My betting strategy was as follows:
Bet Mandella, Sheriffs, Hoffmans and McPeek.
Throw out all dirt prepped horses.
I decided to do this after looking at last years Thrograph archive of the big days. Only McPeek got an East Coast horse to run a new top all day in 2008. This year he shipped in early, I figured he learned something. He hit the board in 4 races he entered.
I bet Sherrifs for the same reason. He got Tiago to beat ALL of the US based horses in the Classic and Zenyatta to beat them all in the Distaff last year. Think about that. Tiago beat all those horses that on numbers were faster than him.
Hoffmans got Adoration to run a new top @ 40/1 a few years back then his turf sprint last year ran a new top. No figure maker could predict those two jumping up like that in the past, why would the numbers point to it this year?
Mandella, enough said. His record in California for the BC is pretty good. Again, his numbers don\'t add up with Crown of Thorns, but did Action This Day? Or how about Johar?
Numbers cant tell you that Mandella, Hoffmans and Sherrifs are pointing for a big effort on the biggest day. But of all the trainers that ran this weekend those three have a pretty good track record of getting it done on the biggest days.
I sure didn\'t kill them this weekend....but I almost did.