Mandatory TuP Thread

[johnhannibalsmith]

Ahhhh yes, the sweet smell of Bud Light and Trainer's Choice is back in the air at 19th and Bell. I nearly made an early go at the gratuitous thread in which I use poor selections as cover for criticisms for yesterday's opening day card, but even I couldn't find much to even want to contemplate on one of the worst opening day cards ever assembled.

Day number two isn't exactly a massive improvement, but there *may* be the chance for a little money in some of the "pick pools". Ordinarily it's a little tough to measure up these weekend pools, but I'm going to assume that I can take a little bit of a swing on the first Saturday of the meet and so the on-track should justify getting into some of those pools.

A proven fact, one of the only you'll find here, is that I love the early pick 4 on weekend cards with two sloppy looking quarterhorse races to kick things off. Those two legs are the usually the lynchpin to profit - the point in the sequence in which many times the number of live tickets is decimated. The problem is getting to heavy into those legs and having formful outcomes undo even the best handicapping in legs three and four.

Today caught my eye because leg one opens with likely heavy favorite Macy Bay, who was a steamroller here last season as a two-year-old. She exits a roasting at ARP in her lone start this year, and for what its worth, that race was indeed MUCH tougher than those that she had been facing as a younger youth. But, she still was very disappointing. Furthermore, she missed a few dances right here late in the TuP meet. As good as she was in 2011, when she was really hot late in the season, she did a lot of dancing in a short amount of time. It is just entirely possible that she burned up and has fizzled out, which makes this race just too tempting to jump on with a 9-5 M/L favorite and a lot of chaos behind that. I'm a little concerned that Yaya Chickbgone takes enough money to be included on most tickets and that if she is the one to get the job done, I've spread to much to beat one horse - but it didn't appear throughout the day yesterday that the inside was an ideal location, so ah, what the hell.

Leg number two, the next division of the Desert Classic Derby Trials is still a little messy - a handful of maidens facing a handful of winners (including one that performed the rare feat of winning a maiden race twice thanks to drug abuse) - but I *think* I can get through it with four of the eight and even include one that is a maiden that has been destroyed in two starts for my effort at slicing up the live tickets even if likely favorite Macy Bay bounces back in top form in the opener.

Leg three, two-year-old maiden thoroughbreds, is actually the race I struggled with a bit - simply because the class level of the race doesn't seem to match the class level of many, if any, of the participants. At first glance, I feel obligated to pitch the M/L favorite, She'sontopyodeling, as I'm not terrible excited about the debut performance in general, but now ships from EMD and runs back fairly quickly without a recorded breeze over the track. But man, you really have to work to build cases for the others in here to take advantage of that vulnerability.

Both parts of the entry have run well enough that they *could* get there if the aforementioned fails, but you're not looking at much value in that department either, and neither has truly run a winning race yet despite several chances for both to show improvement. Belenus showed nothing in a weak debut in Nor. Cal. and Ziraili appears to have had the wheels come completely off following a HOL debut that would have made her 1-8.9999 in here.

I wound up tossing in the debuting AZ-bred Bright Star Ahead as the one that probably gets left off of a lot of tickets for a number of reasons - but really, has a handful of solid works in Utah prior to a rapid gate work here over the track. It really doesn't appear as though it will take any kind of superstar to get a win picture out of this race, and you can count on worse horses to debut with plenty of early speed than those that have been "training" at good old Dixie Downs.

The final leg is a weird compilation that comprise what is the Princess of Palms Stakes. Absent two quarterhorse races to kick things off, I could see this being a place where I went fairly deep on another occassion. With the quarterhorse spread and threat of small pools, I have to actually try to make sense of this group. I'm pitching, first, the ultra-rapid Page Springs. Blistering speed is her game and the last string of races are to be ignored to some degree as they got more than a little ambitious with her. Still, even with a glaring class drop and return to PHX, I think the peak in her career has long since passed.

Hot On Top is a big question mark - obviously a nice filly, but a nice filly that has been rolling in the hay with breeds in restricted stakes. She's arguably in tougher than she's ever been in and coming off a break - and she probably takes more money than I'd consider appropriate just because of consistent looking form. Mundy, again, another question mark as a traditional grass route mare here at TuP. Given the layoff, though I could make a case for her behind a lot of speed and with a freshening going short, I have to draw a line through her for the purpose of building a ticket that isn't ridiculously expensive for the pool size. Hakuchi just hasn't won a race since leaving Los Hipodromos way back when. She seems like a neat mare that has run some big races against easier, but when you have to chop willingly, a mare with a few weak recent races and no wins through a dozen starts in North America just has to get the gas.

So I'm left with Lasso From El Paso, who may be the favorite, probably should be, on the merit of past exploits here and solid recent form in claiming company over in California. She's obvious, but I'm going to include Scherzi also, just because she'll get no love on anything but the biggest tickets. She's not only an honest, but admittedly cheap mare, but she also should get an ideal trip if she fires her absolute best race and the more likely speedsters come unraveled like we saw in the Bienvenidos in yesterdy's finale. Hardly a household name, trainer Ty Garrett is no dummy - a tad ambitious at times, yes - but not the type that won't have one ready and play the role of race filler.

So here's how it looks:

Race 1: .50P4 - ALL / 5,6,7,8 / 2,4 / 1,2 = $64

Sixty-four beans is a bit more than I would ordinarily push through into a Saturday early pick four pool, especially when I'm unable to single a later leg and cover adequately in the others to my satisfaction - but I'm determined to swing against Macy Bay somehow, and my only angle here is the pick 4 pool.

I'm thinking - just to feel good about life, I might fire off a $4 W/P in race #2 on M/L longshot (15-1) #7 Four Oh One Kaye. She's the aforementioned maiden that was trounced, destroyed, in both career starts at ARP. There's more under the hood. Is it enough to beat winners? Not sure about that, but she's in what I consider the weaker of the two legs from top to bottom, and the price should be swell enough that for a "voucher burn" sized wager, I probably wouldn't be able to resist.


Back later with a swing at the later half of the card.

[johnhannibalsmith]

Well made it through leg number one of the early ticket. That's impressive, since I played all - but it did go according to plan there with inside speed collapsing and a couple mid-trackers rallying to complete the exacta - an 8-1 winner hopefully knocking out a bunch of tickets in what is hopefully a respectable pool.

But, let's glance at the late pick five. It's a bit of a mess, but that's okay - I just have to keep the ticket size reasonable and get brave in a couple of spots, while admitting I need to go obvious in a few others.

Race five, the opener of the sequence, is an open five claimer going six and a half and right off the bat you are confronted with a couple coming from Pomona in good form. Brady Blue Eyes and Brereton Park are MUST use runners in this spot for obvious reasons - the most obvious being that they appear to be the best two in the race. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, this early in the meet, the best horses aren't always winners and they are almost never the best bets in the field. Often you see a standout just flounder in his first trip over this surface, then come back next time and run much improved. The problem here is that you have two that fit that niche and you're sort of damned if you do and damned if you don't - if either win, it will be at a short price, carkilling profit potential if you spread too much to include inferior horses. With two in here, I'm going to try and split the difference - halfassedly assume that ONE of the two will be good enough, but include just one outsider that is fit, in form, and has some decent races over the track in the past - that being Idaho's child, Wicked Kick.

Race six is for maiden Arizona-breds, and horrible ones at that. This is easily a race that you could plunge deeply into and still miss, so that usually is my cue to either go for the full spread, or take a stand and single. I'm tepidly opting for the single. Sky Avenger ran once here last year - his debut - and ran one of the more bizarre races you'll see. He broke well, then sucked out, then sucked WAY out, way, way, behind - looked like he'd be distanced, tooled out to the middle of the track on the turn, then rallied fairly impressively to somehow crack the tote board and finish third. Anyone that watched the race probably assumed that he'd win in short order against bad maidens in New Mexico when he shipped there, but alas, he never did get the job done for a barn that wins plenty of races. Now he's back here - and if he was a short M/L - I'd probably panic and avoid the single, but at 9-2 in a screwy field - I'm willing to do down in flames with this one early if need be.

Race seven, two-year-old fillies in a maiden optional, is probably the leg that most players see as the obvious single. I see it that way too, with Flashy Prize entering with back to back third place finishes against what are probably tougher MSW foes at Canterbury. Hey, no problem with those that think that is enough. But again, part of the game is having a ticket when these horses fail, and in her first try over the track, I'll give one other in here a shot to beat her. Yodeling Cactus ran a pretty decent race in her debut, but then showed nothing when back in the finals for the ATBA sales stakes. There was some chaos on-track that day before the race and I can cut her some slack there - and since she has recently made a start going a half at Pomona, which should have her, if nothing else, tight enough to be competitive here if she fires. Races over the track and a work last week - I'll toss her in her second back off a short break.

