Ready for the Big Day

Like most everyone I am getting ready for tomorrow's races. 10:30 post? That's worse than Hambo Day, but I digress....

There were some interesting happenings today. To almost no surprise to virtually everyone I spoke to before the race, Rachel Alexandra went down to defeat for the second time in a row. The Oaks Day crowd bet her down to 1-5, and I know some money was made by some. Me? Nope. I sat the race out. I have this weird racing fan mentality sometimes and don't like to bet horses I would like see do well. Assmussen in post race interviews seems completely stumped. Most trainers I know who have good stakes horses who don't seem to come back well have that same "stumped" look. The horse looks great, scopes great, vets out, but they are just not as fast as the previous season. Time will tell if she comes back to last year's form, or if we even see her again.

I was frankly pretty amazed at how takeout is being looked at of late. First there were a ton of media mentions about Tioga's takeout reduction. It is one of the few racetracks that you can type in google news with almost all positive mentions. In addtion, I visited Harnessdriver.com today and there is a topic on Chester Downs. As most know, Chester has some punishing takeouts, like most tracks in Pennsylvania. 80% of the posts spoke about the egregious take. Chester has way better horses than Tioga, too. Note: There are free programs for Saturday and Sunday's Tioga card available at Paceadvantage.com, here.

Derby Time (as usual from a gambling perspective)

A 20 horse field, with potential slop in the forecast, provides us with one thing - chaos. And chaos can breed life-changing payoffs. You can analyze this race til you are blue in the face, you can find the fastest horse, the best closer, or the best front runner, but all of that can mean absolutely nothing with a race like this.

My keys to the Derby are the following:

1. Which horse can improve to run a huge number - a higher number than he has ever run

2. Will his odds be high enough so you can get paid for the tremendous amount of racing luck your pick will need?

Conventional wisdom states that a closer will win this race. It does make sense as there is a ton of cheap speed. However, in the Derby, conventional wisdom is not something I want to be a part of. As well, if it is sloppy and the track shows speed is holding, the closers might be nowhere near talented enough to make inroads. With this thinking I will be picking a non-closer, Super Saver. I believe he will run a big number, as he is finally fit, and I think he will be close enough and be out of traffic, which can be killer in a race like this for some horses. I also believe that I will get paid if this colt wins. He took some odd early cash, but he is 15-1 offshore. He hung like a chandelier in his last start that a lot of people saw, so I hope he starts skying.

I like Lookin' at Lucky and I think Sidney's Candy is a nice horse, but I want no part of them as they will be on too many people's exotic tickets. The latter with post 20 will need to be a super-horse to overcome that in this field, too.

I will be grouping Super Saver with a few horses in wheel positions on the three sets of exotics: Stately Victor (teetering on putting him on top on a separate betting sheet for a score-play), Awesome Act, Paddy O Prado, Dublin and Discreetly Mine.

It's a crapshoot, so I will be treating it as such. I wish everyone good luck on their tickets. Let's hope for a pot at the end of the rainbow score or two out there in blogland.

At Large & The Bird

Turf writing might not be a long lost art - we see several talented scribes plying their trade for us to read. But as we spoke about before here on the blog, opinion with teeth is hard to come by from some quarters. After all, ad revenue comes from breeders and horse suppliers among others, so the trade press must at times tread lightly. In the last piece I mentioned that I did not visit the Bloodhorse too often for my daily reads, because of my perception of that very thing. However, I have changed my opinion. The editors at the magazine seem to be using the talents of Tom Lamarra, by allowing him to be who he is (as we all know, a must for blog writing. If you are not being who you are, your blog will be worthless). Almost each time he writes he has something interesting to say.

For example, in his last piece "It's time for a horse racing tea party" he says this on conferences:

Conference after conference, it’s the same old thing: No answers and no hope for solutions, topped with the usual political correctness and lame jokes. During the recent equine conference, a moderator asked audience members to watch their language.

and this on passion:

In reality, what this industry needs is for people to stand up and tell other people where to go. They wouldn’t admit it, but some folks like it when Satish Sanan gets fired up and drops F-bombs. Heaven forbid we should offend anyone while the industry spirals out of control.

on some horseman groups:

Horsemen are to blame as much as racetracks. They want days, days, and more days, and are perfectly content to race for less money to get them. Earlier this week, a $5,000 claiming race at River Downs filled with four horses. Horsemen love that, but fail to realize they’re killing their product in the marketplace.

He is practicing what he preaches. This game is falling and falling fast. Incremental change is as bad as no change at all. Writing opinion worried about who you will offend, makes you part of the problem, not the solution.

Anyway, hat tip to Tom, for writing a damn fine blog.

Another hat tip, this time to one of our "own". We all know Jessica Chapel has some writing talent, to go along with some racing smarts. Her Railbird blog is a good read and has been for some time. She was recently invited by a New York Times columnist to accompany her to the New York City OTB for a story she was doing. After the visit, Jessica answered questions that readers had of the main piece, and had it published in the City section of the Times, right here. Good questions, and better answers. Bravo.

Some Happenings

Apparently there is a little race called the Derby going on down south. But we have some harness action to take care of :)

> Auckland Reactor, the favorite horse of PTP frequent commenter "Fisherman From Frobisher" makes his North American debut tomorrow. He is qualifying at the Meadowlands, with Brian Sears in the bike. I am really interested to see how the colt does. I hope he does well, as it would completely energize the always cool older division.

> Tioga's meet starts Saturday, on Derby Day. There are free handicapping picks up at Paceadvantage.com, in a contest sponsored by HANA. One of the pickers is Ray, who was recently in Trot, in an article on different ways to handicap, as penned by Keith over at Triple Dead Heat. As most know, Tioga reduced their takeout rates this meet to State minimums. I am planning to play it daily. I see harness blogger Allan over at View From the Racetrack Grandstand is as well.

> By the way - marketing and promotion? How about this? Good for Tioga. Toot your own horn, as you deserve it. Every other business uses price to promote their store or business. Racing usually wants to promote balloon giveaways.

> Rumours are flying on who the new Standardbred Canada CEO is going to be. I have heard some names, but just like backstretch rumour, I will take them with a grain of salt. I did hear from two people Chris Roberts from Georgian might have thrown his hat in the ring. He is young, wants racing to grow and wants to try some new things. Banish him! He has no place in our sport :)

> WEG's pick 4 topped $50k last week. Good for them. The pick 4 has become quite the harness branded bet. Harness players are married to it, probably because of the Meadowlands. They promote their low pick 4 win take in virtually every press release, and have for years.

> North America Cup horses are starting to qualify. We will be starting our Cup Top Ten here very soon.

I'll be back to chat about the Derby later, just in case anyone wants to handicap the big race.