Friedman Travers Proposition Bet

[TGJB]

Len F.--
I read your Travers comments in Thoroughbred Times (you know, the publication that you have the deal with where they run the box calling Ragozin \"the father of speed figures\"). The two horses you like are Congrats and Wild and Wicked, neither of which I like, so here\'s my proposition-- I\'ll take Ten Most Wanted, you take your two. If either of your two beats TMW, you win. $1,000 straight up, any scratch of those three obviously negates the bet, official order of finish.
Alternatively-- Even money neither of your two finishes in the top two. If either runs third it\'s a push, neither in the top 3 I win. For this one all 6 have to start, other than that all terms as above.
Deal?

[alm]

Nice call on the King\'s Bishop...I won a lot on that one.

[TGJB]

Thank you. Since no one else mentioned last week\'s rotw (still available on this site), I will point out that that\'s two real good ones in a row, and since we are talking about big prices, one good one is worth a whole lot of bad ones.

[clark]

I\'ve been using your product on and off for a year or so now.  Thanks to the thoro\'s, I hit the pick 4 @ the Toga today.  Thanks a bunch!  (I just wish Tap the Admiral(15-1)could\'ve come through in the 9th.)

Keep up the good work and thanks again.

clark

[TGJB]

Boy, you ain\'t kidding. I decided not to get involved,but made a $64 play with just the combos that would have caused me to shoot myself (again) if one had come in. Tap The Admiral would have given it to me.
Played: 2,3,6,7 with 4,6 with 1,2 with 1,3,4,7.

[derby1592]

The last 2 ROTWs have been very profitable and it would have been hard not to make money on both those races if you agreed with the analysis in the ROTW.

I also wish Tap The Admiral would have had a better trip. He was dead last early (normally much closer to the pace) thanks to completely missing the break and he still closed strongly to finish third on a course that was favoring early speed.

I also wish that Great Notion had held on for the win. I could not believe the exacta with Valid Video only paid $98. It would have been much more had it been reversed. I was however very happy to see Ghostzapper come flying up for the show spot because I did not have During on any of my tickets. The trifecta more than made up for the weak exacta.

Looking forward to tomorrow\'s Pacific Classic - At first glance it looks like a terrible betting race with only 4 horses entered but Candy Ride will be a huge underlay given that his top is the slowest in the race. Also, if you think that Dr. Frankelstein may have made some recent alterations to his training methods in anticipation of the increased drug testing scheduled for the fall (because it takes many weeks to clear certain drugs such as EPO out of a horse\'s system), then Fleet Street Dancer does not look totally impossible in this race even though his connections probably entered just to get the fourth place money...

Cheers.

Chris

[zorro]

the call rotw was the best in history....

[JimP]

Re the Pick 4 combos you listed, I\'m interested in how you made the selection of 4 (Tap The Admiral) and 6 (Tam\'s Terms). I could see those as posibilities in the race but above others. Can you expand on your thought process in selecting those two above other candidates in the race. For instance, let me state how I analyzed the race an then you can add your comments if you wish. I thought there were several horses in this race that were capable of something at the 2-3 level. I thought that the 4 level might be the best I could hope for with Tap The Admiral. After he hit the 0+ level, he bounced to 4. Since the 4 was about what he had established previously as his top level, I thought a repeat of that was likely the best he could get and he might be heading even farther off form. So I excluded him. You obviously saw it differently. Why? I liked the line on 3 (War Zone). He looked like he was certainly capable of the 2-3 level necessary to win the race. I included him. You didn\'t. Why? Number 5 (Trademark) certainly looked capable of the 2-3 level that I thought was necessary to win. I couldn\'t see leaving him out of the mix. You apparently did. Why?Number 7 (Finality) had hit the 3 level once and approached it in his last start. He looked like a strong possibility for moving forward to the 3 or possibly even lower level. I couldn\'t see leaving him out. You did. Why? Number 8 (Rouvres) had achieved the 3 level twice and appeared to be on the improve. I couldn\'t see leaving him out of the mix. You did. Why? Number 10 (Patrol) had been as low as the 2 level and hit the 3 level multiple times. His most recent race was a regression, so there definitely were some pattern questions with him. I was reluctant to leave him out of the mix. And I thought number 11 (rock Slide) might have the most promising line of all. Had been around the 1-2 level many times in his career and seemed to have a line headed back to that level. How did you exclude him? And then there was number 1 (Quest Star). He didn\'t have the numbers I was looking for but I was very impressed that he was coming out of the Bowling Green Handicap and we had already seen what others coming out of that race could do. I couldn\'t include him but he sure caused some concern.  

In summary, I can\'t see how you decided to cut this field down to only 2 horses and why you selected number 4 over others, such as 11, 3, 5, 7, 8, 10, that appeared to me to have better figures. I\'m still learning about the usage of your figures. I\'ve had some decent success so far but I need to learn more. Any explanation you could add for this race would surely be helpful.