Race eight is a bit tough - non-winners since or four lifetime fillies sprinting - but there's at least one obvious filly and then a couple that look more likely than the rest, and that's the way I'm going to approach it. Brave Talk is the obvious. Broke her maiden here last year, won an allowance here last year, exits a win at CBY, and is trained by last season's runaway leading trainer. I'm sure she's another single on the small tickets, and for obvious reasons - she's the one to beat. Really, had she drawn anywhere but the rail, I probably single her and go three deep in the AZ bred race that I singled - but with the rail draw here, I'm going to spread to a couple of others. Rasin A Delight is one I include just because. Just because - she is good enough - and she's one of those old mares that doesn't fire EVERY time, but when she does, she can be triple tough when the field looks like this. She's proven here, she's fast, she draws off the fence, and I happen to be fond of her. Likewise, Brookton is going to barely make my ticket. I've always liked Brookton for most of the same reasons I like Rasin A Delight - but my knock on Brookton is that she seems to follow a pattern of firing really big after a break and then just plateauing thereafter and becoming a consistent finisher that never wins. Still, I'm going to throw her in, because of the simple fact that she is more than capable with her best and anything short of the others' best.

Race nine - the finale - leg number five of five - here's where we get stupid and find that ALL button. Why? Why here? Well, the good horses are off-form or possibly unfit and the bad horses are fit or are in good form. In other words, I really only found one horse that I think has NO shot of winning, and anytime I go to cutting a nine horse ALL spread to eight for that reason, I'm reminded that anything can happen in racing.

Four and a half - some niche half-milers, some not-so-niche half-milers, the possiblity of an outside bias -- it's just chaotic looking, and chaos is good, if you can afford it. I think that I've been conservative enough throughout to justify it here.

Here's how it looks:

Race 5: .50 Pick 5 - 1,4,5 / 3 / 2,3 / 1,4,8 / ALL = $81

Again, eighty-one smackers for a ticket which features a single of an AZ bred maiden that can barely run at all is not an ideal scenario. But, hey, I think I've built the rest of the ticket in a reassuring way, and if I didn't think so, I'd probably back away from the play. What that probably means is that I go two for five with my single and my ALL, but that's why I'm posting here instead of driving 50 miles out of my way to actually bet these damn tickets at the OTB in a state that won't let me piss away my money on crazy tickets using the internet.

[johnhannibalsmith]

Race number two, the second of the pick 4, went well enough. A couple in the inside half of the gate took a lot of action and one of which actually stayed on for second, but it was the outside half that got the job done and then rounded out the trifecta and superfecta. Even my crazy maiden longshot threatened for a bit and tried to hold on for second, but ended up fourth.

This leg three I hated so much is scaring me because the tote action suggests what I feared - there really isn't anything in here. The badly off-form Ziraili has been battling with the consistent, but uninspiring entry for favoritism. On the plus side, my first timer that I tossed in is taking some action, which makes me a little happy - but what I don't like as much as anything is that some of the P3 will pays after the quarterhorse madness were ginormous and as usual, I'm betting hypothetically.

[lamboguy]

TUP


4-5

8-7


sorry the 7 is scratched in the 8th race

[johnhannibalsmith]

The maiden race, leg three, ran as advertised. The second timer, M/L fave, dueled with my FTS selection and the entry chugged along just in behing. The best horse in the race at one point, Ziraili, made a big middle move and then fell apart. My FTS looked like a sure thing for second to the eighth, and then just collapsed, lending a wee bit more insight into a dead-ish rail as she ran at the fence throughout. Of course, she also probably came up short, but they weren't exactly flying home.

Unfortunately, if what I heard from the speakers while I was in pissing is accurate, I would have done better to play the pick 3 even if the inside horse wins here in leg four. Now, should Scherzi, longest shot by a mile, get there- I'm sure I wouldn't be thinking that way - but I *think* I heard that the $1 pick 3 paid around $300 bananas, which right now, I'd be more than happy to take since the .50 P4 is paying around $120 with the uno.

[johnhannibalsmith]

TUP


4-5

8-7


sorry the 7 is scratched in the 8th race

One thing is for sure, your pick here can be plenty fun to watch. Bizatch is rrrrrrrapid over this track.

[castaway01]

Though no one else probably does, I (financially) miss the days of Keith Bennett and Troy Bainum. I hit one double with a Bainum horse that was 15-1 ML, closed up the rail to win where I probably scooped half the pool and it put me ahead for the year. Later I realized I didn't invest my money prudently, but at the time, hey, me and my wallet were happy. (Note: Not a redboard because it was a dumb bet, just mentioning it because it was one of my biggest bets ever and it was at Turf Paradise when Bainum off the claim won everything).

I'm more of a Sunland fan now.

[lamboguy]

Bainum is still there, you just don't see his name in print.

[johnhannibalsmith]

Laf... Now that's more like it - play the pick 4, the pick 3 hits for double what the pick 4 is worth if the same money is invested - and then run a fast closing second with my bomb pick, third with the fave, my other pick, and watch Lambo swoop in and call the winner at 5MTP (who I just can't bet anymore at almost any price)...

:ThmbUp: :ThmbUp: Good job Lambo, hope you made something ... damn .50 P4 was a lofty $412 even with her paying just $4.80.

[johnhannibalsmith]

Bainum is still there, you just don't see his name in print.

Troy is an agent, dad hasn't been around the track for a while.

[lamboguy]

Troy is an agent, dad hasn't been around the track for a while.he had 3 riders last year, Tammy Pamierini, Tyler Kaplan and i forgot who the other one was. he trained a few horses too and wasn't listed.

[lamboguy]

Laf... Now that's more like it - play the pick 4, the pick 3 hits for double what the pick 4 is worth if the same money is invested - and then run a fast closing second with my bomb pick, third with the fave, my other pick, and watch Lambo swoop in and call the winner at 5MTP (who I just can't bet anymore at almost any price)...

:ThmbUp: :ThmbUp: Good job Lambo, hope you made something ... damn .50 P4 was a lofty $412 even with her paying just $4.80.i just bet it to win, i have already bet about 76 races today and i don't think i am half way there. i have been betting since 9:30 this morning.

i just missed the second horse in the 9th at Keeneland. he ran third @99-1

[johnhannibalsmith]

Well, it's tough enough to come with a sorry POS for a single in an AZbred maiden race - and then you actually get a good spot early over the track out off the fence and just behind the pace and some chowderhead has to run you completely off the racetrack en route to getting DQ'ed.

Ugh. I never mind having a good excuse for why I was wrong, but up until that happened, I actually was thinking good thoughts about my chances. Brutal way to get stuffed.

Of course, had everything went perfectly, I'd be bitching about how I totally misjudged the final odds and should have been in the win pool on my single instead of the pick pool.

[johnhannibalsmith]

Spontanteous call for a R7 $20 exacta 2-3, $10 exacta 3-2... be a bad gambler and make up for that atrocity.

[johnhannibalsmith]

Well that went about as well as a spontaneous, make up for it bet, usually does. Friggin' Flashy Prize was about the best looking winner yet in two days... a romping workout.

[johnhannibalsmith]

With 4MTP in race nine, I will have missed by one again - my poor single that got mucked out by the DQ'ed horse in leg two. With three in a row before collecting scraps in leg four of the early play and a single that railroaded for the only loss in the late play - I'm going to only take it as a mildly awful first day of pontification. A few decent idea were kicked around in there - race eight could have worked out especially well if I had honed in there - but alas, getting fit off the layoff can take some time and you gotta get a race in you most of the time. Here's to better cards and better plays in the future.

[johnhannibalsmith]

Most semi-normal humans that may be so bored or insistent on betting on something that they would look to the early part of the TuP Sunday card are probably not even brave enough, or dumb enough, to tinker with what's on tap for the first four or so today.

Yeeehah! Four trials for the ever-exciting quarterhorse maiden stakes! Yes, you heard right, three-year-olds, six-year-olds, filles, studs, mares, the only thing these superhorses have in common is an extreme aversion to winning. Four maiden races featuring the best of the worst maidens vying for a spot in the finals to face the elite best of the worst maidens.

How can you pass up pick bets on these gems?

Ordinarily, you can look at the trials for this series and make a morning line for the finals, usually spotting two out of the thirty or so that look like they'll be 7-5 and 2-1 in the finals they are such standouts. They tend to be shippers that have been running okay at Los Alamitos or somewhere in New Mexico other than Albuquerque against what are by default better maidens.

