I'm Back

[TGJB]

Comments on the trip when I catch up on work and sleep. Meanwhile, anybody know what the Derby earnings cutoff point was last year, and anyplace with a list for this year?

[bobphilo]

Welcome back Jerry,

I\'m curious to hear what you think of Discreet Cat, having seen his race live, and what figure you assign him. As I am probably the only person in the world crazy enough to publicly defend Godolphin\'s methods of preparing for the Derby and believing they may finaly have a winner this year (depending on his UAE fig)I\'m expecting a flood of responses and am retiriing to the nearest bomb shelter.
The whole point is moot if his figure shows he just doesn\'t have it, regardless of how they prepare him.

Bob

[milwmike]

Per Bloodhorse today:
The earnings are through March 28.

Horses may supplement to the Derby, but original and late entries are given preference should the earnings clause come into play.

1. Discreet Cat, $1,200,000
2. First Samurai, $834,900
3. Brother Derek, $664,980
4. Henny Hughes, $558,000
5. Lawyer Ron, $340,800
6. Private Vow, $317,888
7. With a City, $300,000
8. Bluegrass Cat, $237,980
9. A. P. Warrior, $233,185
10. Deputy Glitters, $160,000
11. Barbaro, $150,000
12. Bob and John, $140,370
13. Cause to Believe, $137,500
14. Keyed Entry, $130,000
15. Seaside Retreat, $125,807
16. Like Now, $120,000
17. Flashy Bull, $109,000
18. Red Raymond, $93,120
19. Sharp Humor, $90,000
20. High Cotton, $67,820
21. Malameeze, $66,080
22. Sacred Light, $52,300
23. Point Determined, $50,000
24. My Golden Song , $34,500
25. Steppenwolfer, $30,000
26. Sweetnorthernsaint, $20,000
27. Mister Triester, $12,000
28. Greeley\'s Legacy, $10,000
29. Saint Augustus, $8,040
30. Achilles of Troy, $6,000
31. Itsallboutthechase, $4,500
32. Jazil, 0
33. Showing Up, 0
34. Strong Contender, 0
35. Sunriver, 0

Don\'t have last year\'s cutoff.

[TGJB]

Thanks.

By the way, I was able to access a computer while in the Middle east and read the Thoroughbred Times (free Ragozin numbers!!). The boys on 11th street have had most of the Derby preps about right (within a point or so either way) until recently, but somebody must have started smoking crack-- according to the article, they have the first three from the Gotham all running MUCH faster than Lawyer Ron did last time out.

[bobphilo]

Jerry, I think Beyer was smoking the same stuff because he did the same thing. He may have gotten the Gotham right but way under-rated Lawyer Ron in the Rebel.
Especially if you factor in the ground loss from his wide trip.

Bob

[TGJB]

The Rebel ground loss would make the figure faster, not slower. I ran into Randy Moss over there (he makes the Beyer figs for Oaklawn), and by coincidence, he asked me about that day. He\'s a good guy.

The Gotham day was a slide, so Ragozin can\'t get it right, but I would have thought he would have given the earlier races slow figs, rather than the Gotham  big ones.

The guy that produced \"Hannah and her Sisters\" (the original) was Bob Greenhut, my first horseman client after starting Thoro-Graph. He also produced Big, Arthur, Annie Hall, Working Girl, League of Their Own, etc, Also attached to my very own horse racing script, but we\'re having more than a little trouble raising the money...

[bobphilo]

TGJB Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The Rebel ground loss would make the figure
> faster, not slower. I ran into Randy Moss over
> there (he makes the Beyer figs for Oaklawn), and
> by coincidence, he asked me about that day. He\'s a
> good guy.
>
That was my point, I was trying to say that Lawyer Ron\'s race was better than either Beyer or Rags had it. Beyer has the excuse that he doesn\'t factor in ground loss but Rags does and to give him a poorer figure despite that was doubly bad.
I\'m glad to hear that Randy Moss is a good guy. He\'s one of the few racing commentators who\'s opinion I respect. He\'s also a staunch advocate for tightening up the Derby requirements and reducing the size of the field.

Bob

[JohnTChance]

Jerry: When you get a chance... how many hours was your long plane ride from NYC to Dubai? After their 22 hour flight to Japan two years ago for a pre-season baseball series, it took the New York Yankees about three months to come out of their funk. Hope you bounce back quicker than Mike Mussina did.

JohnTChance

[TGJB]

The Dubai part was 12 going, 14 coming back, we also took a side trip after the races to Oman for a couple of days, which added to the trip back. I got in at 8 AM yesterday, tried to work right away after what amounted to a 38 hour day (started 8 AM Oman time, they\'re 9 hours ahead) containing about 4 hours fitful sleep on the plane. Crashed before noon, went home and slept until midnight, got up and watched all the shows I had taped (The Shield was great), came in here today at 7 AM, a first that likely will never be repeated.

I should be able to post at length about the whole trip tomorrow.

[big18741]

2005 earnings wasn\'t an issue-Going Wild got in with 57K and Greeleys Galaxy was able to supplement for 200k when no one else wanted to run.

