Monday's Super Spectacular Blog - Big Pods, Pick Five Rule of Thumb, Pitching Chalk, Odds Drops, ITP-Joyce Movie Update (With Jason Beem Cameo), & Hersh Trifecta

Welcome to this week's Super Spectacular Blog. Not many have flamed me on twitter for things I've said on the SSB the past few weeks (other than the usual cranky suspects) so that's positive and I thank you all. 

In addition, I have not received one of those tax calls where they tell me I am going to be thrown in jail unless I give them my social security number, so the Russian bots must be happy. 

Let's try and keep these good vibes going!

The mysterious ITP was Chris's guest on his Bet with the Best pod this week.  It was longer than Titanic, but as far as I could tell no one ran into an iceberg. I thought it was really good. 

The one section focusing on finding value by throwing bad chalk out of verticals I found particularly interesting and informative. 

An example from Monday at the Woodbine harness races - 

In race 8 there were two 6-5 chalk, but one of them could be labelled suspect. The bumpy gaited four horse was heading back into his previous barn after being claimed two races ago and he was coming off a sub-par start. This horse looks like he may crossfire (hit himself) and is quirky enough where a barn change could've gotten him out of his routine. The other 6-5 chalk looked legit. 

We often want to throw out one chalk but is there value in using one on top? There probably was, but it can get really good if you find something underneath. In this case you likely could.

The leading trainer at the track had a horse who was second off a layoff and classified well. The rest of the mid-priced horses were all fairly blah, or could not leave the gate. 

We have a case where we can pitch a 6-5 shot right out of the super, and had a decent possible lean who was taking no money, but could fit underneath. Using this horse in the two and three positions with logicals (leaving our pitch horse right out) is simple in say a twenty cent super. It's not any more complex than a place or show bet, and there is no need to play scared because any player could spend as little as $15 or so trying it. 

As luck would have it the bad co-chalk was bad, and ran out, while the legit fave won. The second off a layoff horse stormed home for second and the super paid $5,000 for $1 and the $2 tri paid $1,500.

We might look at this race as just a pick 5 "get by race", or leaning on chalk for a $10 super or tri. But one angle with a finnicky horse with a barn change and a little smart ticket making resulted in a score. 

We have not pumped the Great Marcus Hersh on the SSB yet, so we'll do it this week three times.

 Some horses bleed, some horses can be corrected somewhat without lasix and some horses can't. 

Of course correlation is not causation & I don't know if one thing led to the other, but this Lasix on, Lasix off madness has to end. pic.twitter.com/cAh3Dl5zNE

— Marcus Hersh (@DRFHersh) April 11, 2023

Jim Lawson will step down in the fall from his post leading Woodbine. As Eric notes in his tweet, he hopes his replacement looks into paying track takeout rates for Canadian customers of US tracks. This practice that puts Canadians at a disadvantage to others is one of the more obscene in the sport, in my view. Eric has worked tirelessly on the issue, taking it as far as the Canadian Pari-Mutuel Agency to no avail so far. Let's hope something changes. 

For those who watched the Modern Games Keeneland turf stake where a 23-1 shot went down to 9-1 last flash, yep, it's really hard to watch. David is right on, in my opinion. Tracks should display estimated off odds, just like many of you can figure out as seasoned players. It's not hard. 

Future HISA President (update, not quite yet, but close) Chuck Simon had a great rant about it (his blog is a great read, by the way). He's right, and those who play the harness races see odds boards at 10 minutes to post that look absolutely nothing like one at 0 minutes concur especially. 

But with people not playing on-track anymore, and with so much real-time track choice it is what it is. And it's not just the teams doing it. It's essentially why post drag works so well - people don't bet early, they bet when they see zero. Pools are not efficient until after the bell. Only an exchange truly addresses the issue. 

Land is worth too much, racing is worth too little. Turf Paradise to be sold. They'll race one or two more seasons it seems. 

Great thread on betting for a living (including horses). 

A recap of the Bet with the Bet podcast at HRU. 

Betting teams have to push volume as a business case, so they're going to be all over, including the win pools at Hawthorne. 

The Yonkers $10,000 seeded pick 5 has not attracted the betting teams on Thursdays and we're seeing some value.  This is likely due to not being in the carryover feed. Thursday's pick 5 attracted only around $30,000 with the $10k seed and paid over double parlay in a chalk sequence. 