This season's edition is really a sorry hodgepodge - even the shippers are either "0 fer" types that may be cracking the super at Los Al, but are still winless through double digit starts, or they made ONE start against much better and got thoroughly dismantled.

I'm going to make an effort at separating the awful from the dreadful in such a way that a guy or gal might be able to assemble some kind of ticket. Without a single thoroughbred race in the early pick four, and the fact that it is Sunday, I'm leery of that pool - I'm not sure you can assemble a ticket and get fair value unless you really love a couple of singles that will be decent prices and keep the ticket in the sub-$36 range.

Race 1: I won't waste time telling you how much the entire field sucks, because then I'll be obligated to do so again three more times in the next three races. Just know that it does and so do the others. This race in particular I found almost impossible to find clear division in potential among the field - but I concluded that the winner seems most likely to come from the outside four. Five-year-old I Owe Silver is at least intriguing off of a two-year-layoff - been destroyed in two career starts, but at least took action in his Zia Park debut. It's something. Molen Road figures to get bet and has some decent form, but there's just no confidence factor in applying form from White Pine, Elko, and Sandy Downs to even a bad spot like this. If the horse figured to be 6-1 or something, you could maybe have a bit more faith, but not at the likelier price of 3-1 or lower. The other two I tossed in on the merits of limited attempts, one and three career starts respectively, and the fact that they were in New Mexico, presumably against much better.

Race 2: Here I use the 1, 3, 5, 8 - The rail horse has been at RUI facing FUT trials and did manage a third in the debut there. That alone would rank the filly as a possible single, but I'm still leery of limiting tickets to inside draws after a couple of days with what appears to be a bit of a dead rail. The three enters with decent Los Al form, but is 0 for 14 - ordinarily a short-priced toss for me on the record angle, but here, the fact that he can run straight might be enough by default. The 5, JM Blue Light is a FTS, a Judd Morse bred, which makes him a must use for me and probably those that recall that small outfit racing here in the past and generally with much success. Two decent works, and the father/son, trainer/jock combo of Raul and Raul Valenzuela team up. Shameless Shah gets included for more the intangibles - good trainer, good old local jock, the outside draw - but also has a handful of decent races in the resume. It won't take much here and some of the better races should have him in the super, at a minimum.

Race 3: We'll start to narrow a bit beginning here, but only out of necessity, because it isn't like things get a lot more clear. #1 Checkthisbeduino is an auto-use just because it comes from Los Al, but again, another with a double digit chances and this one makes only the second start off a pretty long break. Factor in the rail draw and you just have to keep digging. #3 News Prince is the longest price on the M/L at 15-1, but with just three starts to his credit, including a pair of trials, I'll give him a wee benefit of the doubt. Considering he took a hint of action for his debut and has had trouble here ant there, at the price, the upside compels me to give him a chance. #6 El Chuyito is a bit like Checkthisbeduino - the difference being that this one has been banging out checks other than win checks in the lesser company here in Arizona. Still, the fact that he can at least get close and knows what he's doing - plus the outside half draw - makes it hard to just ignore him. Add in a top local jock and a damn good local trainer, I guess you sort of need him in a race like this.

Race 4: #2 Trippy's Cartel is that horse that in last year's edition of this series fit that stereotype that I mentioned of being one of just a couple that looked certain to be among the potential winners of the finals. A limited resume of decent races at Los Al - then ships here to face these bums - but this one got DESTROYED at the start in the trials at 1-2 and never even made the finals. Of course, he ran three more times, once here, and twice at Los Al since, and it hasn't gotten much better. Still, not only is this a bad group overall, but this trial in particular is dreadful. Probably odds-on here anyway. #4 Shakeyourbuds is for me the most logical upset chance in here as though his form has tailed off some, his early races are actually very good - in fact the debut second behind perhaps the best quarter horse in training in AZ - Black N Tackle - is a standout type performance. Hard to know where this gelding is at nowadays in terms of physicality and whatnot, but there is some talent here. I'm also tossing in another monster bomb here - #6 Lionell. Lionell has run four times and ran as close to last in each as you can run without actually finishing last. Here's the thing about him - he was in CO, IOWA, OKL at that time last year, and I don't think he was quite ready for racing. He's a big, big colt that looks like he's going to find his niche around the hook - like his big brother did - the monster Leo Beaudash. Yeah, if you love 870, you probably remember that old hard knocker that banged out about $200k the hard way, primarily in claimers - this is a fully brother, so I'm willing to give him a bit of a chance off a break, another period of maturity, and in such a horrible field - considering he should be 20-1.

Okay, running out of time - just 28MTP race #1 -

The play:

I'm going to give out some pick 3s, plus a pick4, but I am personally too leery of pool size and the likelihood of not having something go completely goofy in at least one of these pigfest races. I'm not sure I could justify the pick 4 ticket myself, but with a .50 pick 3, I kind of like the idea of trying to roll those along

R1: .50 P3 - 5,6,7,8 - 1,3,5,8 - 1,3,6 = $24
R2: .50 P3 - 1,3,5,8 - 1,3,6 - 2,4,6 = $18
R3: $1 P3 - 1,3,6 - 2,4,6 - 1,2,4 = $27

And the P4 would look like this obviously:

R1: .50 P4 - 5,6,7,8 - 1,3,5,8 - 1,3,6 - 2,4,6 = $72 ... but again, my personal opinion is that the ticket it is easily twice the cost of what a pick four ticket would need to be for it to represent any value - IF it even connected. Hard to be too certain of pool size on a Sunday at TuP, but considering I try not to get much over $50 ordinarily, a sequence of all QH races leads me to believe that my guideline for max cost would be adjusted downward.

Arriba!

[johnhannibalsmith]

As soon as I posted, I finally noticed the changes and that my five had been scratched. I also noticed that FTS #2 was actually getting bet. I contemplated noting it and mentioning the ticket could be bought for less... but alas, figured I had a chance of doubling up with one I had or picking up one I didn't... pretty sure the pick rule in AZ still makes me a winner... :D

[johnhannibalsmith]

The winner of the second got crushed late down to 5-2, but going to think he plays as a bit of a longer price in our pick pools. Man, these races look worse being run than they do on paper.

...#3 News Prince is the longest price on the M/L at 15-1, but with just three starts to his credit, including a pair of trials, I'll give him a wee benefit of the doubt. Considering he took a hint of action for his debut and has had trouble here ant there, at the price, the upside compels me to give him a chance

Just won by about a half dozen... laf... as I'm typing all this gibberish below... that's nice, I suppose

Anyway... I'm still trying to figure out why Turf decided that along with rolling doubles, rolling pick 3s (now .50 cent), an early and a late .50 pick 4, AND a .50 late pick 5... why, oh why, did it seem logical to add a $1 pick 6 into the middle of all of that? They had a lowered take on the P5 last season on non-carryovers, and actually had some useful pools... surely they didn't think the Pick6 would be a big attraction...

Now here this, now here this - the two-day Pick SIX carryover for today's card at Turf is.... around $700... :lol: :lol: ... yeppers... So, what does that mean for today's pool?

I don't know - maybe it hits $1500 with a little over $1100 I would imagine up for grabs. But... this is kind of a sort of card where you can put together a pretty small ticket and actually have a fighting chance at having just one or two other players still along at the end if you can make it on a small ticket. There are a bunch of likely short priced horses that look ridiculously logical today and only a couple of races that are even worth considering playing in my opinion - so if you can play a parlay type ticket with a herd of odds-on winners possible - and still get 5-1 or better possibly on an investment in the $40 neighborhood... is it plausible?

I don't know, I'm not much of a pick 6 player and would have never figured to play one into some crapass threeday $1000 pool in races filled with turtles... but, I'll always try something once as an experiment... especially when I'm in hypo-land.

Race 4: Last leg of my quarterhorse bonanza - rough way to start out - but that's just one reason to keep it fairly small... stick with Trippy Cartel (2) and Shakeyourbuds (4)... anyone serious about connecting for this pool probably goes deeper... let them... we're going light and going to try to use one TB race later on to divvy up live tickets.

Race 5: I used three horses in this 2yo. TB MSW/Ocl for my early plays and I don't want to waste money going deeper, but can't really trim either. I like my chance with these three... sort of.

Race 6: #5 Ballistic Blonde - His Holiness is back with 1-9 shots in six horse fields. All hail the ruination of TuP mutuels.

Race 7: Using two here - could go a little farther, but need to stay obvious enough in this leg - His Holiness with the 4 and the remaining part of SuperMiguel's entry - two short priced horses to figure out how to possibly play.

