Woodford Reserve - Little Mike

[1GCFAN]

$500,000 Race. I know Little Mike is a good horse but the race looked to have a lot of speed. He sets moderate fractions without much pressure and wires the field. That race was in about every vertical sequence and left me on the sidelines. Was anyone else surprised about this race.

[setup]

"Park your car, Sir?"

[cj]

I think you can mostly thank Dominguez.

[redshift1]

$500,000 Race. I know Little Mike is a good horse but the race looked to have a lot of speed. He sets moderate fractions without much pressure and wires the field. That race was in about every vertical sequence and left me on the sidelines. Was anyone else surprised about this race.

LM while in good form was facing G1 winners a big step up in the Woodford.

I had him rated fifth, surprised he held on, here my bets:

Turallure
Slim Shadey
Brillant Speed

Thought I had a chance in the stretch but LM never came back.

.

[Tom]

Let me bet that race four more times and he never gets a nickel.

[MickJ26]

I didn't think he was good enough. I left him off of all of my tickets. He cost me a lot of money.

[Ocala Mike]

Turallure
Slim Shadey
Brillant Speed

.


Liked the same three, but I threw in my namesake on a 4-horse exacta box:

:1: :2: :5: :10: , and got lucky.

Surprised more by the :2: running off the board than Joey Bravo wiring the field. Also pleasantly surprised by the $400 plus exacta.

[Valuist]

One of the more bizarre rides one will see. It looked to me like Bravo was trying to intimidate the other two speed horses by herding the field around early on. And it appeared to work.

[BMustang]

There have been numerous wire-to-wire winners on the Churchill Downs turf this spring, and in the past. Anyone who gets lose on the lead is dangerous.

[Rapid Grey]

One of the more bizarre rides one will see. It looked to me like Bravo was trying to intimidate the other two speed horses by herding the field around early on. And it appeared to work.

Great ride by Bravo, don't think he was herding though, just getting his mount to the better part of the turf. When they are on the hedge at Churchill it is best to stay out in the 2 or 3 path, it is when the temporary rail is up that speed is more dominant. All imho.

[redshift1]

There have been numerous wire-to-wire winners on the Churchill Downs turf this spring, and in the past. Anyone who gets lose on the lead is dangerous.


Silver Max, for another at 5/1 on Friday in a wide open betting race. I went from "what the hell are you doing on the lead Bejarano , to great ride Rafael".


.

[JustRalph]

I didn't think he was good enough. I left him off of all of my tickets. He cost me a lot of money.

He hurt me too. I couldn't believe they didn't come and get him.

[CincyHorseplayer]

There have been numerous wire-to-wire winners on the Churchill Downs turf this spring, and in the past. Anyone who gets lose on the lead is dangerous.

Not when there are multiple pure speed horses in the race.This was a race that was lost on jockeys and not how the track was playing.

[CincyHorseplayer]

Silver Max, for another at 5/1 on Friday in a wide open betting race. I went from "what the hell are you doing on the lead Bejarano , to great ride Rafael".


.

Silver Max was far more probable in his race than Little Mike.I blasted that exacta because I loved the place horse.SM was a top combination bet.

[Robert Fischer]

I didn't think he was good enough. I left him off of all of my tickets. He cost me a lot of money.
this.

[Robert Fischer]

Thought he kind of stole the race.

I don't want to say he was hard used at the end but he had a rough way of going late.

[Karakiozis]

I didn't think he was good enough. I left him off of all of my tickets. He cost me a lot of money.

Same here, had the 2nd and 3d place finishers keyed vertically and horizontally, the pinheads let the pinhead steal it.

[CincyHorseplayer]

Same here, had the 2nd and 3d place finishers keyed vertically and horizontally, the pinheads let the pinhead steal it.

Oh man was I redfaced and angry watching that race.Wooooo.....I still have zero idea how I didn't break something within my proximity.

[setup]

That one was on Dominguez, he's really supposed to go to Little Mike, on the inside, late backstretch; but it really shouldn't have mattered.

If Solis was able to get Data Link outside of horses for a clear run in the stretch he would've won the race. Problem is, DL likes to run behind horses and Solis tried to get him outside and couldn't, then he tried to get him to go through to his inside, but he couldn't get him to split horses. To that point, Solis had drafted perfectly/patiently and had tons of horse. He really should've been prepared given the horses last race in Florida and especially in the KEE stake.

[cj]

While Little Mike was unpressured, it isn't like he was crawling up front. The pace was reasonable.

[1GCFAN]

The Derby triple, multiple pick 3, multiple pick 4, pick 5, and pick 6 winners all needed to include Little Mike.

I agree the jocks out guessed themselves in this one and a lot of us betters tore up our tickets. How you do this in a $500K race beats me.