cigar mile

[RICH]

I am liking Straight Line at 20-1, in top form with a nice foward moving line, has rail and at 20-1 a must use for me. I can\'t count how many 3yr olds make that final move late in the year, he needs a 1 or 2 pt improvement to win it all.

Good Luck

[marcus]

SL was a real potential sleeper and easily could have move forward a pt or 2 and w/ a rail trip was all the more dangerous  . I went back and forth on SL but becouse of the price finally settled on Purge  who had back #\'s and a somewhat tough pattern that figured to do 2 things , win the race or run dead last ...

[cubfan0316]

wht not go with the hottest drug trainer at 25 to 1. good choice.

[kev]

He also had two other horses in the race at long odds. For a total of three. There was also Richard D had a long shot and Bobby F. had a long shot, what you going to bet everyone of those?? In every big race that is run?? You could say that about BC time.

[TGJB]

I\'m not going to say this race was easy, because it wasn\'t-- Alan did the analysis and did not hit it, although he did put up a 3 horse box that included the second and third finishers, along with the 50-1 shot that finished fifth. But the big thing was that the public was betting horses (Host, Scrappy T, Imperialism) that had never run fast enough to hit the board. I mean, how often do you get the fastest horse (best top) winning, the second fastest running second, and a $600 exacta? With the next two finishers being among the logical contenders, yielding a 29k super.

[zorro]

What\'s your point ?

[TGJB]

Zorro-- the general point is that the Cigar was a great betting race. The specific point is that what sometimes makes a great betting race is not finding a horse to bet, but seeing that the public is playing the wrong horse (or horses, in this case), and working around it. You didn\'t have to love the patterns on Purge or Mass Media to crush this one (although Purge did have a history of running well off layoffs and non-efforts). You just had to look at the board, and see that several they were betting were a lot slower than several they were not betting, and play exotics combining the fast ones.

[zorro]

The Cigar Mile could have been a great ROTW ?

[twoshoes]

Good point.

[TGJB]

Zorro-- no, it could NOT have been a great ROTW-- that\'s the point. There were no strong TG related points to make about patterns, etc., on individual horses-- the situation was too diffuse for that kind of discussion. It was simply an odds play-- faster horses vs. slower, overbet ones.

[JimP]

That isn\'t a \"strong TG related point\" worth making? Seems like it would be strongest of all the TG points.

I threw out Badge of Silver off the layoff.

I thought Scrappy T couldn\'t possibly have a better looking sheet. He ran a 0 in the Preakness early in his 3 year old campaign. Came back off the layoff with a 2 and then improved to a 0. With 7 months passing since his top, I thought a -1 or -2 was very likely given some typical development. He figured to save ground too unlike many fo the faster closers.

Even after the race I still like my bet against Badge of Silver.

I threw out Purge because he\'s been a cripple for most of the last 15 months. That\'s usually enough to keep me off them. I don\'t like betting cripples.

[zorro]

TGJB, please refer to your Overview comments for the last ROTW....I rest my case. It\'s time for ROTW to morph into a paid service. In my humble opinion, there should be a ROTW for beginners and an other for the winning hard core. I know the best when I see it and ROTW is the best thing going.

[marcus]

Any number of Horse\'s could have won + Patterns in the Cigar Mile didn\'t offer value for the ROTW to be used as an educational tool . If I had any say , 2 yo\'s  got it the rest of the way in \'05  , understanding the 2 yo line is (most) important for evaluating older Horse\'s as well .  

[TGJB]

For what it\'s worth, here are the sheets for the Cigar. I don\'t think there was a coherent ROTW \"story line\", but everyone can judge for themselves. I will be doing a ROTW this week, may or may not next week-- might go to Arizona for the industry get together.