Race 8: Going to get a little creative here and use four, leaning towards a couple that generally win here eventually and a couple that are a bit new to the scene - 1,2,3,6 - If I'm undone here, it will be courtesy of Oconee I presume - speedy and prefers to run fresh... just a pet peeve of mine to use him.

Race 9: I could use a few here if I thought the pool would be at least a couple grand, but as it is, I'll just single His Holiness with the 4 - not the type I like to single, but until proven otherwise, or until February rolls around, you might as well just assume he'll get there with these types.

The ticket...

Race 4: $1 Pick6 2,4 / 1,2,4 / 5 / 1,4 / 1,2,3,5 / 4 = $48

What the hell, looks like our early pick plays are doing okay, might as well have a little fun.

[johnhannibalsmith]

...have to wait for EQB to post pools to know what it was worth,...

$787 worth of tickets. I'm not into math at the moment, so I'll just call it a $550 winning pick 3 ticket. That sounds about plausible.

[johnhannibalsmith]

Damn it, I edited my last post instead of quoting it... :lol:

Well, it said that my winning pick 3 paid on 2 out 3, meaning that not only do I not rush out to the OTB to play my tickets, but neither do you. Good for you, I actually found it reassuring that nobody hit it. :cool:

[johnhannibalsmith]

Well hell, how do you play an AZ bred FTS named El Thepoopass or some such thing? In honesty, probably all FTS should have been covered in these ho-ho-rrrrendous races, but the two that did win wouldn't have been easy for me to include unless I was betting into weekday pools. Valiant efforts by my two longshot plays, meanwhile, the narrow favorite #2, just simply cannot or will not, run at all.

That means I'm already rooting for a three-day $1000 pick 6 carryover?!?!?! Well... we may need to just see about that pick 5 now.

[johnhannibalsmith]

...we may need to just see about that pick 5 now.

Okay, after giving this a TREMENDOUS amount of careful consideration - screw it all, I'm diving into the pick 5 pool with essentially my pick 6 ticket (let's go 5 outta 6, yipppee) - but with Oconee (I feel dirty) added to race 8 and two added to race 9.

Race 9 will see us trying to beat the His Holiness devotees now with two options. Unknown Sea got obliterated as the favorite in his last race at ARP, but nothing went right for him and things need to go right for him - he wants to be a bit in the clear, and prefers to be outside - which is tough for him from the 2 hole, but at 6 1/2 perhaps Bridges can figure something out. Both of his second place finishes at ARP are good races - both winners came back to win, B Team being most impressive stepping well up off of that win.

I'm going to use the Baze starter too since I thought his maiden ran pretty well in victory yesterday and has a bit of a similar look in terms of timing and training. He's not much, but he could pick up pieces and manage a win if things collapse which I think they will. I was very interested to hear track announcer Chamberlain declare #10 Koricancha his "play of the day" as part of his pick 5 - I thought hard on this one, but I'm just going to assume he blasts to the lead and collapses, badly in need of a race.

The ticket: R5 .50 pick 5 - 1,2,4 / 5 / 1,4 / 1,2,3,5,7 / 2,4,8 = $45

[johnhannibalsmith]

Well, heck... made it to leg 5 with all three nice prices... and got run over by a horse that made my short list on running style, trainer, and win over the track... but was waaaaaay too off-form to make the cut with only three... Well, that's okay... we're still just getting fit and nobody reads this anyway... I'm still marking down a two-day win so far on the merit of my non-existent pool shot in the early pick 3.

[johnhannibalsmith]

Just got around to watching replays and looking at charts and turns out we actually made money on the pick 5... 4 out of 5 paid $16.25 and change... :lol: God bless good ole' TuP... a $3.75 profit on a losing ticket.

[fmhealth]

Mr Smith, I enjoy your TUP commentary. Well done. Just one thought, wouldn't it be easier to simply play all the CBY shippers?

They're winning at about a 30% clip with an ROI hovering in the 300% range.

Continued success!

fmhealth

[HuggingTheRail]

Hastings ends next week, and I know several trainers are heading down - should help the field sizes, and the group that went down last year did quite well.

[johnhannibalsmith]

Mr Smith, I enjoy your TUP commentary. Well done. Just one thought, wouldn't it be easier to simply play all the CBY shippers?

...

I try my best to sort of try to take a look at a full card with at least some opinion on each race, while also coming with some kind of wagering strategy that accomodates the overall opinion of the card and races. Of course, I just have a lot of free time to mess around in the afternoon these days and watch TuP almost exclusively, so this thread (and its predecessors) sort of forces me to not just watch, but to make mistakes in the wide open, which allows me to better scrutinize my own play for when I do begin to play a bit more often. I try to keep it somewhat lighthearted and readily admit that because I can't usually get bets in, I rarely actually play what I post. I do note those occassions when I've been to town and managed to hit the OTB and post my actual tickets (at least the ones I'm not already ashamed of).

My handicapping and wagering has changed dramatically over the years, to today, where I find myself fighting against pool size and field size and to some degree, my old conventional styles, to find strategies that are more exploitative of short-term trends or that contravert long-term supposition. I do try to make the thread more about the commentary, for better or for worse, than about the picks themselves - in the hope that I can improve my actual approach to arriving at the picks if it's failing - or improve the plays that result themselves if the commentary is sound but the plays are flawed. As a long time win bettor, then exacta bettor - you'll find I spend a lot of time worrying about pool sizes and tote value - just trying to get to a point where after a winning play, I'm not bemoaning being in the wrong pool.

Turf Paradise has become the sort of track, at least for me, where you really need to make use of the menu and to some degree handicap the action itself to find out where you need to be in that menu.

As to your direct question - it appears at the moment to be a pretty sound strategy, buoyed by a few big prices that have connected - the 30% you quote doesn't surprise me considering they are fit and come from traditionally effective barns and many of the horses left here in May with success established at TuP - but the 300% ROI is pretty wild through three days. As noted somewhere in this mess of a couple pages, I'm usually slow to engage with much money the first week or so because the track plays a little funny somehow each year and you see a lot of horses that benefit from a race over the surface. That's one of the reasons why I've been pimping the QH action - the vulnerables seem more glaring to this point - and my real action tends to center around horse specific spot plays or races I deem wide open on the merit of an ultra-vulnerable favorite. Both scenarios are a bit tough to uncover this early in the meet, but this exercise in babbling tends to get me more engaged in identifying those in the future.

I love input and criticisms. I know very few people give a rat's ass about TuP and fewer care to read long diatribes about TuP. But when I'm either out-of-betting-shape or just plain off-betting-form, nothing helps my game more than putting it down in the open and being able to go back and wonder what the hell I was thinking when I arrived at a particular conclusion or betting approach. :D

[johnhannibalsmith]

Hastings ends next week, and I know several trainers are heading down - should help the field sizes, and the group that went down last year did quite well.

Just tell me Richard Hamel is on one of the vans! :)

[johnhannibalsmith]

Speaking of which, I'm running well behind... 22MTP right now and surely I have something to ramble about.

Another day of short fields for the most part, which makes it hard to get too jazzed about any one or two particular races - but at least we begin with what appears to me to be a quarterhorse race that could be anyone's to win. Looking at the tote, now there is actually an 8-5 shot that is 12-1 on the M/L and a 2-1 that is a lot easier to comprehend, but suffice it to say, neither looks even close to worthy at those prices. Tuaca N Smoke, though jumping a condition, probably actually has faced the best by a margin in here over the span of a fairly brief career - but it's tough to figure he's quite the same as he was as a juvenile. Still, he's 11-1 right now, which makes my gut instinct to cover this field seeming more prudent than I originally thought.

Race 2 is an odd bunch of six AZ bred non-twos, odd because the four and a half furlong distance suddenly seems to move a couple up in the pecking order and move a couple that I think are simply a little better than the others down. My big problem is with the rail draw of Zhorsez (pronounced Z horse Z, not shorshez, Mr. Silverman), a lightly raced gelding that I could have made a single were he drawn outside and going farther. As it is, I'm still partial to him, but while I don't want to go deep in a race like this and get too invested, I have to include another that summered at ARP - Tribal Talker. Tribal Talker should LOVE the distance - though he isn't blistering fast, he can't breathe. I'm not sure that going back to this barn is ideal, but he did draw outside and Von Rosen will almost certainly just let him boogie and not get cute. I could make a case for each of the other four, but I'm wanting light tickets for these early snail races.

