Saturday Preps - Thoughts

[jimbo66]

In theory, yesterday was the most important day as far as figuring out who the Derby Winner is.  

Here are some thoughts on the races, with an eye going forward.  

Santa Anita Derby

To me, the easiest race to analyze from the big preps.  Stick a fork in all the horses who ran in it.  For the first time in a few years, the California crop stinks (outside of the injured Mastery).  There were signs before yesterday, like when Baffert shipped to Oaklawn with American Anthem and was horrendous in a race he owns.  But yesterday clinched it.  By this person\'s eye, Illiad is a 1-turn horse and he proved that again yesterday.  They ran a contested pace all the way around the track yesterday, with Gormley sitting a perfect trip and he was life and death to get by Battle of Midway, who was on the inside of that 3-horse pace battle.  Gormely isn\'t any good.  As magnanimous as Mike Smith was yesterday, coming on TV and saying he should have stayed inside as it cost Reach the World a few lengths to go wide, he was being too nice.  Off the contested pace, if Reach the World was any kind of serious horse, he would have showed some kick.  He showed zero.  At first blush, I wanted to give some credit to Battle of Midway for setting a contested pace and hanging on until late.  That was until I saw that Royal Mo, a slow horse, who was 3 wide contesting the pace all the way around both turns, held 3rd and only got beat 1/2 length by Battle of Midway.  Conclusion - the West coast horses stink, certainly no \"win\" contender in this race and also extremely unlikely to find any underneath horses out of this race (although will revisit that post draw and after reviewing sheets).

Toyota Blue Grass

Coming into the race, no less than 3 horses had \"Derby type sheets\" to me.  Most of all of those was Practical Joke.  Nice 2 year old top with room for development this year still.  The problem for me is that the limited family is all sprinters and by my eye he looks and runs like a one turn horse.  He will get a decent to good figure yesterday as he got a wide trip and thus he will go into the Derby most likely with an excellent sheet and be somebody that looks good and will be tempting to bet on.  He has to be on the contender list, but yesterday again looked like a sprinter to me, a middle move and then flattened out late, albeit gamely.  But the horse he didn\'t run down is a bit of a slug, so that has to be factored in.  Tapwrit and McCracken had almost identical sheets with Tapwrit actually a bit better before yesterday.  Tapwrit a \"4\" as a two year old top, ran twice, then a \"1\" this year, with McCracken a \"5\" as a two year old top, ran twice, followed by a \"2\" this year.  Off of training styles/history, Tapwrit figured to run the better race yesterday with TAP notorious for running huge in the preps while ian Wilkes more of a \"point to race\" type trainer . As such, Tapwrit\'s horrendous performance makes him a complete toss if he moves forward.  McCracken is a tougher call.  Off the wide trip he may get something like a 1 or 2 in the race, which would put him at paired tops, with a room for development off his two year old top, trained by a guy who figures to have him run his best race next time out.  Interesting at what may be an overlaid price, off of what looks like a dull performance without factoring the wide trip.  I have no interest in Irap.  Great ride by Frenchie to seize control and put the field to sleep.  Slow horse coming in, big top, with a faster derby pace, toss.  Bottom line is two horses to consider going forward, although I still think Practical Joke is a sprinter.  But I would also take 5-2 odds that with yesterday\'s figures not done yet and another week of preps to come, that Practical Joke will be the \"value play\" of the seminar.

Wood Memorial

I already covered most of this in other posts.  Irish War Cry ran extremely well.  He has the look of a derby contender.  Nice 2 year old top, dam side distance and will now have a very fast figure.  Question will be is it too fast.  I like having Graham Motion in the horse\'s corner.  Battalion Runner is an easy toss.  He had the grain of the track with him and was no match.  Even without the Pletcher factor, he would have been a toss going forward off yesterday\'s performance.  There was some chance before yesterday that Chad Brown was asking \"too much too soon\" for Cloud Computing.   I think the race showed that.  Talented horse for sure.  But yesterday he wasn\'t a serious threat at all in the race.  If Chad goes forward wit him off the mediocre race, I would make him a stronger chance for last than for first in the Derby.  Conclusion - IMO the Derby favorite won the Wood.  Nobody else to consider.

So I think there are 3 horses to keep an eye on out of yesterday\'s races. Irish War Cry, McCracken and Practical Joke.  Forget the rest and forget West of the Mississippi for sure.  An awful crop of California horses this year.

Thoughts?

[mjellish]

Tough to argue with any of this IMO.  I would add that McCracken gained some valuable experience with his trip in the BG and was probably not fully cranked for this race anyway.  Trainer learned from one of the BEST about how to use a graded stakes race as a prep race for an even bigger graded stakes race next out.  So you have to factor that in when you look at his sheet.  