Speaking of Yonkers, the NAHU guys do a pod for Monday night's stakes races and Ray Cotolo promised me @ryanwillis1 will guest star in his next film if I promote it each week on the SSB. Done!

A jackpot bites the dust to be replaced with an 11.99% pick 5.  

BREAKING: Acknowledging horseplayer concerns, @ericahalstrom announces that @HSIndyRacing will eliminate the Jackpot P6 wager and introduce an 11.99% takeout Early P5.. @RacingRachelM pic.twitter.com/DxQWKevLCp

— Steve Byk (@Steve_Byk) April 11, 2023

Lots of chatter about takeout this week, including the hikes at places like Keeneland. I've always felt the corporate view of pricing hikes - i.e. squeeze for the short term until there's no squeeze left - is good for the quarterly report, but bad long term. And I'd suggest the cratering of retail handle the last 20 years is evidence of that. 

The sport never really has had a Ford, who looked at the health of bankrolls as an indicator of the market for cars. The Massachusetts state lottery has that view, and lowered juice on scratch tickets from well over 60% to (in some cases) below 20%. They've created a lottery culture in the state and this has consistently lead the nation in lottery play at $933 per capita,  77% higher than nearby high lottery takeout New York. For contrast, per-capita horse racing play in Australia (that North American racing is envious of and often cites) is around $871US.

The Marcus Hersh Game Plan is on fire. If the man loved football I'd call him Marcus the Greek. But, hell, I might anyway. All hail Marcus the Greek. 

ITP-Joyce Buddy Movie Update – Last week our dynamic duo was at Aqueduct for the big triple pick six carryover. ITP boycotted because of the higher rake on carryovers, but Mike fired big time and just missed when his single in the last leg got herded into the ice cream stand on the tarmac. No inquiry.

From that debacle they decided they needed some good cheer, so they texted Tampa Bay Downs announcer Jason Beem (not him directly, but his people) and he invited them to spend some time at his new home in Tampa Bay. They packed up the Minivan and off they went.  

They arrived at the Beem estate ("pod hits must be good" said Mike, as they drove in), and were quickly ushered in by Beem himself, who was wearing a silk robe. 

"Nice place", said ITP. 

"Thanks McBaffert. It's modest but it's home," replied the man who took over from a legend. 

As Beem showed them around the many rooms, ITP and Mike shared stories of seeing Andy Serling in the Hero Sandwich place in Jersey and Mike's near miss because of the NYRA herding. The Southbound writer listened only as he can. Then he had an idea. 

"I sense anxiety, so let's paint!" he offered. 

They made their way into the palatial painting room and saw there were three easels ready to go. 

"Alexa, smooth jazz," Beem bellowed. 

"Right away Mister Beem," a tiny woman said as she ran in and placed an album on the turntable. 

"Now, close your eyes, relax, breathe deeply, and paint what makes you feel good; makes you feel happy, what makes you, you," 

A half hour later it was time to unveil what the three men came up with. 

Beem turned around his easel to show what looked like Gabe Prewitt in a wig holding a puppy. 

Mike sheepishly turned his painting around and  ....... he had painted ITP. 

ITP, now blushing, turned his painting slowly to face Mike. It was like looking in a mirror. They painted each other. 

"You two make each other happy! Now let's eat and watch some of my greatest calls on the DVD player", Jason said. 

The bond between Mike and ITP appears complete. 

Next week our dream team will be tested when they visit Frank Stronach at Gulfstream. He has a task for them. 

Les is a very good horseplayer and I thought this tweet was great. How should we analyze favorites? It's a mindset.  

One of the hardest things for players is deciding when to pass or play a pick 4 or 5.  

One rule of thumb I'd offer is - check the tickets of public handicappers that we know blanket or pick logically. If we're wanting to go three deep when they do, or single what they are, or spread where they are, we might want to sit it out. 

This is not a shot at the public cappers who are doing what their bosses are telling them to do for the most part. But I think that leaning on their AB's when we have the same AB's probably tells us we're not seeing the ball well on that particular pick five. 

There's nothing better than back to back Jonathon Wong play-on-words tweets when he wins and pays $100. 

There's an online censorship bill going through in the Tundra and it appears the PTP Blog is caught in its web. A guy named Bill from the government called last week and told me I need 36% Canadian ad content or my blog will be going the way of Racing Roulette. Thankfully I scared one up. Please watch this episode Sunday at 8 and let them know you saw the ad at the PTP Blog. 

