Quiroz and Ochoa: Nothing New, Except the Frequency

Unless you've been living under a rock or don't have social media, you know all about the alleged "betting coup" orchestrated by trainers Quiroz and Ochoa, who entered four runners on Sunday, winning three. 

Via Finley's TDN piece, trainer Angel Quiroz says he did nothing wrong. 

Others certainly disagree. 

On paper, to me this reads pretty simple. The trainers had their horses ready, entered their horses, likely bet their horses (or someone did, who probably isn't a professional "coup" bettor or race fixer as he/she bet a daily double with $37 and $10 winners that paid $25; ITP must be losing his mind), and probably walked away with some cash. 

Where have we seen this before? 

If we had a nickel for how many times a horse won off slow works, a buried qualifier, off claim with terrible form, or with a good old-fashioned form reversal, we'd have a whole lot of nickels. 

"Man has horse ready, man bets horse, man makes a few bucks if the horse cooperates". We don't like it, and it's kicked many of us out of nice scores in multis before because we can't handicap it very well, but let's face it: It could be inscribed on Eclipse Award trophies.

Sure, in some of the instances something nefarious was going on. After all, when there was the EPO bust a number of years ago in Kentucky, the trainers who bought the drug probably weren't using it for their burgeoning careers in the Tour De France. Bad things happen in this game. 

But getting a horse ready off dull works and bad form? Hell, that's as American as apple pie. 

As for the "coup", well color me skeptical. We not only have the aforementioned daily double bet - which to me signals we're not dealing with Keyzer Soze - the talk about offshore betting is, well, curious, too 

I actually checked-in on the 4th at Saratoga Sunday, and in the early betting offshore the only live horse was the 8, the Chad Brown piece. Markets moved downwards on Classic Rock during the betting offshore (as Crunk notes), but why wouldn't they? This barn signalled something was up via the FH works (JK even mentioned it on the telecast). That the sharps caught on shouldn't surprise us. 

What I think (other than Dougie Sal's intrepid reporting and reach with the Portnoy RT) turned this whole thing into a mainstream story was the frequency of it. One day? Come on guys, seriously? 

I remember 25 or so years ago there was a trainer who was booted out more times than Bill Laimbeer. He was one dirty dude, but he recruited beards from time to time. One time his new beard had three horses in one card off a barn change. All three ran off the screen; one I think, if memory holds, in a form reversal where the horse was 110-1 the last start. 

A trainer I knew at the time said to me: "They went too far. They were pigs at the trough." The Clouseaus in some alphabet pieced two and two together and this new supertrainer had a short-lived career. 

Honestly, I think if they did this over 24 days instead of 24 hours it'd be a nothingburger. It'd be "the barn's hot, they have these horses ready to run big"; DeRosa would be making the third entry an "A" horse on his "grid". Some sharp on twitter would tout the horse and we'd give him or her their flowers. It likely wouldn't be a story in the TDN. 

Why do I feel that way? Because I think we've seen this movie a thousand times before. On Sunday, I suspect it was just more visible than usual.

Have a nice Tuesday everyone. 

Are NYRA and CDI Slaying the Golden Goose of Horse Racing Relevancy?

As most of you have heard by now, the execs at Churchill Downs Inc and NYRA have created a new racing series that excludes the much-maligned second jewel of the Triple Crown, the Preakness Stakes.  

Leaving aside (as Dougie points out beautifully in his YouTube video)  races like the Haskell could be in peril as well, my opinion is pretty devoid on nuance. Take away the noise of the Pennsylvania Derby perhaps being mothballed, or the fact that the Mid-Atlantic Match Series never worked; to me this is potentially much bigger than that. 

Horse racing in its present form is not what it was in 1926, or even 1996. Its current zeitgeist is not based on attendance, handle, what Mike Repole thinks of it, or any other assorted business metrics. It solely, in my view, is based on what the governments allow or disallow. 

