PhantomOnTour
05-19-2014, 11:40 AM
Back to life - back to reality
As usual, the trip to Baltimore with my father and brother was time well spent....and we managed to make some money this year, as opposed to the total pari-mutuel disaster of 2013.
Thursday offered the usual fare of low level pre-Preakness weekend racing.
All the good horses would be running Fri and Sat.
Some perplexing results to say the least...someone already covered the Racyn With Gracyn issue, so I won't go into it further. But let's just say that the tone was set for some VERY odd jockey maneuvers. Some horses won on Thurs that I couldn't explain in a thousand years. Crushed the last race to get right for the day.
Friday turned out better than we expected after the mini hurricane late Thurs night. It's my favorite day. You can get around the track easily, the racing is great, and you see all kinds of racing big shots up close.
I saw Baffert, Servis, Hovdey, TLG, Battaglia, Mirahmadi, the Mig, Mott and Bobby Flay :ThmbUp:
Met up with Wiffleball Whizz & Proximity, hung out - drank a brew or two - shot the bull - wondered where CJ was ;) - and hit a few races.
Great to meet you guys, but no way I can hang with the Whizz...dude hits the ground running and does not stop. I liken him to Commentator...he sets a blistering pace and dares you to keep up :D
How about that gal falling asleep on a sure winner in the Race For The Cure contest?? Good Lord!
Yeah yeah yeah..."you get what you get when you play a race with retired jocks"...I hear ya, but when you're on vacation and your newbie niece is there all decked out in her hat and dress, you gotta play the Ladies race. We still got the ex but we had a win bet on that sleeping jock.
Basically traded money all day until the Miss Preakness, where I got lucky and caught a very nice win and ex (9-2 over 24-1 or something like that).
Then my brother snags the Special exacta and we were flush.
I think Moreno ran a hell of a race in the Special. That pace was very fast and he hung on well for 4th after battling Valid and Golden Lad down the backside.
Saturday started off well as we hit the first two races, but then we fell into a serious slump.
After I hit the first by keying a horse named Phelps, I got this silly local vibe and played two "area named" losers before snapping out of it...Mystical Terp and some horse named Camden. I will get back to the Mystical Terp race in a minute.
Castellano won the 7th and 8th on runners I detested, and we were in a swoon. The Gallorette Stks chalked out and we didn't have it, then I bet pretty big on the speed in the Sir Barton Stks....the #4 made the lead, led the merry chase to about the 5/16 pole, and then stopped badly to finish last :bang:
Utley was a surprise to me in the Gr2 Dixie - didn't have him - I am a Bravo/Clement combo fan and we went down with Chamois, who ran 3rd.
The Preakness bet was basically a tri: 3 w 7-10 w 1-2-7-8-10...repeat repeat and hammer a few lower priced combos some more. We also reversed the top two spots (7-10 w 3 etc...) and that was that....small profit for the weekend.
Good times.
As usual, the trip to Baltimore with my father and brother was time well spent....and we managed to make some money this year, as opposed to the total pari-mutuel disaster of 2013.
Thursday offered the usual fare of low level pre-Preakness weekend racing.
All the good horses would be running Fri and Sat.
Some perplexing results to say the least...someone already covered the Racyn With Gracyn issue, so I won't go into it further. But let's just say that the tone was set for some VERY odd jockey maneuvers. Some horses won on Thurs that I couldn't explain in a thousand years. Crushed the last race to get right for the day.
Friday turned out better than we expected after the mini hurricane late Thurs night. It's my favorite day. You can get around the track easily, the racing is great, and you see all kinds of racing big shots up close.
I saw Baffert, Servis, Hovdey, TLG, Battaglia, Mirahmadi, the Mig, Mott and Bobby Flay :ThmbUp:
Met up with Wiffleball Whizz & Proximity, hung out - drank a brew or two - shot the bull - wondered where CJ was ;) - and hit a few races.
Great to meet you guys, but no way I can hang with the Whizz...dude hits the ground running and does not stop. I liken him to Commentator...he sets a blistering pace and dares you to keep up :D
How about that gal falling asleep on a sure winner in the Race For The Cure contest?? Good Lord!
Yeah yeah yeah..."you get what you get when you play a race with retired jocks"...I hear ya, but when you're on vacation and your newbie niece is there all decked out in her hat and dress, you gotta play the Ladies race. We still got the ex but we had a win bet on that sleeping jock.
Basically traded money all day until the Miss Preakness, where I got lucky and caught a very nice win and ex (9-2 over 24-1 or something like that).
Then my brother snags the Special exacta and we were flush.
I think Moreno ran a hell of a race in the Special. That pace was very fast and he hung on well for 4th after battling Valid and Golden Lad down the backside.
Saturday started off well as we hit the first two races, but then we fell into a serious slump.
After I hit the first by keying a horse named Phelps, I got this silly local vibe and played two "area named" losers before snapping out of it...Mystical Terp and some horse named Camden. I will get back to the Mystical Terp race in a minute.
Castellano won the 7th and 8th on runners I detested, and we were in a swoon. The Gallorette Stks chalked out and we didn't have it, then I bet pretty big on the speed in the Sir Barton Stks....the #4 made the lead, led the merry chase to about the 5/16 pole, and then stopped badly to finish last :bang:
Utley was a surprise to me in the Gr2 Dixie - didn't have him - I am a Bravo/Clement combo fan and we went down with Chamois, who ran 3rd.
The Preakness bet was basically a tri: 3 w 7-10 w 1-2-7-8-10...repeat repeat and hammer a few lower priced combos some more. We also reversed the top two spots (7-10 w 3 etc...) and that was that....small profit for the weekend.
Good times.