Belmont & the Six

Start spreading the... Jay-Z? That was awful. There is no other way to say it. Let's hope NYRA comes to their senses and does the right thing for next year. I must say I had a hoot that ABC was playing the Sinatra tune before commercials.

It'd be cool if someone thought of the horseplayer on big days. The Manhattan, featuring Gio Ponti, was the race before the Belmont stakes. One problem, you could not watch it. The ABC deal with Belmont et al affords them to have rights on all races before the Belmont and ADW's are blacked out. ABC did not show the Gio Ponti race, so most of us did not see the Gio Ponti race. I know he lost because I saw the results, but that's about it. He could have been leading by six with 100 yards to go and got hit by a pea-shooter-wielding Jay Z fan causing him to get caught at the wire, for all I know.

Belmont and NYRA have to get with the betting program, as well. I have three ADW's and could only play it in one of them - the one that I use for fun bets, that has about $200 in it. I bet a few exotics and concentrated on Monmouth. They lost a ton of handle today by constricting their signal.

As for the race it was a pace fest as many thought. Ice Box was horribly overbet as most closers are, and failed to deliver. The tri and super were fairly logical if you took a contrarian view. I was rather surprised that betfair had Ice Box at just short of 5-2. I expected that the sharpies would be fading him much more than that. Perhaps he was legit, but did not get the pace; who knows.

The Metro Six Shooter tonight paid..... I don't know. None of my ADW's had the payout. I took a shot and did not hit. I got a little excited down the lane because I used 1,2,10 in the first leg and the 10 almost outran the 1 at 40-1. The rest were fairly obvious, so I am still scratching he head on what it paid. { aha, 43 clams.}

Delmarvelous popped up at Mohawk tonight. Many handicappers do not have him as a serious contender for the Cup and I think they were proven right today. Frankly there have been a couple really nice fades this past week for the three year olds. Sportswriter was an excellent bet against last time, and Delmarvelous was a nice fade as chalk Saturday. Both lost keying some nice exotics.

Lou Pena was hot tonight at the M, winning left and right. I saw the Bob Heyden interview with GB after the third when he won with one of the Pena horses. George looked like he did not want to be there, maybe thinking Holly might ask him the question. The drivers know exactly what is going on in our sport, which is why we see them pike horses off the claim, who off past performances have no reason to be piked.

I got a note tonight that Tioga handles are holding fairly firm, despite a massive drop in harness overall since last year. That is a good sign. Tomorrow, Tioga hosts dandy Randy Waples in his first US drive in awhile. He will be handling Dreamfair Eternal in the big one down there. Keep popping a bit of cash at Tioga folks. It's decent racing, and they are bucking the harness trend by lowering take.