Derby Super and General Approach to Betting

[dpatent]

Lots of interesting posts about how people bet the Derby, who hit it, who did not and why.  I have found over the years that good handicapping and making a profit at the track are two very different things.  In fact, my biggest lost opportunities have come in races where I did a great job of handicapping but screwed the proverbial pooch when it came to betting the race.

Prime examples:

1992 Derby.  I hated Arazi and threw him completely out.  Unfortunately, I was obsessed with Pine Bluff and did not think to use Lil E.T.  We bet the race in NY and, in the pre-commingled pool days, he paid over $90 to win.

1999 BC Classic.  I was all over Golden Missile but used him only for first and second.

There are others, but you get the point and we have all done this from time to time.

My current approach is to say \"OK, you have some opinions.  Not necessarily one opinions, but often multiple opinions.  Make sure that you make money if one or more of your opinions is right.\"  This leads to some very interesting betting combinations -- some contradictory, but that\'s what hedging is about.

This year, I had two primary opinions.  Big Brown was by far the most likely winner, and Pyro and Colonel John were highly overrated. Underneath those views were opinions about each of the other 17 horses in the race -- ability to get the distance, pattern, etc.

My betting partner and I decided to key BB over 10 horses for one large superfecta bet and then bet a trifecta box with 11 horses.  We knew that if CJ and Pyro missed the board, the payoffs would be huge so we wanted to be very inclusive.

Initially we left Eight Belles off of the ticket.  About two hours before the race my friend called me and told me he was nervous about doing that.  I argued against him with my opinion -- she\'d never been past 1 1/16 miles, coming off a top, breeding suspect, etc. and he relented.  I went back to the Sheets, though, and saw that we were including a couple of horses that were much slower than her.  I remembered lessons from past Derbies -- fast horses do well.  Horses who are too slow coming in are generally too slow.  So we decided to kick Adriano out of our Super/Tri and substitute Eight Belles.

My main reasoning was that if EB hit the board, I would never forgive myself for using a slow horse like Adriano instead of her -- call it the \"greater regret\" theory.

Anyway, it turned out to be a good decision.  I make no claim to anything other than making the right bets based on a couple of opinions that were generally accurate.  On days like Derby day, with so much dead money in the pools, that\'s all it takes.

Congrats to Jellish for his big score, btw and sorry you missed Chuckles.  Next time.

[ajkreider]

Sadly (for me), I could not leave CJ off my tickets.  Had the other three.  He suckered me with that work - but the works giveth and taketh in equal measure.  Probably would not have had DoC in there except for the rave reviews (\'best work of the week\', etc.)