Whether it be harness racing in Kentucky, or "new" Belmont racetracks in New York, the bind that holds the sport together is the politician. As sad as it is for me to opine, they, not you, are the sports' most important customer. 

How does one keep the sport relevant in the eyes of those who hold so much power over it? I think one way is to ensure the sport is top of mind in statehouses everywhere. 

The easiest way to achieve that goal is to preserve and steward the sports' biggest events. The one's everyone watches, the Americana, the one the TV networks pay to show, not the other way around. They're the luxury boxes politicians bring their spouses to, the fancy drinks and the infield and the gladhanding. 

And what this sport currently has that brings it all together for them, in inarguable fact, is the golden goose of The Triple Crown. 

The Triple Crown is the foundation, in my view, of everything. 

And, again in my opinion, when you mess with it, you mess with the entire foundation of this sport.  

The Kentucky Derby isn't going away and the politicians can have their day, just like we all do. NYRA can promote the Jim Dandy, not as a prep race, but something that's on television, and hope a handful of the 100,000 or so tuning in on Fox are employed in Albany. Maybe I am being overly dramatic. 

But I can't help think of the old biblical metaphor about feet of clay. When your foundation is built on a corporate, ready-made out of the box "series" that can potentially replace the thing this sport has always had to hold it all together with the strength of reinforced steel, things can get wobbly in a hurry.

Let's hope that doesn't happen. But the fact that they've entertained putting horse racing's one and only true spectacle in harm's way makes me fear for the future of this sport. 

Have a nice Tuesday everyone. 

An Old Time Angle is (Partially!) Responsible for Low Harness Prices

Last night at Mohawk we saw what we often see at the harness races - an extremely well-bet horse who was picked nowhere, off a 10-1 morning line. 

He closed from last, won like a good thing, and immediately my iPhone (yes, I sold out to the man, RIP Blackberry) lit up with a message I see often nowadays - "How did they know". 

In this case at least, I honestly don't think "they" did. 

The horse was driven like it had no shot; driver Bob McClure didn't even take cover when he could've; old-time trainer Roger Mayotte trying to put one over on us is as believable as the last AI video I saw on twitter. 

I think this was a case of old meets new. 

The old being a good old-fashioned class drop - the horse raced well against much better and was dropping against lesser. And I firmly believe this old angle is being used by CAW teams everywhere, especially in this day and age where trainers play the class drop game like coveralled maestros. CAWs rely on data, and the class drop data (especially at places like Yonkers) shows high impact values. These impact values, coupled with low win takeout after rebate, can trigger some very low prices.  

I'm spitballing, of course; the alchemy of a modern harness CAW team is beyond my knowledge. Hell, I can barely get any harness data because Trackmaster/Equibase wants an arm, a leg and a first born to even check my hypothesis. But I see this way too often now. 

What exacerbates it in my view, are the CAWs themselves, in tandem with the current group of players who are getting smarter and smarter. 

This horse, coincidentally named Get the Green. was heavily bet in the pick 3's off his 10-1 ML. Two or three years ago players would ignore it as a computer glitch or a smaller pool phenomenon, but today they pay attention. Even the telecasts, which rarely paid attention, are broadcasting where they think final prices would go. 

When this happens I think we see a multiplier effect - people see the sharp money, know the horse is going down in price and is probably live, and they want a piece of it. This drives the price down even further. 

There's a lot of rumors that CAW teams are staying away from multis because of this signal, i.e., showing their hand which hurts their vertical prices.  Transparency is the best disinfectant, and the more we plebs can see, the more we can act on. Wondering if CAWs are going to play games with this may be the next step in the in-play wagering landscape we'll have to navigate.

The harness racing braintrust - if they care about it, which I am not convinced they do - would have to be very creative with conditioned sheets to combat this problem. Let's face it, participants love class drops; "wait until next week for a lower class and a better post" should be written on this sports' epitaph. But for better prices and more handle, it's probably a good idea to at least think about it. 

Have a super Monday everyone. I hope the windows have been treating you well.