That's it for this week's Super Spectacular Blog. If you made it to the end I applaud and thank you profusely. Have a great week everyone. Go cash some tickets. 

Monday's Super Spectacular Blog - CRW Symptoms of a Business Disease, Pushing 2YO's, Curious Preps, ITP-Joyce Buddy Movie Update & A Guest Appearance from Kiefer Sutherland

Welcome again to the Super Spectacular Blog! 

Thank you, as always, for reading and supporting our many advertisers. And to the Russian bots, I admire your relentlessness in breaking through the most recent iteration of my firewall. You're as tenacious as Rich Strike on a stable pony. 

Here are some thoughts that caught our eye this week. I hope you enjoy them. 

I listened to Beyer and Cummings this week on the Steve Byk show deliving into the Computer Assisted Wagering topic, which has been hotter than usual lately. 

It's nothing that they said, or even alluded to, but I fear this topic might go off the rails a little. Namely, the chatter we hear that cutting CRW's out of pools will somehow fix things. 

Back in 1909 a bookie on a street corner in Brooklyn was taking bets with ten cent football lines. No matter what iteration we've seen since then - technological advancements, inflation, computers, all the way to corporations owning sports betting in 2023 - people are still betting into ten cent football lines. 

These bookies didn't need to rebate, or court betting teams. They just offered a fair line.  

Horse racing, when parimutuel wagering was invented around the same time, had 5% takeout too, but then it kept going up. Not because the customer was doing anything differently, but because racing (and the government) prescribed monopoly pricing. 

This left us with an artificially priced product, and when we have that, we create a black market. The black market is really good for twenty or so teams right now. 

CRW is not the disease, it's a symptom of the disease of monopoly pricing. Booting out those mean old betting teams doesn't fix anything, it just decreases handle and discourages others. 

A fella with a fedora and a grade six education in 1909 Brooklyn figured out the right price for his product. This massive sport with its billions of investment and capable people with lots of letters after their names never has, and in my view, most issues like CRW trace back to that fact. 

Derby prep weekend deep analysis -- After watching the races closely I honestly have no idea. 

But once again, what a great job by this sport in promoting the three preps back to back to back. 

I do see that Twitter is ablaze with Japan references. At this rate their horses could be this year's Patch. 

Nick Tammaro believes Forte's Derby odds won't be less than 7-2. That sounds right to me.  

Sliding over to a topic that fascinates a lot of us who watch both breeds - thoroughbred training versus harness training is so different.

I was reading the Mark Etsell interview column in Trot and this was his response when the two year old he was training down got a little spooked and went a :57 second half mile.

"This [fast half] is way too much at the time. I’m standing there and the groom is bathing her. I’m looking at her and I’m thinking ‘Oh man, I just screwed this filly’."

Meanwhile, a thoroughbred baby pushed to run a fast quarter is being bid on for millions.

There are many reasons standardbreds are more durable than thoroughbreds, but the strong foundation put under the standardbred with lots of slow miles before asking for anything of them is certainly one.

Sports betting was open! 

I can't log-in to NYRA Bets to watch replays because it's Easter, but hey, what time does the casino open up?

— David Grening (@DRFGrening) April 9, 2023

I miss the Derby Trial. For those that don't follow my lament, they actually moved a Kentucky Derby prep to Derby Day. Rick Dutrow is back, but even he wouldn't run a Kentucky Derby starter in the Derby Trial on Derby Day. Well, maybe he would, but a week earlier is better and I'd like to see someone try the Trial-Derby double just because it'd be some cool throw back stuff. 

Play the win pool they say. Use Kelly to figure out your edge, they tell us. Bet a unit bet, they say. It's kinda hard when the horse you like is 27-1 at 3 minutes to post and ends up 2-1. 

Riddle me this. 2012 handle on Blue Grass day was $21.6M. 2023 looks to come in at $26.8M.

Now, the top line "growth" is devoid of inflation adjustments, economic and population growth, freer money, less intra-racing competition and the growth of big days in the sport. So taking that into account we should see a big jump from $21M a decade ago.  

