Introduction of Steve

[stevelimo]

Hi Everyone, I would like to introduce myself.

I won the handicapping contest at Aquaduct in 1985, the year before Dave Hardoon won.  Also I have placed in the top ten in many other tournamnets.  I live in Las Vegas now, and play at Suncoast Casino.  Therefore, I am not a novice.

You are knocking Johannesburg. I saw him win at Lepoard\'s Town in Ireland, in August, where he won easily, and had a terrible trip.  I also bet on him in the breeder\'s cup, where he also won easily.  I believe that his defeat last month, was just a workout, and that they were not really trying to have him win, but preparing him for the derby.

If you can get double digit odds in the derby, I would bet out on him, especially with a weak field.

[Dr. Fager 1:32]

Can someone explain their thinking on why they feel this year\'s group is a weak field (since several people have made that comment)  I thought that there were more \"sub-6 jinx\" horses than ever.  If horses are getting slightly faster every year, then how come every crop keeps getting called a weak bunch?

I understand that there is no dominant horse, but I think the parity is due to multiple high-caliber horses -- not a sub-par group.

Also, I don\'t understand why the connections of any foreign horse wouldn\'t ship to the U.S. before the Derby and run in the preps here.  Seems like that would be a much better approach than trying to pull a \"Michael Dickinson\" and look like a genius.

[kev]

I don\'t understand if J.burg is oh so good in your eyes, why back off at under 10-1. I like Saarland and P. Drift i won\'t be backing off at under 10-1 if they happen to go that low which they won\'t. So if hes 7-1 J.burg you won\'t be betting him??

[stevelimo]

Kevin

I did not say I would back off at under 10
I probably would not bet as much. However,
I would include him in all exotics.

Steve

[kev]

I will too, on my $1.00 ex\'s ticket\'s....

[stevelimo]

DR. Fager 132

He did not have preps in the U.S.before
the BC.ether.

Incidently DR.Fager was one of my favorite
horses I belive he ran A mile in 132
30 years ago.

Steve

[MO]

Because they are not durable. Look at last year. How many of them are running now?
Garbage cans, every one of them!!
MO

[Dr. Fager 1:32]

I don\'t have any data to back this up, but my best guess as to why the foreign horses have trouble in the Derby would be the # of prep races and the spacing of those.

The lightly raced 3yo\'s as well as the ones coming into the Derby off a layoff just don\'t do as well as the other horses.

I\'ll say this though...  It would certainly make things A LOT more interesting if a couple foreign horses DID win, and then each year 6 or 7 would start showing up.

It would be really neat if some of the U.S.-based 3yo\'s would cross the pond for the grass races in Europe.  Then TG could perhaps have enough information to start making figures for the major foreign tracks on a daily basis.  I think it would be both entertaining and profitable to look into full card simulcasting for a few foreign tracks each day.  I imagine that some service will offer something like that in the near future...

As for Dr. Fager, my dad was at AP and bet him on the 1:32 day.  There\'s a lot of cool info. on him at:

http://horseracing.about.com/library/bldrfager.htm

Like:

\"Dr. Fager started 22 times, finishing first 19 times. Only three horses ever finished in front of the good doctor: Champion juvenile Successor; Horse of the Year Damascus; and Horse of the Year Buckpasser.\"

Steve - congratulation on your contest/tournament success.  When I lived out there, my dad and I won the \"Stardust Derby.\"  The other person who was alive going into the last leg of the contest was the race/sports book manager at the Frontier.  Fastness beat Tychonic (or some name close to that) in a turf stake from SoCal.  What\'s funny is, I think it was 2 weeks later, we made it to the final leg again.  Our horse had a 5L lead in the stretch, but got nipped right on the wire by the other horse in the head-to-head matchup.

The guy \"Walker\" who now works at Caesar\'s used to frequently offer head-to-head matchups for the big races on the weekends.  I saw a special on HBO about the Super Bowl, and he was one of the people they interviewed, so that brought back memories...

** Sorry for rambling.  lol  But nothing compares to racing.  It\'s the best sport, the best game, and hopefully more often than not, a solid investment opportunity.

[Dr. Fager 1:32]

The \"garbage can\" analogy is hard to argue with.  Chris or whoever came up with this sub-6 jinx is really onto something.

As a fan, I appreciate the brilliant efforts no matter how short-lived they are.  It\'s quite a dilemma -- would you rather see 2yo\'s popping off sub-6 efforts and getting burned out, or see them run 10\'s and last a little while longer...?

All I know is that Arazi-like superstar performances are both breath-taking and memorable.  I wouldn\'t trade those for a moderate stretch rally by Forego anyday.

Side note...  I\'ve always wondered what Arazi ran in his BC Juv win on the TG scale.  With the wide trip, margin of victory, and level of competition (Bertrando 2nd), it had to be awesome.  Does anyone know exactly what he ran?

[TGJB]

For the sake of your fond memories I won\'t tell you how bad that figure came up. He was a stone cold bet against in the Derby.

[fastspeed]

well, Jo\'burg is a best priced 12/1 in England and nobody is rushing to the windows.  You\'d expect him to be a shorter price there than here, so you\'ll get your double digits I guess.

Incidentally the bookmakers Ladbrokes (known as the \"magic sign\" because their inside information usually turns out to be right) have him and castle gandolfo at the same price (10/1), which seems strange as you\'d expect castle to be much longer (and he will be much longer in the US).

[HP]

JBurg ran well at 1-1/16 last year. He had an impressive campaign of turf sprints and capped it with an impressive race (by the way, that\'s one turn at Belmont). I can\'t imagine him hopping off the plane and beating these at 1-1/4 off one sprint-y prep, regardless of his vitamins or anything else they can do over there.

As pointed out in earlier posts, you have to draw the line somewhere. For me, this is it. Will look for other longshots. HP