As far as the trip went, McCracken was in tight a bit on the first turn but did not get rank.  He listened to his jockey all the way around, didn\'t run off with Practical Joke when that one ranged up to his outside.  He waited, switched out, got his cue from the jock, responded with a decent 4 wide move on the turn and then flattened out down the stretch while trying to close into a soft early pace race shape.  Jockey took care of him down the stretch too and did not empty the tank.  

I would say this colt was more likely to get something out of this race rather than leave something behind, and I like his mind.

[jp702006]

Jim,
 I agree with the majority of your assessment. It appears Motion has to treat IWC with kid gloves. How he trains him up to the Derby will be interesting. Something to consider regarding Tapwrit: Last year Destin ran a huge figure at Tampa so Pletcher elected to try and train him up to the Derby to avoid the bounce, it didn\'t workout. Although Destin ran credibly after the long layoff coming in off of just a 1 1/16 race. This year he finds himself in the same situation with Tapwrit, so maybe he was put in the Bluegrass with the intention of getting the bounce out of the way? Just a thought.

[Furious Pete]

I think you nailed it there.

If you\'re right that McCracken could get a 2 or maybe even a 1 he\'s still interesting to me too. I thought he got a horrendous trip last night and just the kind of trip I could be willing to excuse a poor effort from. That is until the stretch when he came out in the clear, I was really expecting a lot more from thereon and in, and what I saw there is enough for me to not consider him in the win spot come the 1st saturday in may. I might still use him underneath though, however he\'s a type that seems a bit vulnerable for the chaos expected in a 20 horse field.

I\'m not sold on Irish War Cry either, all though I agree it\'s the most impressive prep race per now. I think Mjellish makes very valid points in his post on the subject in the Wood Memorial-thread.

Per now, I must admit I actually do lean towards Always Dreaming. I expect him to run big, and I think there\'s many more reasons why the market will price Always Dreaming wrong, than Irish War Cry. For me, that\'s what value is about. It\'s not about price, but about odds related to actual chances. That\'s why I don\'t mind betting against statistics, specially not these kind of statistics that really doesn\'t say much about todays \"actual world\" (TempletonPeck covered this point extremely well). The \"real world\" in terms of probabilities really doesn\'t care much about false beliefs, biases, and simple heuristics - all though they sure are handy in convincing oneself that a bet should (or shouldn\'t) be made!

[Silver Charm]

You could be right on getting the bounce out and there is always a different angle to everything. Here is mine. Trainers like Pletcher don\'t send their best 2YO to Calder to break a maiden in the fall. Now maybe he is thinking \"old school\" (remember the old Laurel Futurity) and wanted to stretch him out and get a 2 turn race in him. But he could have gone to Keeneland or Churchill Downs for that. Except the competition is a little tougher. Not Belmont in the Fall but better than Calder. Maybe I\'m wrong here. But I\'m not wrong to be leery....

[jimbo66]

JP,

I don\'t believe in \"get the bounce out of the way\".  What does that mean?  Not train the horse hard, let him run poorly, expecting him to bounce and he will then run big.  Eh.  no thanks.

The other problem is that Destin ran a big top in the Tampa Bay derby.  Different situation.  Tapwrit had moved forward ~3 points from his 2 year old top, which is healthy.  Not a big \"bounce\" candidate.  

If Tapwrit had done what McCracken did, run a representative but not \"winning\" race, then he would be live.   He didn\'t run a step.

Horses don\'t win the derby off of complete non-efforts.  Not for 22 years (Thunder Gulch).  I don\'t want to bet that.

Jim

[big18741]

Tapwrit was coming off a top,didn\'t need the points and was under trained for the Bluegrass.

He had one nothing work since the TB Derby and that was two weeks back.
I don\'t really like him but a return to his top could get him underneath at a price.Bluegrass Cat and Invisible Ink both ran dull races in the Bluegrass.

JBoys was coming off a bigger top,and didn\'t need the points.
He\'s another one who isn\'t impossible to run back to his top at a price.

Hard to like either one off yesterday but if they are thriving at Churchill I can see using them.

Something in the 1-2 range with a trip probably gets you in the tri.

[jimbo66]

Furious Pete,

This post is not meant to be condescending, so please don\'t take it that way.

I lose track of who is who on the board, so I am not sure whether you are a TG newbie or somebody that has been here awhile.  If you are a newbie, then I understand the possibility that you could like Always Dreamin.

But let\'s go with the assumption that you are a sheet reader and have knowledge of patterns.

From memory, Always Dreamin had something like a 5 - 9 - 9 in his last three races before the Florida Derby.  

What possible number could you put next for the Florida Derby that would make this horse even remotely usable as a top 3 betting choice in the Derby?  