But in 2012, the handle was at about 17% blended takeout, and it's likely upwards of 80% of that handle was near those rates with lots of retail players. In '23 the (posted) blended takeout is up a couple of points (after Keeneland raised juice), but upwards of 40% of it is being heavily rebated, well below posted rates. 

With mathematically a probable slight reduction in juice rates, this is shuffling deck chairs, with the only big difference being who pays the freight, which is the retail player. There are not surprisingly fewer of them firing now and this is not dissimilar to what California racing has seen after its rake hike back in 2010. 

Why do tracks raise the top line takeout? When you crunch the numbers it truly is a mystery. 

We’ve all been there little dude. 

The moment you realize that the photo finish might not go your way #saratogaflash @GulfstreamPark @SaffieJosephJr #HorseRacing pic.twitter.com/CwjwmrZvl1

— Morgan Joseph (@daddysjewelrun) April 2, 2023

This week's announcer update is about um, burgers. A trifecta announcer chat about White Castle (Beem and Edison put the cue in the rack, Cololo a big yes in the shadow of the wire). 

Chris's new Bet with the Best pod is out with Matt Miller. I haven't listened to this one yet but it's on my list. 

First quarter wagering saw handle decrease 3% with purses up 9%, according to Equibase. 

Sports betting handle in Louisiana dropped after a record setting January. Not coincidentally, promotional spend (free bets) fell 50% from January. Crunk proferred that the sports betting promo spend (and immersing these bettors into the medium) has stickiness though. If that's true, the high customer cost per acquisition from promo spend might not be as insane as it looked. And if so, that tells us that racing's meager or almost non-existent promos were and are missing something. 

Lots of people on the twitter are posting the time it takes to complete a baseball game now that they're using the pitch clock (hint, these games are moving fast). We never post times for post drag, because we never actually know. Is it 8 minutes, 9, 12? The thing that really messes me up with post drag is when I'm playing a track that has a short drag. I see "zero" and figure I have time to finish my taxes and I always end up getting shut out. 

Whatever you think of the changes to baseball rules I think the point that resonates with me most is that they can change them. And in baseball - an old historic game - it can't be easy. I wish we could do similar with uniform rules on say herding. 

@john_rallis picks pretty good at the Meadowlands over at the NAHU website, so when my brother called me last week and asked who I liked and I was busy I said “take a look at John Rallis’s picks, he watches replays and maybe you’ll get some ideas” and sent him a link. One of the horses he picked won, and my bother bet it.

My brother is notorious for messing up names and when I spoke to him the next day, he said, “I bet that horse in the 10th your buddy John Rahm liked”.

Congratulations to John Rahm for the nice Meadowlands winner, and winning his first Masters.

Speaking of the Masters, it reminded me of a piece on Skiba, who won the $1M DFS Golf Championship a couple years ago. The Q and A talks about racing, and has some gems about playing pick fives and sixes. 

Rallis's good friend @ryanwillis1 was super cranky this week (I'll make this an official update and give it a 9 out of 10), but I gave him a winner and he cashed and he got nicer. Oh and Chuck Simon President of HISA Update - Dark forces are at work and we're not there yet.

ITP-Mike Joyce Buddy Movie Update - The script writers and show runners are working overtime, and I'm starting to think this film could be a hit. They've allowed me to share one scene that I believe is a cinematic tour-de-force. 

Mike and ITP hop in the Minivan and map out a trip to Aqueduct for the big triple pick six carryover. They decide to stop in Jersey for a hero sandwich (for people outside Jersey I think this is a sub) and sit down. Right at that moment who walks in - Andy Serling. 

Wow. Awkward. 

Mike knows Andy and they greet. As we'll find out when watching the film, this is a pivotal point in the plot. You see, Mike is beginning to like ITP and a bond is being formed. Earlier, during the Keeneland leg of the trip, ITP convinced Mike to single a C horse and he made $48,000. But it's more than that, it's the beginnings of a deep seeded friendship.  Mike doesn't want to blow ITP's cover, and possibly cause a scene. 

"Who's your friend," asks Serling. 

"Ummmm it's ...... my driver, Scooter, Scooter McBaffert." replies Joyce. 

Andy looks at him funny, grabs his sandwich, signs a couple autographs and leaves. 

"Scooter McBaffert?" ITP incredulously asks. 

"Remember when we were snowed in at Tahoe and watched Happy Gilmore? It's kinda the first thing that came to mind," Mike replies. 

