ROW Pick 4

[FrankD.]

Time to wake youse guys up!!!

With Capital OTB and DRF in ongoing contract disputes with CD the Fairgrounds wonderful card is not available for MOI from living room downs. I no longer use off shore for horses so it was open up a TVG account or take a trip north to Saratoga Casino & Raceway. I\'m heading north for some Spa in January.

5th:
The Sandman, Coin Broker & Tarpy\'s Goal all have back #\'s to take this heat at nice ML prices and we will add our old friend Commanding Curve.

6th:
Super competitive heat with all in the TG 6-9 range pending turf course trips.
3 are heading south and 2 of them will be good prices. Hottap probably ends up the favorite but Same As & Allamerican Music will have lots of value.

The Louisiana:
At half the ML price Coupe de Grace is an incredible bet and he will get a healthy win bet from me as well as the lions share of my pick 4 ticket, saving with Ride On Curlin.
Jones and Geroux lethal together, trainer is solid off a long layoff, all of his big numbers came without blinkers and an advantageous pace scenario = the perfect storm here.

8th:
I planned on only using the Cox horses unless the 16 drew in, with the scratch of Cash Control I can\'t single Street of Gold at 2 for 27 on the lawn. So I\'ll dilute the ticket and use Prayed For & Haunted Heroine as well.

4 X 3 X 2 X 3 = $72 for a buck X a few.

A big single on Coupe de Grace makes 36 X

Good luck,

Frank D.

[TreadHead]

Guess I\'ll take the contrarian view here, the anti-Eagle position is a bit of a head scratcher here, especially given the small field and odds you are going to get on the other horses.

Eagle looks about as solid a horse can on a sheet, improvement from 2 to 3 was solid, but not over done, and he paired up his last 3 races.  Everything from his sire profile to the TG pattern predictor (which I get isn\'t much of a tool) says this race should be just as good, if not better than his previous ones.

I\'m gonna agree with the ThoroPattern that he is 2/3 likely to at least pair up, if not move forward.  

What I\'m really missing is the prediction that all of these other horses are going to suddenly pair up or beat life-time tops today.

CDG has miserable route figures and this is a 2-turn route.  Perhaps there were excuses in those 2 races, but there is nothing on his sheet the last 2 years that suggests he will be at his best on a 2 turn race.  I would want 15 or 20 to 1 on the speculation that those other 2 route failures were aberrations, but we are getting 8-1.

ROC, even at the weights, has only 2 races out of 13 the last 2 years that will definitively beat Eagle and only 3 others that are close if Eagle only pairs.  But it does appear there is no speed advantage today and this might be the place where he finally runs better.  Still seems pretty speculative, especially given he hasn\'t even approached his top after a long injury layoff, and 7-1 isn\'t great odds for him here.

International Star, same thing, except even slower figures and the same injury concern, not yet approaching where he used to be prior to the injury/layoff.

If any horse is going to have trouble with 3 races in the 2 range recently, I would much more expect it would be Majestic Harbor, who is now 8 years old, as opposed to Eagle.  This guy is a solid performer and likely for the tri, but I just think Eagle is a younger, still-improving horse and will get by him when the chips are down

2-1 is very fair for Eagle IMO, tho guessing he may be bet down near 3-2 by race time.  GL either way

[atakante]

Nice analysis TreadHead.  I took CDG and ROC for the win and lost.  Also had an Exacta box.  Do you think the result would be different if the bumping incident near the rail did not take place?  IMO it did not look like any of the horses involved would have a clear shot at passing Eagle or Intl. Star even if they had unobstructed stretch runs. Maybe one of them could and up placing but did not look like a threat to Intl. Star.

[Rick B.]

TreadHead Wrote:
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> Guess I\'ll take the contrarian view here, the
> anti-Eagle position is a bit of a head scratcher
> here, especially given the small field and odds
> you are going to get on the other horses.

TG Analyst tries to beat the favorite, knock him
clear out of the exacta most every week.

Frankly, it\'s like watching Roy McAvoy trying to
make the last green in Tin Cup: painful.

[TGJB]

You\'re right, we should just go with the public.

[FrankD.]

Don\'t forget how much value you were getting on Eagle at 8/5 who ran 2nd keying a $19.40 exacta with International Star at 5/2. The pick 4 paid amazing well but its a very tough sell to use International Star if you\'re buying T-graph figures?

[Rick B.]

TGJB Wrote:
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> You\'re right, we should just go with the public.