There isn\'t one, I would argue.  He has an atrocious pattern.  Nothing will look right or good.  And you aren\'t getting \"value\".  He is a top 3 betting choice.

I will go one point further.  Let\'s say TGJB screwed up one of the 9\'s and got it wrong.  (personally, I think the first 9 could be a 6 or 7, but it isn\'t relevant).  Even if you change one of the 9\'s to another number, the pattern still sucks.

The horse is a toss without being trained by Pletcher.  Being trained by Pletcher makes him an \"uber-toss\".  

He is the kind of horse your 9 year old son or daughter would like.  Undefeated, all \"1\'s\" in the running lines for finishes.  

I will probably put him in the winner\'s circle, but there is no better \"toss\" than this horse.  A top 3 betting choice with a bad pattern, at best sitting on bounce, with running lines that will make the non-sophisticated player like him, trained by the worst derby trainer of the last 40 years.  

Jim

[FrankD.]

10,5,9,9, 0-tu neg

[Furious Pete]

No worries, not condescending at all. Lol.

You know what, that\'s exactly why I like him. Here\'s a horse that has done nothing wrong and that both \"stupid\", simple players won\'t like because everyone knows of Pletchers records in the Derby and assign them much too much weight, and because the wise guys have made up all kind of rules for their own peace of mind that denies them from liking him.
I\'m not sure which camp you belong to in there, to be honest, but either way you won\'t like him. That\'s obvious. Why should I care?

Take a look at Orb\'s sheet (https://www.thorograph.com/archive/files/kd2013.pdf). What were your position the 30th of march 2013? And then the 4th of may? You guys are busting Pletcher\'s balls every year because he takes too much out of them too early and calls him all kinds of names (\"greedy\", \"stupid\", \"most overrated trainer ever\" etc). When he\'s doing something different, that\'s wrong too. I know figures better than you ever will, but what I don\'t always understand is that you can take every figure so literally even though they are earned winning eased down 5 lengths in front. Always Dreaming may not win of course, but to not even consider him is a mistake and surely not what a winning horseplayer would do.

[Furious Pete]

Cheers Frank. It doesn\'t look pretty but they don\'t always do.

[FrankD.]

Pete,

Most years I would be siding with Jimbo, this year, all bets are ON!!!

His pair of 9\'s are ugly but a bit deceiving. Tampa race was a boat race against nothing and the Gulf ALW race was not in the condition book. It was written for this horse TAP did not want to go in the FOY so they wrote a race for him. His hope was to have a target for him to run at, that did not happen, another boat race. He obviously could have run much faster in both, enough to pair his 2 yr old 5? You decide. Anyway you put it it\'s a bad pattern with that big a jump in the final prep but it\'s an awfuly bad year.

Good luck,

Frank D.

[jimbo66]

Furious Pete,

You picked the wrong horse in Orb.  And you also showed that maybe the worst statement you have ever made is how much you know about figures....

Orb was a board darling here.  I don\'t remember if I was first or second behind Jim Covello to jump on his bandwagon, but I liked orb in February of that year and posted here quite a few times about him - too many times.

Orb was trained by a trainer who is a notoriously conservative handler of horses.  He ran a 2 year old top of 7, paired it first time out at 3, a healthy sign, then moved forward in the spring of his 3 year old season to become a serious race horse.  Having run the negative 2 in the Florida Derby of course there was some risk of regression.  But he had 5 weeks into the Derby and this is the important part, the fact that he was trained by Shug and not Pletcher makes a huge difference.  It isn\'t a matter of \"liking\" or \"disliking\" Pletcher, because of the size of his operation there are so many more data points about him compared to other modern day trainers.  

I never said \"stupid\" players will bet Always Dreamin.  Unsophisticated.  People that don\'t do their homework, don\'t pay attention to trends, don\'t understand patterns, etc.etc.etc.

Not stupid.

ONe could argue that all of us betting into a 20% rake game, with drugs/cheating prevalent everywhere, are STUPID.

Jim

[jimbo66]

Frank,

Et tu?  The board\'s biggest Kool-Aid drinker thinks Always Dreamin\' has a shot?

Ugh.

Next thing you know, TGJB will be singing Always Dreamin\'s praises in the seminar.

Then I definitely give up.

Jim

[FrankD.]

Jim,

From our weekly chats and your weekly comment to me \" are you jerking off or looking at TG\" you know for a fact I\'m far from the world\'s biggest Kool Aide drinker. TG figures are without a doubt the biggest factor in my capping but the play I made yesterday on Constellation and you know the amount and the result was certainly not a TG play. It was strictly off a crazy Holendoefer ROI formulator stat. Paula was a TG single in that heat.

FD