Race 3 is again run at that horrendous four and a half furlong distance, but in here - you have a few that would seem to just stand out at the distance. I'm not going to include Estancia on my slim pick 4, against my better judgment, but again, I want to stick with just two in that wager, but I will use him in a pick 3. The obvious play here is the very rapid Cuvee's Choice, who should relish this absurd distance - but I'm just a wee bit concerned that he's short, and he looks for a reason to lay down badly in the lane when he's dead fit. Also making the cut, tepidly, is Don't Stop Riding - who is just intriguing - probably want to go farther, but has just enough speed to be close enough to get first run and hold on if the pace dissolves. I hate to leave Sorullo off my ticket because he is fast and does have more ability than he leads on, but aside from having to draw a line somewhere - his past exploits at bolting on the turn have soured me forever, and that fact alone is one reason why I refused to single the race in the event that he causes chaos in the corner.

Race 4 - Gotta move quick - 10MTP race 1 - Just playing a small pick 4 and so I'm going to single #1 Countryboysroll. I think he's fair value in the pick pool, with two likely shorter prices and I'm not any more a fan of those two than I am of this one - has shown a willingness to finish well, should have plenty of stopping pace to run at, and I'm willing to bet that even though he draws the fence, Bridges has him at least four wide on the turn.

R1: .50 P3 Pick 3 - ALL / 1,6 / 2,3,5 = $21
R1: $1 P3 ALL / 1,6 / 3,5 = $28
R1:.50 P4 ALL / 1,6 / 3,5 / 1 = $14

Crap... 4MTP... almost got shut out of typing...

[johnhannibalsmith]

A crying shame that Tuaca N Smoke walks out of the gate a length behind and then only misses by 3/4... I'm going with the theory that if he break with the field he probably gets it done. Still, even though the photo went to the post-time fave, that same horse was actually the longest shot on the M/L... no telling how that translates to the P3 and P4, but I suspect the fact that this horse did get played the way he did scared enough other players to do as I did and contribute more to the pool than originally planned with excessive coverage of that race.

If you play QH races and put a premium on speed index, I think you can upgrade the figure earned by Tuaca and Smoke to match that of the winner for future reference. If you find yourself playing trouble lines and company, I wouldn't take too short a price on him if he drops back into his ideal condition unless it is as terrible a bunch as that N3L was.

[johnhannibalsmith]

We have three day $1 pick6 carryover of $851 :lol: and a one-day .50 pick5 carryover of $3,600 and change today. I think I'll pass on the P6 for obvious reasons but also because the P5 is actually tougher than it looks. With a steady dose of seven horse fields, it wouldn't seem all that tought on most days to assemble either a very cheap ticket with a decent chance or a bulky ticket that seemed tough to miss, but lacking in ROI potential.

Today's sequence has a few races that are somewhat easy to pare down to a couple of top contenders, but I find myself wanting to use five in practically every other leg - the races actually don't have much separation - in some cases because every horse is pretty awful and in some because every horse in the field has a legit chance and actually likes to win.

Race 5 was just a brutal exercise for me because it surely looks as though Temple of Gold will probably be not only the most likely winner, but most likely to get bet like a most likely winner. Yeah, his finishes are pretty dreary, but those that clear off to an easy lead even on the bottom in So. Cal. and maintain it until the top of the lane tend to look pretty darn good when they meander over to this concrete race track. The problem I have, aside from possible value, is that the track hasn't quite settled in to being it's traditional speed carrying self from my perspective after a few days. The winning move more or less more closely resembles the bias you occassionally see at TuP after heavy rains and days of sealing, where winners are winding up from a little bit off the pace and rallying mid-track from the turn to the wire.

While I wish I could hammer out an early single and will probably rue the moment I made this choice, I'm going to instead play contrarian and HOPE he's hammered in the opening leg and gets run over by someone else... the problem is... by whom? I'm not quite dumb enough to just toss him entirely, but I'm going to lead in pretty deep with four others that I think one of which may improve enough to get there. Bitethebulitsuper has a dreadful looking form, but going back to his debut here last season in a MOCl - he was sent off as the heavy favorite - and since has just been in a lot tougher. Yard Dog gets included just because he too has been facing tougher, though thoroughly ineffectively, and hails from a barn that I revel in dismissing when it looks like it should win. Airborne Mark has just a lone debut at Pomona to his credit; it was bad, but hardly something you can hold against him in a spot like this, and trainer Jeff Faulkner is someone I always give a second look towards. Might as well toss in the other two outside for most of the same reasons already mentioned - obvious class relief being primary.

Race 6 drags us back into the four and a half realm... must be easy to fill these lousy races when you are still taking entries at two in the afternoon... And what a group we have here - some of the niftiest old three-leggers on the backside, including a couple of new shooters to the gimpy sprinty roster. Again, it's hard to know where to draw the line in here. Bold Essence has no shot barring a major calamity. Bob Jila - this is his distance and his track, but he's burned more money in the last half a year than any horse I can think of. He's on auto-toss until he beats me again. Melo isn't bad, but he hasn't won in two and a half years and isn't like he hasn't a few chances. Warren's Blvd. will like the distance and fires fresh, but man oh man, I have to narrow this down and I can't be caught inflating a ticket with the likes of Warren's Blvd. at this point in the meet. So, I'm stuck with three - Albacore Bob, who as a 2yo. was hyped up as the second coming of Zip Pocket and has since drifted into relative obscurity. Me Salty looks like your typical Molly Pearson claim - we just didn't waste the usual time getting one that was running for $20k a few starts ago in California straight to the bottom - obviously the best of the bunch, but this doesn't appear to be a long-term investment. And I guess we have to use good old Western Twist. Wacky bunch of suckers here.

Race 7 is a pretty lame field of six bottom non-three fillies. I'm dismissing the M/L favorite Zosensual but conceding that she probably hits the board... probably most likely to hit the board, but fillies that lack a nose for the wire just turn me off. I'll stick Ms Manana off of a few decent races at CBY and Lostinthemoment off of good races in Iowa and most recently at Columbus. This really is a pretty sorry field, and on another day, I'd be itching to spread out and use at least four of these to feel safe.

Race 8 is where I single and this is where the idiots are separated from the super idiots. How do you single this race? Every mare in here, more or less, is a nice mare. They all have serious credentials and a few of them have massive credentials. Look at Darlin Ciana? She must be the single with all of those wins and big races in California, right? Nah. Oh okay, then it's Lucky High, who was a borderline monster here last year and has maintained her form at CBY most of the summer? Nah. The Los Al monster that has blazing speed and should love this short sprint? No, no, no. I'm singling Lil Dish. Yes, you read right, Lil Dish. She runs well fresh, she's honest, she's versatile - I had to single a leg - and this seemed like the least likely leg to single. It's a brazen, idiotic single, but there is some form to go on with this group unlike a few other races. The way races have been won so far at the meet - I just think that Lil Dish fits the profile as well or better than anyone - she isn't going to be a single on any other tickets - and give or take a length, she's as good as anything in here. The Los Al filly is fast, but she's never run here. Darlin Ciani is for real, but not only has she never run here, but most of her races are on synthetic. Lucky High... well... wish I could justify it... but, if I have to single, and I have to use one or the other... uggghhh... my brain points both ways, but my gut and financial advisor steer me to Lil Dish.

Race 9 is the race that at first glance I thought that I would get to single. Usually in a race like this I can come with a strong opinion, especially when you get to the six and a half distance where you can more concisely envision the way the race will run... but this is just a bloody mess here. I guess that Clay W. Woodstock HAS to try for the lead again since there isn't anyone else that really wants the lead, but I don't really think he's best doing that, and frankly, I just don't think he's at his best. The others? I mean, you've got horses that won awful feedbag (non 1-2-3) races last season, junkers that have been kicking around in this condition for years and years, off-form, no speed, no kick... just a miserable bunch to decipher here. So this is how I ended up singling Lil Dish - I had to switch from using four in the previous race to covering five in here and using just one in there.

Here's the ticket - albeit a very skeptical ticket that needs a hail mary single - but it should be a pretty darn good pool to play into:

R5. .50 P5 - 1,4,5,6,7 / 2,4,6 / 2,6 / 6 / 1,2,3,4,7 = $75

I won't lie - if I was down there and playing and had connected by now, I'd probably talk myself into doubling the size and including the aforementioned Lucky High. But, I'm a bad gambler. Bad, bad, gambler, easily persuaded by whims.

[johnhannibalsmith]

...

R1: .50 P3 Pick 3 - ALL / 1,6 / 2,3,5 = $21
R1: $1 P3 ALL / 1,6 / 3,5 = $28
R1:.50 P4 ALL / 1,6 / 3,5 / 1 = $14

...

Well, I guess I should have either let it go entirely or expanded that Pick 4 a bit since it paid well with an obvious toss in with a four deep type ticket - about 5-2 on the cost - but we got one thing right - the two favorites got NADA.

