Late 4 @ Saratoga

[bellsbendboy]

Absolutely brutal sequence with over fifty to disect. The bet is 2,6,7,8 / 2,5,8,12 / 7,12 / 9. I spent some time here and accordingly am out of time to post any analysis, which ought to make the rehash easy. BBB

[keilan]

You cheaped out in the last leg hope you hit it though -- you could have included the 1-3-7-12 in addition to the 9. Still only a 2 hundred dollar ticket on a tough card.

[Tee]

I used the 8 & 10 as keys hoping to catch an exacta.

[bellsbendboy]

Certainly a vanilla ticket that we played. Decent handicapping coupled with woeful ticket construction.

Any pick four bet should be constructed to maximize profit. Normally one of our strengths; we failed miserably yesterday. The questions with this sequence was Dream Rush and how to play her, and how to be alive to the Pletcher, can't lose on paper, in the last leg. We spent $32 and failed miserably.

In leg one it was clear, to even the blue hairs, that Three in the Bag ($25.60) was lone speed and coming off a Dutrow claim. He has been in the exacta in, now, half of his twenty starts and had beaten Master Command while breaking his maiden.
With that written both Violette and Contessa had repeatedly run the 5yo gelding for cheap tags while he toiled on the inner in the winter. At any rate, while I think key races are very few and far between, this may be one in reverse as the last three furlongs were run in a sprightly FORTY seconds.

Leg two was equally enigmatic with Sensational Humor $23.60) outgaming probably best War Monger. The latter was wide both bends and with the rail up... yet he was a bit above two to one, so anyone using the Bush repeater can be forgiven. That is, if you overlook his inner track form in the winter where he could not win for a tag! Pletcher could not find this two turn turf horse and Bush only did so out of desperation.

The Test was over by the half mile pole but the past performances did NOT indicate a very soft opening quarter. Big deal as we played a 7-2 and a 7-5 trying to turn $32 into $320; no way to ever come out on top.

Pletchers homebred ($4.10) seemed to have this one in the bag as soon as the entries were drawn. The horse that ran him down in Chicago was unbeaten at the time and had come back to run well, after being sold for good money, in a stake quality allowance at Delmar. Nevertheless it took a stewards blind eye, even facing a big pick six carryover, to leave this one up. The angst with this sequence was leaving Trombetta off the ticket (caused by adding Cotton Blossom in the previous leg) as either half of his entry could be very live. Although we have great respect for Trombetta, he was sprinting this horse on the bottom over the winter, ignoring a strong two turn, turf pedigree. In to the wind was certainly best in this race but had a nightmare trip. If he wins the pick four returns some six grand. This is one tough track for horizontal players playing small tickets, but undaunted we'll play today. On another note, Curlin seems a bad favorite today. BBB