(Note: I didn\'t hit the Pick 4 because I couldn\'t go this deep in the race. And I left out the 5. In fact, I didn\'t play as many combos as you did because I thought this race in particular was so difficult to cull down to a playable number of horses. And before anyone points it out, I did notice that Tap The Admiral outran most of those that I listed above him. My question is about the selection process and approach, not who was right and who was wrong.)

Sorry for the lengthy post, but this appears to be a possibly instructive case study if anyone cares to enter the dialog.

[TGJB]

As I said, I wasn\'t making a serious pick 4 play-- if I had I would have used several more horses, and certainly the winner-- but that would have meant spending several times as much, and diluting the play and possible return enough that I didn\'t think it was worth it. There\'s also a money management issue-- I didn\'t bring that much cash with me, hadn\'t hit the races I played earlier on the card, and didn\'t want to tie my money up in a 4 race bet, especially since I really liked the King\'s Bishop, the Travers and the last (wrong about that one).
My thinking on the two I played was pretty basic, and similar in both cases. Stake horses, especially grass horses, run a very high percentage of tops. Both of these had tops that made them very strong (maybe the two best tops in the race, I don\'t remember), and were big prices. My play was basically just a mental health bet, since if one of the combinations I played had come in paying 10k and I didn\'t have it I would have had to shoot myself for the third time in one week-- I actually did say to the teller (who gave me a funny look because I generally bet more than $64) \"mental health bet\".

[charleym]

Hello,
Its funny Jim P wrote that because I viewed that race basically the same and thought that McLaughlin horse was an underlay but certainly not a bet against. I didn\'t want to use value Rock Slide because of the post.

This leads me to my question. Did you key Pine Gold place in the finale? I thought he was much best and thought him to be the proper key with the eventual winner, Tescher\'s recent maiden winner and Sleeping Potion. Did I put too much faith in that Delaware Park 7?


CharleyM

[JimP]

Your overall thinking on the race was similar to mine - too many contenders in there to make it playable in a Pick 4. I think the two you picked, Tap The Admiral and Tam\'s Terms, did have the best prior TURF tops in the race. The best top was actually Rock Slide but his was on dirt. I understand your rationale: You wanted to limit the play to a couple of horses and went with the two that had the best prior tops on grass because the odds were double digit on both. I disliked Tap The Admiral because I thought he was regressing from his top and I liked Rock Slide because I thought he was just as good on grass as dirt and seemed to be moving back toward his top. I went with 3 and 11 while you went with 4 and 6. Neither of us won, but at least one of yours hit the board. I guess the pattern on tap The Admiral wasn\'t as weak as I judged it to be. Now that I know WHY you played it the way you did, could you critique my read on the Tap The Admiral pattern? Here\'s how I saw it: As a 3 year old he had 14 races, the last 3 of those were on grass and he reach the 7+ level in each. Then as a 4 year old, he had 8 races, all on grass, most of them in the 7 range, but in the last 2 races he got down to the 6 level in each. Then as a 5 year old, he improved right out of the box with a 4+, then he slipped back a little to a 5+, then jumped way up to a new top at 0+. In his next start (the one prior to yesterday) he slipped back again to a 4. So my entire analysis of his line was that he was the fastest or second fastest in the race with his top, but the pattern looked weak to me. How did you read the pattern? Obviously you didn\'t read it as weak enough for you to forgo a bet at 15-1 odds. And that conclusion appears to be correct, since he made a race of it. When a horse has developed this type of pattern: steady year to year improvement, hits a new big top, bounces 3+ points in his next, and then is coming back approximately 6 weeks from the top, is this a situation where you normally expect the horse to recover back toward the top or to continue to regress?

[TGJB]

Big distinctions here-- horses in general, stake level horses, grass horses. The last two run a much higher percentage of tops than horses in general, and are less likely to be wiped out by one big effort. True most of all for grass stake horses, many of whom are also late developers.

[TGJB]

Yeah, I had a very big double to that horse too.

[clark]

Regarding the Pick 4

Played: 2,3,7 with 4,5,6,9 with 2 with 1,3,4,7 ($48)

In the 9th, the 4 & 6 did have the best grass tops, 0^3 and 1^1 respectfully.  But they were also the two who showed the best ability to run from somewhere other than on the lead.  While i heard that speed was fairing well on the grass, in a race full of contenders who run their best on the lead, i figured the pace would be hot and wanted a few horses who could kick home.  The 5 had the best last race figure, and the 9???.......well........he had come home in 29&1 before and @ 41-1...I\'d of had story to tell ! ! ! !

[jbelfior]

TGJB---

Too bad Funny Cide\'s people did not win their battle with Tagg....and too bad Empire Maker got sick; \"Most Wanted would have dusted them both at 6-1.

Nice call on the King\'s Bishop. I had Valid Video @ Calder and thought he would bounce like he normally does off a big effort. Used \"Notion with 5, but not with \'Video. That\'s why they call it gambling.


Joe B.