You guys do 999 things right for every 1 thing not so
good, maybe I should mention the good things more often
for balance.

This obsession with obliterating the favorite almost
every week, however, probably costs people money.

Favorites finish first or second over 50% of the time;
throwing the favorite straight out seems as silly as
throwing the top TG number horse out of every race. Who
would do that?

[TreadHead]

No, the bumping made no difference and the 2 best horses yesterday ended up in the exacta.  It\'s apparent that International Star both loves FG and made some growth during his time off, which of course would be perfectly normal for a healthy 3 year old, but something was just not right with his first return race from the layoff and that new ability was completely hidden.

Again, the real head-scratcher to me overall is how often it is discussed here that it is very normal both for healthy 3yr olds to improve and that 1st out 4 year olds are many time making further improvements, yet we were asked to assume that the opposite would be true of Eagle despite how solid and impressive his sheet looked.

[Niall]

Read somewhere that Intl Star had a ridiculous van ride to Zia Park. I know, is there any other kind... A toss out race?

[atakante]

I look at the ROTW as a buyer beware deal and am appreciative of TG sharing their insights as well as the other posters here.  I just want to learn and you can\'t learn if you can\'t explain what just happened.  Ok, once in a while it is just pure randomness but 9 out of 10 times there is a good explanation whether you know it or not.  I\'m looking fwd. to find out what TG figure Intl. Star and Eagle will be given.  For all I know, Intl. Star may have bested his former best of 3 by a large margin.  He was charging furiously making the rest of the field looking like ponies.  So far the best argument I hear is that he physically improved vastly during his layoff.  But when I check his workouts there is not much of anything that\'s truly impressive there.  HIs last workout in fact was very underwhelming.  In fact, I would rate his workouts in the lower half (in the middle at best) vs. rest of the field.  Ok, maybe he really likes Fair Grounds, but yesterday it looked like he was running on a conveyor belt while others were stuck in the sand.

[TGJB]

Rick. The whole point of ROTW is to demonstrate how what we do is different than what the public does. That\'s HOW we choose which race to do. It\'s not a coincidence.

[Bet Twice]

I don\'t think anyone would argue that Eagle had a nice healthy pattern.  The bet against stance was due to his projected number being 2-2.75 (at least by me) which at the weights would equate to 3-3.75, slower than what I could see others running and at very short odds.  I didn\'t bet the race as I couldn\'t narrow down the field to make a reasonable bet but completely agree that the right approach was to toss the top two out of the first spot.  It obviously didn\'t work out in this case but would play it the same way next time.

[Rick B.]

TGJB Wrote:
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> Rick. The whole point of ROTW is to demonstrate
> how what we do is different than what the public
> does. That\'s HOW we choose which race to do. It\'s
> not a coincidence.

TGJB, I get it.

IMO, this is the worst place to try to battle \"the
public\" -- as a group, they are the most efficient
handicapper in the game.

So, the TG ROTW Analyst\'s first task each week --
\"select race with disposable favorite\" -- is to play
into a ~ 55% disadvantage. If he chooses wrong,
it\'s over before any other work is completed.

Am I wrong? Too simple? I\'m listening.

[FrankD.]

Rick B,

Happy New Year.

I think you are over simplifying, the previous week Sandiva was the selection at Gulf at 3/5 and it looked for some exotic value with him on top only. I understand where you are coming from and you\'ve posted before about being well rewarded using the favorite with a TG value horse.

IMHO one of TG data\'s greatest strengths is eliminating a bad favorite in a race. ROW is a very small sample that gets posted 40 some times per year. I\'m an 80% horizontal player when I can toss 1 or 2 public choices out of a sequence that may be on 75 or 80% of the tickets that is a tremendous payoff advantage. If you\'re looking at 40 races a day 3-5 times per week this opportunity presents itself several times in the course of the day.

I don\'t look at a deserving favorite as the boogie man! Everyone has their own opinion, tenet, rule or standard on the value of a bet, be it real or perceived.
Flat bets at 2/1 or 5/2 along with $20 exacta\'s do not constitute value in my camp for others it does and its their money to do as they please with. I prefer to maybe single a stick out in horizontals or play him over some prices in verticals maybe even pass the race rather than being on the light end of risk vs reward.

Good luck,

Frank D.

[TGJB]

Rick, you\'re right. All favorites are created equal, none are worth betting against, and the public is the best handicapper. And the most likely winner is always the right bet.