The pick 3 wasn't much, but kicked back $51.45 with the fave winning the ALL spread doing me in. The P4 decision was obviously misguided - it could have put me nicely ahead if I went the other direction, but instead insisting on playing and doing so mildly put me behind slightly.

[johnhannibalsmith]

Dang, just noticed that Chamberlain and I have nearly identical P5 tickets, but he's gonna smack me around by singling Lucky High and narrowing down the finale a bit. Hmmmmm... can I get a redo? :lol:

[johnhannibalsmith]

...While I wish I could hammer out an early single and will probably rue the moment I made this choice, I'm going to instead play contrarian and HOPE he's hammered in the opening leg and gets run over by someone else.....

Well, needless to say on the eve of my single in this deep 8th race, I'm wishing that I had in fact just singled the winner of the first leg... but quite honestly, up and until the sixteenth pole, I was feeling fairly bright for not doing so, so I won't beat myself up over it too much... until after this race...

So there's 9MTP for this eighth, and my single here is the longest shot on the board at 14-1. Now, I know I took a bit of a wild swing looking for a "lone ticket" type single, but 14-1 is way out of line in my opinion.

Were I at the track, I'd certainly think about a small win bet, maybe even win-place. Furthermore, I'd think strongly about exacta, tri, and even a super play with my "other" horse in here, Lucky High, still lingering at 7-2.

Let's try this for fun, since by the time I hit submit it will be too late for anyone to blame me for leading them astray...

$20 WP #6 = $40
$5 exacta box 2,6 with 2,4,6 = $40
$1 tri 2,6 with 2,6 with all = $10
$1 tri 26 with all with 2,6 = $10
.50 super 2,6 with 2,6 with all with all = $20
.50 super 2,6 with all with 2,6 with all = $20

A little exorbitant of an outlay all things considered, but I'm still taking a bit of a stand against the 4 and 7, the only other 2 getting action (3-1 and 9-5 respectively) in their first start over the track and if I can be even mildly right with my top two and the other two tank out of it completely -- this could be easy pickings without NEEDING a particular outcome.

[johnhannibalsmith]

Well lookee there... Lil Dish!!

But she got crushed in the last few down to 6-1 and though the 4 and 7 DID in fact get NADA... it was that dang Lucky High that cost me by running up the track...

So, my little scheme at getting rich off of Lil Dish in exotics did nothing but eat up my Win/Place money... DOH!

Well, $230 for the W/P wager still just about has me near ahead for the day with a 5 out 5 on the near horizon... oh boy... guess I better bet $3 win on the 2 I left out... :lol:

[johnhannibalsmith]

...R5. .50 P5 - 1,4,5,6,7 / 2,4,6 / 2,6 / 6 / 1,2,3,4,7 = $75

...

For a split second thought I might get paid twice, but alas, the uno wins the bob in the finale and the ticket...even with that sorry 3-5 winner in leg one... comes back a pretty healthy $570.70

And someone hit the pick 6 today! :jump: :jump: :lol:

[johnhannibalsmith]

Goodnight. Goodnight.

[HuggingTheRail]

Just tell me Richard Hamel is on one of the vans! :)

Rumour, or rumor, is that yes, Hamel is going to make his way down there. He took a couple of months off in mid season for knee surgery, and came back a couple of months ago.

[fmhealth]

Nice 'cappin today Mr. Smith. Rail, your Hastings insights are very much appreciated. One starter today, one winner!!

[bigmack]

Two more chapters and we MAYbe looking at a deal.

Regards,

Paul Simon & Sheldon Shyster.
Simon & Shyster Publicking

http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u70/macktime/JHScov2.jpg

[johnhannibalsmith]

Two more chapters and we may looking at a deal.

...

:lol: :lol:

In the words of Rabbi Mackalackenstein: Scram.

In the words of DaHoss: Retreat back south of the border where you belong.

:lol: :lol:

[johnhannibalsmith]

Rumour, or rumor, is that yes, Hamel is going to make his way down there. He took a couple of months off in mid season for knee surgery, and came back a couple of months ago.

Good to hear... I heard that he had been out and wasn't sure if he was returning again.

[johnhannibalsmith]

Nice 'cappin today Mr. Smith. Rail, your Hastings insights are very much appreciated. One starter today, one winner!!

Thank you sir. I really only liked the one race... it was a bit of a challenge trying to cover the card on the merits of one play that I had no idea how to play because she could have been 15-1 or 5-2 at post time... couldn't really predict how the Willie Whitehouse claim or the Kenny McReynolds acquisition would get bet in there.

[johnhannibalsmith]

Quarters for the first and I'm way late today...

Looking at prices, I'm thinking a little $10 W/P #7...

[johnhannibalsmith]

Quarters for the first and I'm way late today...

Looking at prices, I'm thinking a little $10 W/P #7...

Well, that was the highlight of the first four races... kind of funny/entertaining... Hector/Jorge Alderete/Aldrete has the nine move in towards him... so he hits his horse right handed for some reason... mucks out half the field inside of him... so he lodges and objection against the nine, and the stewards decide to have an inquiry of their own and he ends up getting taken down... :D ... QH racing at TuP... just one big mess you can bet on...

Anyway, I guess the race I sort of like today is the opening leg of the .50 pick 5 - mainly because His Holiness is running Dunscombe right at them today for $4,000. Honestly, I've never thought a whole lot of Dunscombe, don't get me wrong, he's a nice horse - but he's always seemed a bit on the inflated side. The move way down to open $4,000 is a weird one with mixed signals. They write the non-winners since condition this time of year to coincide with the end of the meet at TuP last season and this guy hasn't won since back in March. If you're going to make a two race move from the $12,500-16,000-ish level towards the bottom in just two races - you'd think the ever-patient genius would take no prisoners and wait for the slam dunk condition even if he had to run for $3k instead of $4k.

But... one of the things that separates him from the lesser stock running horses at TuP - he generally runs them when they're ready to run. By that I mean, he's not nearly as inclined to run a horse that isn't quite ready or right just because the perfect condition happens to come around today. So, in a way, the fact that he didn't wait for the "right" race makes me think this one is probably dead ready to fire. That, or he's about all through, and he wants to spot him somewhere that isn't going to completely frighten the consumers. Then again, most of them too terrified to claim anything from him anyway, so...

I'm going to begin my pick 5 ticket with two others in addition to Dunscombe, because I'm going to assume that he's odds-on and thus, as the opening leg, accounts for a hefty number of singles in that leg. Raton Pass is badly off-form, but is, or was, a nice horse that has been successful here against better rivals. Katie's Dan is just on top of his game right now. More than anybody else, he's just plain sharp.

Race six is a leg that I'd like to use more than my two, but I'm going to scale back my opinion of Golden Lioness because she likes to hug the fence and likes to be on the pace. Yes, at four and a half, that may be a-okay, but I'm committed to a ticket under $50 with the short fields today, and so I just have to downgrade her because of style in light of the profile for winners over the surface. I'll use Showstopper Ella, who I think can sit a trip right behind and pounce and the likely favorite, R Sweet Valentine, who I'm skeptical of in general - but again, should be in a good spot throughout.

Race seven - His Holiness shows up with one that's been part of the super in each of four starts at HOL, PLN, and SR - and given the look of the rest of the field - that really ought to be good enough. The Magical Miguel Silva runners is probably the only other one that takes any real action and heads up between the two, I think Teslar is the proper and obvious single on the card.

Race eight - open $3200 sprinting mares scratches down to five, with four of those in with a fighting shot in a race where I lean this and that way, unable to feel comfortable omitting any of the four. I've been pretty conservative thus far on a day when the pool should be at least respectable, so if I beat Dunscombe in the opening leg, I'm going to feel silly if I slice it by one to save a few beans and cost myself a 5-1 or so proposition.

Race nine - More total crap. Non-two fillies going the dreary four and a half furlong distance and because of the distance, I'm going to use four here in an effort to get past the tickets that single His Holiness' charge in here. There are a few decent fillies in here- well, they were decent for a race or two - like Sassy Sue and Jiminy Christmas - and you have the fairly honest Willie Whitehouse runner, Raging Wood (heh), that has made a career of decent efforts against decent horses. So, I think it's a pretty obvious choice to use a small handful here knowing that many will try to single the final leg and just gravitate towards His Holiness out of habit.

The ticket:

R5 .50 P5: 3,4,5 / 5,6 / 1 / 4,5,6,7 / 2,5,8,10 = $48

In race five, since my main approach to something more than a mildly profitable ticket is the possibility of beating Dunscombe - I'm going to suggest some small moves there with my other two.

