Monmouth Park Track Bias/Weather Conditions

[Dana666]

As we draw closer to Saturday, anyone on-track should post and continually update regarding track bias/weather conditions right up to Saturday.

I was there the other day and have spent about 30 odd years at Monmouth off and on. The place has been completely transformed -- it looks amazing! Just don\'t plan on doing much walking or standing if you\'re going -- there are chairs everywhere,and apparently everyone must stay in their section! I can\'t even imagine the parking/traffic situation. But hey if you cash big nothing much will bother you, right?

Main Track: Unless we get a deluge of rain this week, I believe the condition of the main track should hold together very well. The weather\'s been great all month although showers are forecast for later in the week, I believe the main track will play very fast and stay tight, so I would expect very fast times,and I\'d be very unlikely to bet any deep closers (also, because of the track\'s configuration, closers have historically been at a disadvantage, and the new surface this year hasn\'t changed that one bit). Often on big days at Monmouth the rail is particularly golden, so we\'ll have to watch that angle as well. I\'m quite happy that we\'ll get a BC preview on Friday!

Turf Course: Looks super right now, but we must remember this is still October in Jersey! Firm is never really firm in October, and add in any rain this week, and we could have a similar fiasco like at Belmont a few years back and Lone Star, too, if my memory serves me correctly. So here\'s the deal and underscore this if it rains -- if you\'re a big heavy horse who really needs to plant your hooves and fire away, you are going to hate this grass course -- you want lighter types who kind of skip over it, and speed should be pretty dangerous. I really hope there are no significant turf biases this year (I hate that) but we\'ve really gotta watch this one (in the summer the course played pretty fair). For example, I would think Dylan Thomas will not perform well at all on this course and someone like Better Talk Now would absolutely love it (that\'s without doing any handicapping, just based on past experience, so don\'t jump all over me if Dylan wins, he\'s certainly the class).

OK, let\'s keep this thread going -- it could really help.

[Michael D.]

Dana,

I\'ve watched very little Mth this year. last year though, the new turf course was playing like the new GP course; it was hard as a rock. is the course still hard? I see Icy Atlantic went 1:32.2 last month. that is very fast for a two turn race (especially with \'3\' type runners involved).

did they get a lot of rain this w/e?

[RICH]

It rained good on Friday here in the Metro area, Sat and Sunday were some of the most beautiful days ever for this time of year here. Monday could reach 80. The rest of the week looks good with temps going 60-70, some chance of rain on wed. Friday and Saturday look good 60-65. Never thought it would be this good. Oh, the grass, I walked my lush yard last night. It was soft. This time of year the grass should be good, I doubt the turf willl be hard on sat.

[miff]

There has been \"official\" concern expressed at the new surface speed highway at Monmouth. At present, the surface is not as fast/tight as it was in the summer.What track maintenance will do between now and Wednesday will only be known when they start to race.Predicted showers all week long, Tuesday on, may be a serious issue come Friday/Saturday but the weatherman is wrong more often than horse players when it comes to predicting.Today is a sunny and warm.

Regulars at Monmouth do not like speed on that turf course as a general matter(at least this past summer)


Mike

[jma11473]

The past couple months have been much warmer than normal and very dry, though there are showers predicted for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. It probably won\'t take much rain to change conditions because it is so late in the year. Based on the forecast, I think it\'s rather likely that the first turf race will be run on Friday, so there might not be much to go on when the BC races start.

[Sandreadis]

Brad Thomas,Morning line odds maker @ MP and TV analyst, had a very informative Q&A in DRF.In it he stated the MP turf \"might be the fastest drying he\'s ever seen on the East Coast.It drains fantastically well.If we don\'t have a real rainy spell,I would expect the course to play very firm.\" He went on to say\"if the turf is as it was during the Summer,I think the California horses will really,really like it.\" You\'d have to think that the Euros would not prefer a dry, fast surface(with tight turns) that Thomas describes.
 I don\'t know if the article is in the Plus content of DRF and I only have it in Hard Copy.

[miff]

Sand,

It was DRF plus and the opinion of Brad Thomas at Monmouth is highly regarded by many players there.

Mike

[Sandreadis]

He seems to be a very competent handicapper. I have witnessed him giving out huge long shot picks. In the article it states he gave out the 99 Belmont cold,Lemon Drop Kid w/ Vision and Verse w/Charismatic, $5,343.

[jma11473]

Brad Thomas knows what he\'s talking about. Well, maybe the course WILL still be hard, despite the possible rain and the fact it\'s late October. Running this time of year is uncharted territory for Monmouth, so I guess we\'ll see.

[dpatent]

I too read the Brad Thomas interview.  While I must accord huge respect to a guy who gave out a tri cold 8 years ago, I have to take some of what he said with a grain of salt -- in particular, his opinion of Curlin and how he handled the turns in the Haskell.

While I am not a Curlin supporter, I watched the replay and for the life of me did not see Curlin as a horse struggling to hold the turns.  He took the first turn fine and got pushed very wide by AGS coming into the stretch.  Curlin does tend to run a bit wide but I would not discount his chances at Mth based on the Haskell.

[gohorse10]

Name One?

He is a smart guy that has no clue on how to pick winners. I hope he does not bet on the horses he picks.

[gohorse10]

He did pick the tri in the 99 bel. Anyone can get lucky once

[Dana666]

I am a Curlin supporter. I was on track for the Haskel, too. I bet against Curlin that day, but I felt like he was just getting back after his hard Triple Crown campaign. I feel he will be very tough to beat in the classic. I do respect Brad Thomas, but if he\'s against Curlin that would puzzle me with all he supposedly knows about horses -- Curlin\'s just a monster plain and simple -- look at him in person and you can see why they paid all that money for him.

Interestingly, Tiago seems to have really matured, and though I was never a big fan of his, his return race at Santa Anita was tremendous -- he was like a different horse, like he grew from a boy into a man.

I think Street Sense is over the top now, I mean he can\'t really get better, and I\'d likely play against him. Hard Spun is a great one, and I can certainly see him finishing in the top three or top two. Lawyer Ron I feel is also over the top. Any Given Saturday is a legit horse who would be no surprise to me though I feel he\'s going to have to imrpove to win this, and I\'m not sure that\'s going to happen.

[manning]

Dana666 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I do respect Brad Thomas, but if he\'s against Curlin that would
> puzzle me with all he supposedly knows about
> horses -- Curlin\'s just a monster plain and simple
> -- look at him in person and you can see why they
> paid all that money for him.


They didn\'t pay all that money for him based on looks.  He went for $57k at KEE SEP before he raced. They only laid down the big bucks after he broke his maiden by the length of the stretch at Gulfstream.  

He\'s impossible to knock very seriously at this point, but I\'m leaning toward siding with Thomas on him.  He was flat in the last quarter of the Haskell - whatever the reasoning - and he was a beaten horse at Pimlico coming out of turn 2.  That he was able to re-rally is a badge of courage for him, but he can afford no similar mistakes vs. this group...

[Dana666]

I\'m so much more impressed with people who pay big money for a horse after he\'s raced than at a sale. I know very well all the BS, politics, and ego-stroking that goes on at sales & the prices most people pay for horses at sales mean almost NOTHING to me; maybe I\'m not easily impressed and especially by people who like to throw money around -- I prefer people who see a horse race and really go all out for him, like Curlin for example.