They share a glance, just like in this screen shot (but this is not Mike and ITP). 

Next week - Our dynamic duo head to Tampa Bay Downs. 

What's with economists and racing? Caroline Betts, Skip Sauer, Marshall Gramm are all into this sport. Keith Bush, although not an economist, but is a sharpie with extra letters after his name, is another one (and his Jason Beem pod was dandy). I think we all know there's a lesson in this, and it's probably why we all cringe a bit when we see the fancy hat marketing. 

This game is so big tent - older school people like Mike Maloney and Inside the Pylons to folks in academia and beyond populate this space. Left-brained people are attracted to the puzzle. 

Tiger on scaling back the golf ball.

For years golf actually built longer and longer courses spending millions upon millions of dollars, when they could’ve made a pro ball. It's kind of silly. 

This, to me, is not unlike horse racing. The sport received billions and billions and billions of dollars from slots and alternative gaming the last thirty years and they didn’t use much of it properly to grow the game. Even today when a track has $120,000+ maidens and a short meet like Kentucky Downs does, they decide to raise takeout.

Racing won't touch this blog with a ten foot bale of hay, but others want to advertise for my massive traffic, so please watch this week's sponsor's commercial. The dogs in sunglasses are worth it (and I get paid by the view). 

Here's something apropos of nothing, but I’ll do it anyway because this blog is free.

Back in the early nineties I got called for a game of pick-up basketball on the east end of Toronto. For those who know the city, the Queen streetcar was the method of transport from downtown to Greenwood Raceway, and it so happens my basketball game was on the way near River Street. I’d play, shower up at a friend’s and head to the track.

I’m early as a rule, so I arrive at the meeting place – a big working-class tavern in this fairly rough part of town – to wait for my friends. The place is packed. I look around and see one stool open out of about 50 of them at the long bar. I scurry over to get it.

I give the guy to my left who is sitting there with a pint of beer and a smoke a quick glance and nod (I’m not sure I see girls do this much, but boys do this all the time at the bar; you know, the nod). A half second later it dawns on me. It's Kiefer Sutherland.

I have no idea what some star is doing all alone at this working-class bar, but there he is. Interestingly, I have an out with ol’ Kiefer, should I want to talk to him – I went to university with his neighbor in north TO. But, I’m not one for that sort of thing much, and no one else was bugging him, so I didn’t.

I went and played basketball and went to the track.

Like I said, apropos of nothing, but I watched Rabbit Hole on Paramount+ this week. It stars my could’ve been blood-brother Kief and I thought it was pretty good. It contains dozens and dozens of conspiracy theories that I've convinced myself are all in play when I consistently seem to lose pick 5's or 6's in the last leg. 

Have a wonderful week everyone. Cash some tickets, be nice on twitter and please share the Super Spectacular Blog with important people like Ray Paulick so he can advertise his website here and make me big bucks. My ADW balance is at like 9 cents. 

Oh, and not to forget: To my Russian friends, Я тебя люблю.

Monday's Super Spectacular Blog - In a Sixth Sense Like Twist Scott Daruty Proves Low Rake Works, Fixed Odds Probably Doesn't, Good Pick 5 Finds, Forte vs Mage & an ITP Basement Update

Last week's inaugural Super Spectacular Monday Blog got a lot of hits, and not just from Russian bots (although cпасибо to all Russian readers), so thanks so much for reading. 

We're back again this week with some (way-too-long-probably) thoughts on things that caught our eye. 

There was a longer form missive in the Financial Times this week about Computer Betting Teams; numbering about 20 according to the article. Some of the people quoted you’d recognize from twitter which is always pretty cool.

I don’t think a lot was new, but from the big picture I think the article and resulting stats prove something amazingly simple –

Low takeout works.

For many years the “takeout hawks” have professed that if you give better rates handle will explode. And for those in the article getting better rates, their handle has exploded. Lots of insiders fought that immutable truth with obfuscation or worse over the years, and in an irony not lost on us, some are now running places like Elite Turf Club, which does exactly that.

CRW’s don’t kill racing. HISA rules don’t kill racing. Lasix doesn’t kill racing. More rebates for good casual customers (i.e. lower takeout) won’t kill racing either (and as a point of clarity, nor will it save it). But it would raise handles. And when handles are going up for all segments of the sport, you might just find you’re on to something. The problem as I see it, is instead of being open to offer rebates for 400 million potential customers in North America, racing's brain trust has given them to 20 people. 