$5 exacta box 4,5 with 3,4,5 = $40

At 8-1 or better, $10 win #5
At 6-1 or better, $10 win #4

[johnhannibalsmith]

...
Anyway, I guess the race I sort of like today is the opening leg of the .50 pick 5 - mainly because His Holiness is running Dunscombe right at them today for $4,000. Honestly, I've never thought a whole lot of Dunscombe...

I'm going to begin my pick 5 ticket with two others in addition to Dunscombe, because I'm going to assume that he's odds-on and thus, as the opening leg, accounts for a hefty number of singles in that leg. Raton Pass is badly off-form, but is, or was, a nice horse that has been successful here against better rivals. Katie's Dan is just on top of his game right now. More than anybody else, he's just plain sharp....

In race five, since my main approach to something more than a mildly profitable ticket is the possibility of beating Dunscombe - I'm going to suggest some small moves there with my other two.

$5 exacta box 4,5 with 3,4,5 = $40

At 8-1 or better, $10 win #5
At 6-1 or better, $10 win #4

Well, Dunscombe was odds-on and even Chamberlain's pick 5 single and he FLOPPED huge... never in the race and meandered up for third... the bad side is that for the purposes of the exacta play, it would have been nice to see him rally for second as Raton Pass did in fact get the job done. The other problem there is that he took some money late, so unless you were betting at a window and went up with a few MTP, you probably didn't bet him at 5-1 using my 8-1 or better criteria. Nope, I can't take credit for it, as much as I'm trying to insinuate that I should be allowed to... :lol:

Onwards and upwards with the pick 5 sans a healthy pile of the pool that singled Dunscombe.

[johnhannibalsmith]

...
Race six is a leg that I'd like to use more than my two, but I'm going to scale back my opinion of Golden Lioness because she likes to hug the fence and likes to be on the pace. Yes, at four and a half, that may be a-okay, but I'm committed to a ticket under $50 with the short fields today, and so I just have to downgrade her ...

Criminy... busted out by Golden Lioness after all... Grrrrrrrrrroar... :bang:

[lamboguy]

you had SHOWSTOPPER, whom i felt won worse races than this in Arapohoe. i follow Arapahoe, that's how i know. the next logical horse was the eventual winner.

[johnhannibalsmith]

you had SHOWSTOPPER, whom i felt won worse races than this in Arapohoe. i follow Arapahoe, that's how i know. the next logical horse was the eventual winner.

As opposed to the winner, who got beat in pretty bad races for the level at ARP?

(I was at ARP this summer, so I followed it pretty closely myself)

The winner, a filly that I love dearly - she's a sweetheart in every way, you'd love to be around her - tries her guts out, but has never run her best races unless she's been on the traditional "concrete" strip at TuP - and even at 4 1/2, the traditional bias just hasn't shown up yet race after race.

Showstopper Ella did not beat much at ARP, but she was tons the best in both of her wins. The race in which she got beat there, it was a tough race - the winner, Lady Contender, is a stone runner - tons the best of the fillies at ARP and would carkill a field like the one at TuP today. Ella's debut race here at TuP at the end of the meet was a great effort and showed that she not only could handle the surface, but was versatile.

Don't get me wrong - in hindsight I would have included Golden Lioness, but I probably would have just pitched the runner-up, not Showstopper Ella. The filly just didn't fire, which isn't terribly shocking. I had to trim somewhere - hell, looks like my single shit the bed anyway - and as much as I truly do love Golden Lioness and always root for her - it just didn't appear that she would have things her own way. When Ella didn't show up and the other filly broke badly and then tried to chase inside - there really wasn't any way she could lose. Honestly, I'm very happy for the mare and for Leonardo, and to a lesser extent, the jock. ;)

[lamboguy]

i didn't mind the single, i just remembered the races of SHOWSTOPPER ELLA, i bet her in one of those races and didn't think much of her.

i am 0/1 today and have no more bets there. i will be getting some pace numbers to look at by the 1st of the year, the numbers that i use won't have enough data before then to use, its going to be the first year that he is carrying Turf Paradise. i will be attacking this track then.

[johnhannibalsmith]

i didn't mind the single, i just remembered the races of SHOWSTOPPER ELLA, i bet her in one of those races and didn't think much of her.

i am 0/1 today and have no more bets there. i will be getting some pace numbers to look at by the 1st of the year, the numbers that i use won't have enough data before then to use, its going to be the first year that he is carrying Turf Paradise. i will be attacking this track then.

:ThmbUp: :ThmbUp:

Let's put this monologuey thread to good use and have you come with some opinions here if you're on board this season. Some of the best things I've learned, especially statistically based info that blows me away sometimes (ie. - His Holiness in Feb.), have come from other threads like this. I get one-tracked in how I approach things and often bring my own predispositions that cloud my perspective... I love another set of eyes to tell me why I'm smoking sweatsocks.

[johnhannibalsmith]

Well, I felt like crap on Friday and though I watched the card, I napped around the races and probably might as well have napped through them. I couldn't quite get into propping open my eyelids to dream up something positive to say about that card. Yesterday I made it down there to get destroyed in the first four races, bounce back above level ground in the middle part, and then sink myself again with an unfounded love for a horse in the last that puked.

I decided to go yesterday because that card looked slightly less horrific than the Friday and Sunday cards. As I've been looking and looking, going over charts for a spell now, I'm very hard pressed to find and specific horse on the card that looks like a good value play, nor an overwhelming favorite that I can stand firmly against, nor even a particular race that just jumps out as being overtly playable. The fields are all short again and the content within those short fields is fairly uninspiring.

Equibase still hasn't gotten changes from the office with about an hour until first post, so I'm going to start babbling now and by the time I wrap this up, hopefully they will be posted and I can put forth an accurate ticket as my only conceivable approach for the day thus far.

The card begins with three quarter horse stakes, the first being a hokey iteration of the Red Cell 870 Challenge. It's a five-horse gate with an even money favorite that was nothing more than a run-of-the-mill cheap bugger here for a long time. There's a maiden and then a trio of mediocrity that makes you grasp how Prince Bac could possibly be even money on the morning line.

From there, we have two ten horse fields - the John Deere Juvenile Challenge for two-year-olds and the Grade III BofA older horse Challenge stakes. Both of these two races are wonderful races, but what's really a turn-off is that Turf Paradise elected to run the trials a week before the official opening day of the meet. Even though they stream live video on the website, they elected to make the trials non-parimutuel and couldn't even bother to have video feed exported, making it a bit more of a crapshoot for someone like myself that puts a lot of emphasis on the observable part of the past performances.

The fourth race, closing leg of the pick four, is a non-two allowance for thoroughbreds going seven and a half on the turf. This particular race made my stammer through how to approach a play - do I single a likely single on a number of tickets? Do I follow my gut and use a quartet here and spend more trying to eliminate a number of tickets on a day when pool size won't be large, but a pool shot may be very plausible if just one likely favorite in the sequence disappoints. In the end, I decided to just press on with a larger investment overall, compensating with lesser duplicate tickets singling those that will devalue a will-pay and making use of the pick 3 pools in similar fashion.

The first race really tempts you to just single Prince Bac the more that you try to find a reason not to single him. I just can't do it - I remember the Prince Bac that kicked around the Arizona fairs happy to pick up checks - I have no idea where this old man got this idea that he should become a super legit player in New Mexico recently, but we are back in Arizona today. Because I want to cover my ass in the other quarter races and then hopefully be alive to the turf race with a good feeling and a shot at beating a possible odds-on favorite - I'm limiting myself to just one chance to beat the favorite in the opener. I'm taking a swing at Mister Michael for one very simple reason, he is making his debut around the hook. Most of his recent races against winners aren't very impressive, but it's hard to imagine that this isn't the race with the least amount of raw talent that he perhaps has ever faced. If he breaks well and likes the hook - he is a son of the fast thoroughbred Snowbound - he may just be better than his subpar rivals here.

Race number two is the two-year-old stakes and I come in heavy here because without access to replays, I'm left trying to find some separation among these guys through use of charts and frankly, I don't see a dominant player or a standout trial. There are a couple that appeared to have encountered enough trouble that an upgrade puts them right in the mix. Suffice it to say, for my pick 4 tickets, I'm forced to omit a few for the sake of trying to operate within expected pool size, and really don't feel entirely safe covering 70% of the field. Though the track has been sealed after a bit of rain a few days ago which essentially disbanded the "loop and swoop" bias against early pace that we saw opening weekend, it seems that the rail is still the worst spot to be at, particularly evident during the running of the quarter races. For the record, my top pick here if I must take a stand in the dark, is the #7, JR Best Regard - in a fairly level race, he may improve off of the last and do so at a nice price.