2004 was an issue- Rock Hard Ten and Eddington couldn\'t get in.RHT Had something like 90k I think the cutoff was low 100\'s

Same deal in the War Emblem year 2002 -Drysdale wanted to run Sunday Break who finished 3rd in the Wood behind Buddha and MDO.He only had around 90k and didn\'t get in.

[SoCalMan2]

Dear Bob

I, too, am crazy enough to publicly defend the Kentucky Derby prep methods of Godolphin.  In my view, they do a super job prepping horses.  I do not believe that their prior losses in the Derby were a result of poor prep.

No need to rush to a bomb shelter.  I think we can handle the flak out here. Most importantly, we need to be sure to profit from our convictions if they prove correct, since I believe we will be rewarded on price for going against the grain.

You have written about the losses you hate the most being where you get a bad trip.  I accept bad trip as just a part of the underlying uncertainty one contends with.  It is no fun, but it is a real part of the game.  The losses that anger me the most are where I have handicapped perfectly, but for some idiotic reason I have failed to bet correctly.  Before I suffered two extraordinarily extreme bad beats, my worst bad beat had been where I got shut out from a race for reasons too absurd to imagine. My point is there are lots of ways to be right and have nothing to show for it.

The moral of the story is -- if there is a Godolphin horse you like, make sure you have more to show for it than these posts if the horse proves the naysayers wrong. Good living is the best revenge.

SoCalMan2

[P-Dub]

SoCalMan2 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Most importantly, we  need to be sure to profit from our convictions if
> they prove correct, since I believe we will be
> rewarded on price for going against the grain.


This horse is currently the 2nd-3rd betting choice by several offshore bookmakers. If he wins he\'ll pay decent enough just from the size of the field, but I doubt he will be a huge price.

TGJB,
Did Lem getting blown up cure the jet lag?? Friggin Shane.

 

[SoCalMan2]

P-Dub Wrote:
 
> This horse is currently the 2nd-3rd betting choice
> by several offshore bookmakers. If he wins he\'ll
> pay decent enough just from the size of the field,
> but I doubt he will be a huge price.
>

Good point, P-Dub. I have not paid close enough attention to what the expected line will be, and, no matter how good I feel about Godolphin prep, it may not be enough to merit a bet if, on the day in question, the horse either does not look fast enough, its pattern looks bad, or its odds are insufficient.  If the price is not offering a good value, then no matter how good one feels about the prep, there is no great pot of gold to win for the benefit of one\'s convictions.

I was intending to convey (obviously done sloppily) that I was hoping there would be an upward influence on the horse\'s price due to its unconventional prep which upward price influence could be a source of benefit for those of us in the minority who view such prep positively. I am hopeful that maybe the offshore betting is heavily influenced by Europeans who do not share the same prejudice American bettors do.  This phenomenom allowed me to cash Ghostzapper in the Breeders Cup Classic at 4-1 on English bookmaking odds.  I am hoping the reverse will be true and the odds at Churchill Downs may be skewed the other way.  Having said all this, I have not seen the horse\'s sheet nor his competitors\' yet, so as my mother would (and does) say, \"this is all Jakie get out of the buggy!\"

[bobphilo]

SCM,

I know what you mean by messing up a great handicapping job with a bad betting strategy. There were 2 occasions this year alone where I missed $900 Trifectas when I had the top 3 and didn't box them properly.
As Homer Simpson would say – dooh.

I realize that occasional bad trips are part of the game and sometimes even work to my advantage as an aide to my trip handicapping. My big peeve is how often it happens in the Derby. The field is just too damn big with horses that have no business in such an important race. Randy Moss once wrote an excellent article calling for stricter restrictions on getting into the race.
 This topic probably deserves it's own separate thread but the current method of going by lifetime graded stakes earnings is just not doing it. A horse can get into the race by winning a couple of rich 2YO sprints despite showing no ability over a mile or decent recent form. Just off the top of my head I came up with a rule that would limit entries to those placing in the money in a grade 2 or better race of at least a mile as 3YO's. I did a little research of the last few runnings and found these restrictions would not have excluded deserving long shot winners who were just under-rated. It would have kept out a lot of horses that did nothing but get in the way of the real contenders. In every other sport teams have to qualify for championship play in the regular season and them work their way through the plat-offs. NASCAR drivers have to have a qualifying trial. In Olympic track events, runners have to place in heats before getting into the final.
My big fear is that someday some cheap speed will snap a leg on the lead on the first turn in the race, causing a multi-horse pile-up and we end up with a couple of dead horses, a dead jockey and a couple of quadriplegics to boot. Even excluding this worse-case scenario, I'm sick of seeing deserving Derby and possible TC winners lose their once in a lifetime chance because they are trapped behind a wall of horses or have to go 8 wide around horses that just don't belong. Losing my bets because of this is not exactly good for my wallet or blood pressure either and it happens too damn often in the Derby. A more sane qualifying process is what we need.

Bob

[NoCarolinaTony]

Bob,

Sorry to say - and I\'ve heard it many time- That\'s Horse Racing !!!

What I wish is that we had more races during the year with fields up to 14-20 entires per race. See Europe and See Colonial Downs (14).

NC Tony