Pivoting from things we can’t change to something we might, hitting value pick 4’s and 5’s in this day and age is pretty tough, but last Monday the bearded @ryanwillis1 was not in love with the chalk in race 2 at Western Fair, the second leg of the pick 5. He messaged (and tweeted) that the horse is a terrible claim and is a bad bet at 2-5 or so. He thought the use was probably the four horse.

I took a look at the horse in question and thought the young rascal was smoking Ajax OTB crack. The horse wasn’t going to be 2-5, but probably 1-9. His speed figures (as little as we use them in harness) were much better, he had the coveted rail on a half, he was dropping big time in class, and watching the replays he looked fine. If anyone was playing, this is a free square. 

He saw something, though, and it turns out he was right. The 4 went gate to wire and paid $10, winning by open lengths. The pick five, with this 1-9 out paid $6,000 for $1, and the horses were completely logical, with $7, $4, $12 and $10 winners.

Just out of curiosity I built a little model showing the performance of this type of horse with fairly recent data. These are for thoroughbred claimers, with the highest last race Bris figure, ridden by the leading rider, dropping in class.

Because horses bet below 1-2 in this situation win about 59% of the time it’s pretty hard to blindly throw them out. But at about a 25% flat-bet loss and the leverage it gives us in serial bets, there is probably some obvious value.

But the key for me is - what if we noticed something that isn’t in the past performances like Ryan did? Say a bad work on XBTV, a bad gallop out, or in harness a bad equipment change or something that caught our eye pre-race. Their ROI might not be in the 0.70’s but be in the 0.40’s or 0.30's.

I think this case is illustrative of why structuring a ticket is so important. We ain't going to use that chalk defensively (we'd have to be dumber than a bag of hammers to want a $0.30 ROI horse on our tickets) and we have to leverage our opinion with the horse we came to bet. Keying Ryan's horse (remember it was only a $10 winner) absolutely blew up the pick 5. Even in this game with 20 cent tickets where "bet a little to win a lot" is harder to come by with the teams, it still happens. And the sharp little guy or gal can be the one hitting it. 

So, “DK Horse” has launched in 12 states at Draftkings. This product is powered by the Twinspires system.

Leaving aside that a company who spends like one hundred trillion dollars on marketing came up with the scintillating name “DK Horse”, it’s something that is probably positive, especially come Derby time. But as Crunk points out, it has a thrown together feel, like so much does in our sport.

Horse racing and the lack of trying ‘big things’ has bothered a lot of people. When it comes to expansion, new mediums, or new ideas, it always seems to be a toe-dipping exercise. Would it shock anyone if this partnership innovated the other way – for example, next year we might bet pari-mutuel golf tris or supers for the Masters, adding new zeal to sports betting, creating a new thing not for racing, but for something else?

The pari-mutuel product is good and has an edge (despite late odds changes) and the horse racing product is certainly better than same game parlays. I wish we’d think bigger.

Chris's new betting pod is up with Tommy Massis, a guy who plays sweeps different than the masses, no pun intended.  

One thing the sport does really well, in my view, is Derby prep season. It's so easy to follow the happenings when races like the Florida Derby and Arkansas Derby go off back to back. 

In Florida, Forte got the job done at 1-5; to me, like a 5-2 shot does. But I am not a huge fan of this horse like many are, so perhaps I am biased. I think Mage is a good horse, but there wasn't a ton of separation between them, and in fact, the 9 and 8 horse at the wire. 

There's a lot of chatter on the twitter about who was better yesterday, Mage or Forte. I'm more interested in the fact a seasoned Juvy winner coming second off a layoff (where he should be really good) worked hard to win against a horse making his third lifetime start who still runs green. Take away the names, trainers and previous bias - who has more upside?

Timeform US CJ postulated on twitter that Mage has a license to get better, so there's that, but he also noted the Derby in start four is a little dicey. I usually decide who I want to bet in the Derby at around four minutes to post, but could see myself rolling the dice and betting the horse. 

Over at Oaklawn, about a half hour later Angel of Empire looked very good in the Arkansas Derby, and Red Route One didn't really fire although he looked a little more interested with blinkers. Maybe that's too strong - interested like I am interested in water polo, i.e. not a whole lot. Smart cappers like CJ and Aragona were bullish on Angel of Empire and were rewarded with a nice mutuel. He was straight and strong. 

