To me Brilliant Speed makes much more sense than Piano Man (although there are 3 horses in the first - #\'s 1,4,8 with close to the same type of lines as Brilliant Speed and only 1 of them came through to win), whereas Piano Man has bi, bo, in the last 2, about an ouchy of a pattern time wise as you can find, looks to be 58% to either run off or X, and even if it pairs its 10 last out, the 5 and 7 look to be a couple lengths faster, and the 2,4,6 about equal to My Piano Man.  That almost seems to make the $12.60 a bit of an underlay for what looks like maybe the 5th best horse in an 8 horse field.  What was your take on the horse that is different - it turned out quite well?  Thanks - BB

[FrankD.]

Beau,

All you need to know about this meet is that Chad Brown was 75 starts, 22 wins, 16 seconds. An unbelievable 50 % win/place off that big of a sample !!! Especially with only 4 thirds, his horses all ran or they didn\'t ?

Pletcher may have won the training tittle but he started 149 horses.
Chad had the most successful meet of any trainer ever.

Good luck,

Frank D.

[Topcat]

FrankD. Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Beau,
>
> All you need to know about this meet is that Chad
> Brown was 75 starts, 22 wins, 16 seconds. An
> unbelievable 50 % win/place off that big of a
> sample !!! Especially with only 4 thirds, his
> horses all ran or they didn\'t ?
>
> Pletcher may have won the training tittle but he
> started 149 horses.
> Chad had the most successful meet of any trainer
> ever.
>
> Good luck,
>
> Frank D.




Obviously the greatest trainer that ever drew breath . . . even better than Rudy!

[TGJB]

First of all, there\'s no doubt he\'s a cripple, but I\'m going to bet him, not claim him. As  for the Thoro-Pattern, it isn\'t using his two races this year as his top, it uses his top of the last 6 races, which includes his actual top, last year. If he\'s 42% to run at least his top he\'s a great bet at 5-1, since his top (7 1/2) was probably 75% to win.

I wasn\'t using the Thoro-Pattern, that\'s for people who haven\'t used sheets enough to really form their own opinions-- there\'s no way to set it up to cover all contingencies (like the layoff in this case). My reasoning was that a) it was now or never, third off a layoff, which is when he ran his top last year-- and they were able to get him over there on regular rest for the first time, b) he might even be able to win with another 10 since the only faster horse (by memory) was coming off a figure that had hurt him badly last time he ran it, and c) there was a built-in overlay since that horse, the favorite, had beat him badly last time out.

Given that there were a couple of other horses there at the wire with him my guess is he won with another 10.

[richiebee]

TGJB Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> That whole setup at the Barbecue has become its
> own very interesting thing over the years, not
> just the seminar but throughout the day. If you
> are a purist and like to look at horses in the
> flesh its not for you, but the hanging out is
> great, and there\'s a TV unit ten feet away with
> both Saratoga and simulcasts. And lots of good
> stories and one-liners. At some point Richie will
> have to tell the story here about the unusual
> method of getting a sick horse well he discovered
> in New Orleans. He can omit the names to protect
> the... I don\'t even know what to say there.
 
JB has allowed me to spin so much yarn on this board I am obligated to comply
when he asks me to retell a story.

Back in the early 1980s, I was working for a Louisiana trainer who is still
active. At the time he was stabled at the Fair Grounds in New Orleans, and I
was working for him as a groom. I remember very clearly 2 of the horses I was
caring for -- a 5YO mare, TM, who had won two races in a row at FG that
winter and would go on to win 5 more consecutive races at Keeneland(2), River
Downs, and Churchill Downs(2). The other runner, RT, the subject of this
story, was not enjoying any kind of success at all.

RT was an 8 year old gelding, an Arizona or New Mexico Bred, who had run 50
or 60 times at various tracks in the midwest; by the time he ended up with my
employer, he was competing at the bottom claiming level. RT was a copper
colored chestnut with an unfortunately short tail. RT\'s most distinctive
feature, at least to a horseperson, was his ankles, which were calcified to
an almost unnatural shape and size; one roll of vetwrap was barely suitable to
to cover his ankles and shins.

The white pasterns and shins were in themselves a problem, because RT also
had tendon problems, and between the tendons and the ankles RT required much
hosing and poulticing; the skin between RT\'s knees and ankles was sensitive
and I was spending as much time on this guy as any other two horses.

At one point in the FG meet, towards the end of the meet when the humidity
began to return, RT, who was never a real good doer anyway, went on a hunger
strike. Blood was taken and there was no abnormality or visible signs of
illness. His tendons and enormous ankles were cold to the touch, a testament
to hours of hosing and gallons of Antiphlogistine poultice. Since as was
mentioned RT was a gelding, lovesickness was ruled out.

We tried every method known to (horse)man trying to get RT to consume just
enough feed to keep him in training. Vanilla extract, molasses, beer, a
decoction of Vitamin B and apple juice, none of it worked. After about 5 days
of coming each morning to a horse who had eaten next to nothing overnight,
and whose coat was turning dull, my boss told me that he was desperate at
this point and was going to solve the problem after training hours.

\"You gonna call Harthill?\" I asked.

My boss told me he was going to do something for RT that even Harthill didn\'t
know about. I doubted that. Of course the story wouldn\'t be complete without
the boss telling me this was a trick he had learned from a half blind 90 year
old Cajun quarterhorse trainer. My boss also told me I was going to see
something I had never seen before and would never see again. That turned out
to be true.

My boss told me to get a pile of s--t from the stall of TM, the little mare
who was doing so well at the time. He had me dump this pile of healthy
horses--t into a water bucket; he kind of crushed the s--t up with a spade
and then got a hose and sprayed water into the bucket, further breaking up the
s--t and creating a not too appetizing soup.

\"What are you going to with that, boss?\"

\"We\'re gonna wait for Doc [    ](our stable vet). I told him what I was going
to do and he didn\'t believe me.\"

When the Doc showed up, the boss took a dose syringe and loaded it with some
Cajun s--t soup. He served a couple of portions to RT, who seemed not to mind.
I was thinking that no matter what happened to RT, I would probably
not be eating anything for the next couple of days.

Doc looked at my boss. \"I always thought you were a little crazy. I\'m damn
certain of it now. Call me when you need me to save this poor animal\'s life.\"

Within a couple of days, of course, RT began to eat again. Within about ten
days, he was training (mostly being ponied) much more aggressively. He bled
through Lasix at Keeneland, ending up on the vet\'s list, but was off the
vet\'s list in time to win twice at Churchill, Pat Day up, RT\'s ankles and
tendons bulging through the yellow vetwrap.

[RICH]

You really hit a new top with this one! Wow

[Topcat]

RICH Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> You really hit a new top with this one! Wow


Terrific stuff . . . unfortunately, the statute of limitations has yet to run out on a lot of this stuff . . .

[magicnight]

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/17/health/disgusting-maybe-but-treatment-works-study-finds.html?hp

[sighthound]

Veterinarians have been doing this type of thing for decades.  It works.  \"Good gut flora\" crowds out \"bad gut flora\" works.  

We knew that those veterinary medicine limited-sub-specialist primate docs would catch up to us multi-species docs one day ... (wink)