Had a free hour I didn\'t expect to have Monday in the vicinity of Living Room
Downs and went in for a Pick 3 at Belmont on races 8-10.
I was really not in the mood to handicap, so I decided on a nice sandwich--
with Smart Strike products on either end with a nice five horse spread in the
middle for $10 = $50.
The Smart Strike product in the last race, More Oats Please, was a never in
doubt $5.00 winner. The 9th race winner, Sao Sebah, from the Paulo Lobo barn,
closed nicely at 6/1 under Rajiv Maragh to get the money and was one of the
spread components.
The Smart Strike product in the Pebbles Stakes, Denomination, was last, beaten
maybe six lengths as a 5/2 second favorite under RamDo. According to DRF,
Denomination \"was well in hand, steadied along the inside on the backstretch,
saved ground while boxed in on the turn, advanced along the rail at the quarter
pole and steadied along the inside while lacking room in the stretch run.\"
Another bad trip. We\'re talking the brown acid at the Woodstock Festival*, the
S.S. Minnow, the Presidential Motorcade in Dealey Plaza.
At Longchamp or Ascot they might say the filly was \"covered up\". At Living Room
Downs, we call this being \"buried\".
And of course the race was won by a Pletcher runner who paid $17 and change.
There is a lot of ugliness which sometimes causes me to want to walk away from
this game. Why would I want to support a game which supported Ernie Paragallo
for 20 or so years? Why would I want to support a game which locally is being
farcically mismanaged by the clowns in Albany and the myopic \"visionaries\" at
NYRA? Why would I want to support a game in which maybe 10% of the major Racing
facilities are owned by a man who seems to refuse to believe that he is bankrupt
and that eventually all of these facilities will have to be sold?
Because despite the ugliness, there are some beautiful moments of anticipation
in this game. Like waiting for Clement to enter Denomination back, hopefully in
a Graded Stake (she was a G3 winner in France) where she will be a decent
price, coming off 9th and 6th place finishes in her 2 US races.
Another highly anticipated decision is whether Zenyatta will go v males in the
Classic. To me, the Zen Mistress is among the great mares of the last 20 or so
years, but the amount of money which will be bet on Zenyatta and Mine That Bird
in the BC Classic has me itching my palms greedily, because I do not think
either of these runners is in the exacta.
----------
* Was reading about Woodstock over the weekend. The material I was reading
pointed out that Woodstock was preceded by 3 large outdoor music festivals. The
first was Monterrey in 1967 (a great documentary was made from this festival);
the other 2 were held at Gulfstream Park and Atlantic City Race Course. Will
have to investigate these festivals further.