I'll leave the Derby handicapping to the sharps, but in my humble opinion, I don't think anything magical happened on Saturday. Although, I don't think we're talking out of our hat to conjure that the bloom is little off the Forte rose. 

HISA love on the twitter is not happening, especially when it includes Philadelphia Park. But it does spark a smile, when posters post alluding to the new testing, “Philly Park as a control group so every horse will pass.” Speaking of HISA, this week’s Chuck Simon President of HISA update is – we’re still working on it.

The simple things in racing are sometimes really simple. Last week the Meadowlands reminded drivers that being late for the races (because they’re driving at Chester on Friday afternoons) and causing driver changes after the pick 5 betting has begun messes it up for customers. 

I took a whack of calls, webinars and other things this past week for work, and it struck me I didn't hear one curse word. This is about 5,894 fewer than in last week's Uncle Bill Twitter Spaces. I think this is what HR people call work-life balance. 

Turfway Park's meet concluded and their field size was (dramatic pause) 9.78 Some people don't like betting poly, but if you like betting field size, there's your spot. 

I mentioned I had to sell advertising to pay the large staff here at PTP Blog. I didn't want to, but inflation, new electricity taxes and my last pick five hit being Oscar Night (not the Everything After Everything whatever one, the Will Smith slap one) made me do it. So say hello to this week's sponsor.  

Open source code (code that can be accessed by the public) has done amazing things in the football space, by improving upon what has been released by data providers. People like Jessica Chapel and Dana Byerly and Crunkanator talked about it more for horse racing over the years than I because they didn’t have trouble learning basic Fortran like I did. But I wonder what this could’ve done for not only the wagering space, but stable management and claiming, too.  

Third party apps, line-up optimizers for DFS, and literally hundreds of other products and services have flooded this space, all because these people could easily build things with sports data.

My back neighbor’s kids from Florida are taking extra credit Python courses in grades six and seven. Racing doesn’t seem to be prepared for this, and if we’re being honest, haven’t been for a long, long time.

Speaking of lessons, Pinnacle Sports is the world leader in wagering and has been for a long time. The people who run this place are the NASA of betting enterprises. They tried fixed odds for horse racing recently and it left quicker than Big Brown from the 20 post (Dutrow's back, I had to). How hard is it for a provider to make fixed odds for racing work? That hard. 

ITP Basement Update - I talked to ITP's mom and she said he came up to "fix the remote" at one point this week and he seemed happy, so she thinks he's been doing okay with those "super-thingies".

FYI, I'm still working on getting both he and Mike Joyce on board for my 90's style buddy movie. I had a glance what the writing team has come up with so far, and the scene from the ski trip where Mike is calling in his pick 5 ticket to TVG with Pylons yelling "you don't like the 5 so don't use him!" from the hot tub is hilarious. I'll keep you updated.  

Editors note - That isn't Mike and ITP to your left, but it could be. 

The Big M tends to be more proactive than most racetracks, and they issued a driver policy on Friday with the hopes of making the racing better. Probably the biggest twilight zone thing is that most of these (minus a couple things that seem a little hyperbolic) are already rules in the rulebook, but racing kinda says "whatever, do what you want", because, well I am not sure. This, over time, could make the racing better and I can see favorite win percentages drop some over a large sample. But who knows if we'll get a large sample. When you change something in racing the response can sometimes be New Coke. 

This week's Announcer Update is - nothing. They're usually doing some weird things on social media, but this week it's been crickets for the most part. Ray Cololo even seems kind of normal. However, Ray and Mike did do a Yonkers pod for tonight's races with esteemed guest Chip Reinhart. I listened and there was no talk about his bullish thoughts on the Penguins, but his mom will be happy he didn't swear. 

Capping content is pretty incredible in racing. Whether it be betting pods, or general stuff with polytrack DeRosa has been doing at HRN, Chuck at Circles Off, or people like CJ and David, or Craig J's Derby updates, it's all out there. I guess the most frustrating thing is that there are fewer people to consume this content. It can be such a great game if the business ran better (and yes, 20 people getting an edge over these many years is probably not the way to help this, but I digress). 

As always, thanks for reading the Monday Super Spectacular Blog. Have a great week, whether you're in Madison or Montreal, Moscow or Minsk.