Race three is the big one for the older quarters and for the most part, everyone in the field has some kind of chance here - they can all run enough that with their respective best and a few mistakes elsewhere, there really is only one or two that I just could not fathom winning under any circumstances. But - this is also the more likely of the two quarter-only races to be run formfully in my opinion and if I am going to try to beat the likely favorite in leg four of the pick four, I absolutely must trim this ticket down to a small handful at most in deference to an expected Sunday pool size. My first order of business was justifying eliminating one of those likely to take quite a bit of money, Whiskey, who is three for five lifetime here at Turf Paradise in a brief career and has never run poorly over the surface.

My justification? I don't think he's ever been in quite this tough and despite his OVERWHELMING trial win, I'm perhaps foolishly looking at him as a vulnerable short priced component of the sequence, largely on the merit of the rail draw. Of course, this theory killed me yesterday on a similar ticket, but the winner yesterday simply benefitted from being only one of a few that could run much in a short field and the best horse in the race got away poorly and to some degree, the win was inherited via circumstance - a situation that I find much less likely in a field of this level of contentiousness. In the end, I narrow down to Colorado-bred stake monster Patriot's Glory, talented filly Queens R Blue, red-hot Los Al toughie and possible favorite Pot Ocash, and longshot Dudek Custus, whose very best races are good enough to give him a realistic chance at a very nice price after a poor finish in the trial. My toughest decision on the ticket was upgrading Dudek Custus enough off of a poor fifth place trial finish at the expense of the easiest trial winner of all, Whiskey, and I suspect that if I'm quoting myself later with verses of regret, it will be this very group of sentences.

Race four is the race that really makes you question how to approach these early races. If you insist on a single and a smallish ticket with a lot of quarter horse spread to make it this far, you almost by default begin to make an automatic case for morning line favorite Serious Stuff as the single. With good races at Ellis, including a maiden win and a couple of solid efforts against winners, the shipper appears to be taking a stiff class drop even while moving into allowance ranks from claiming ranks. What scares me is two or three-fold. First, the short price. That is scary itself. But, this is a filly that has never run over this track, and while that in and of itself isn't grounds for dismissal and though she isn't the only one in that category here, the Turf Paradise "grass" course is very much different from most turf courses.

Also concerning is her running style which seems to be a bit of a "need the lead" style for her best and while I generally don't mind that in older, multiple winner types, I get a little put-off when it comes to maiden winners that perform best in that fashion. Luckily for her perhaps, there's a herd in here that run similarly and may be even less inclined to persevere if unable to make a cozy lead or if they get passed at some point. On Time Again is a neat filly that on paper, off her best races in the past, looks super-live. But, she has been moving downward throughout her brief career and quite honestly, coupling that trend with the fact that she goes from Mike Mitchell's barn to her current arrangements, I'm not really eager to put all or even the remaining eggs in that basket. So, I'm going to include Good Mango as the confrontational early speed to challenge Serious Stuff, who unlike that rival and most of the others, has a ton of experience over this course as a maiden last season. Her poor races recently against winners probably limits her only to the broadest of tickets and yet, I think she's extremely live. I will also include Warren's Performer, whom I am really not a big fan of, but trainer Super Miguel Silva always seems to knock out a few wins like this - with cheap loooking maiden winners that suddenly jump in with allowance foes while stretching out on turf. It's a primitive "angle play", but I can honestly say that on that merit alone, a win from her would be no surprise at all to me.

The plays:

This shall be ugly or reasonably pretty-

Race 1: .50 Pick 3 - 1,3 / 2,3,4,6,7,9,10 / 2,3,4,7 = $28
Race 1: .50 Pick 4 - 1,3 / 2,3,4,6,7,9,10 / 2,3,4,7 / 1,2,5,6 = $112
Race 1: .50 Pick 4 - 1,3 / ALL / 2,3,4,7 / 6 = $40
Race 2: .50 Pick 3 - 2,3,4,6,7,9,10 / 2,3,4,7 / 1,2,5,6 = $56

I think that's a $236 investment, including $152 alone in the pick 4, which is pretty hefty for me to play into a Sunday pool. But, I do think that this is one of those sequences where it can be justified... or as I like to do, rationalized after-the-fact. :)

[johnhannibalsmith]

Dang, for about 440 yards, I actually thought I had that 1-9 shot beaten. But alas, even with Prince Bac running all over the place, my Mister Michael crawled home the last 250 to finish second. Probably should have had a duplicate ticket with Prince Bac singled once the scratches revealed the race was down to four and the eventual winner was 1-9, but if I can talk myself into a single in the late pick 5 sequence of a filly that I don't think can possibly be even 90% fit - I'll try to make up for it here soon!

[castaway01]

Bainum is still there, you just don't see his name in print.

Well, whatever. When his name was in print I made a lot of money, but now that he or his son are jockey agents, it means zero. Thanks for not understanding what I wrote though. Continues your streak of gibberish.

[johnhannibalsmith]

Wow! Race number two was a great race... half the field was heads apart down along the inside to the 100 yard mark and the winner blew up on the extreme outside to get up in the last jump - the tote was so all over the place throughout the wagering that even though it settled on the top two as co-5-2 shots with a pair of 5-1 shots third and fourth, the super was still around $420. A clean, exciting quarter race at TuP! We need more of those!

Okay, because I'm disappointed in how I closed out the day yesterday with an actual bankroll and because I want to practice again on making the most out of a bankroll if I have to make something happen - I've decided that the late pick 5 or pick 4 is my only real shot here. The last half or so of the card is just bad in my opinion, mostly composed of races with horses that you can sooner eliminate the whole field than imagine one actually winning. That can be a good thing if you narrow in the right spots and spread likewise. The fields are so short that you can get extreme coverage in a few spots, if you can muster up a few accurate opinions in the others.

As I alluded to, my problem begins with a leg where a filly I would ordinarily single in the spot has been off for a while and looks like she's probably been rushed back for this race. She probably gets bet heavily in spite of this fact and though that would ordinarily be my cue to try and beat her in that spot, not only are the others almost all just too inferior even for an average, unfit filly - but I watched her win early this summer at Arapahoe on a day when she looked to be far less than 100% fit. So, tepidly, in race number seven, I'm going to use Bolden as my key, and because I am going to build a fairly large ticket and she's probably a short price, I'm going with the assumption that I'm better off in the "pick pools" than in the win pool. I had hoped I could build some case for the turf race as a good place for a spot play, a simple ticket or series of tickets and avoid this pick 5 big ticket trap again. It's an imperfect world.

Okay, leg one, race five, is for bottom non-winners since the end of the meet last year and this is one motley crew even for this level. It has scratched down to five from six, and there are two in here that on paper look superior to the others - Pursuxit and Evaluate. I don't trust Pursuxit, plain and simple. This barn is streaky and has a handful of very useful horses, but it is just one of those wildly inconsistent barns, horses run huge one race and then are nowhere to be found in similar spots the next. Nothing against the horse and acknowledging he's worthy of being one of two or even a single on a ticket, I just can't count on anything from the barn to get me home. Evaluate could be seen as the logical "other one" to complement Pursuxit for the reasons that I outlined. Heck, Evaluate is a worthy single on form alone coming from Hastings and originally a quality So. Cal runner - but he's making his debut over the surface - and that means I would need to depend on either a horse without a race over the track ever and a barn I can't depend upon. This very first race in the sequence steered me away from the pick 5 for this "damned if I do, damned..." scenario, but you know, if it turns out that my concerns play out as reality, I may eliminate a lot of tickets immediately just by covering the remaining three also.

Race six is an oddball bunch of non-three geldings going a mile and when I first looked at the names in this field, I actually assumed that it was a bottom $3,500 bunch. The tag is actually $10,000 - and I think it's safe to say there won't be many claims from this dash. Though I like several in here, the way the pace draws up I didn't feel too nervous tossing one of my original includees - Bear Creek Road - who I like but figures to get run at hard early by at least one or two others and eventually just settle on two in here - Rocket Train, probably the best of the speedy routers, and also Mr. Shane the Pain, probably the most legitimate of the closers in here.

Race seven is the aforementioned filly race that I sheepishly single Bolden. Yes, Katie Schiller won her two most recent back at the end of the meet last year and is probably more prepared for this than is my single and yes, there are a few others in here that I do think have a chance, like Remiscience. But with this race now down to five, this is the spot to take a stand and I just think Bolden is the best in here talentwise, has excellent speed, draws well in the middle of the pack to suit her style and temperment and can probably come up a wee bit short and still prevail if she's even 82% physically and mentally prepared for this. Not exactly oozing confidence, but not quite shaking with trepidation either.

Race eight is probably the most interesting thoroughbred race on the card, in part because it actually has more than five or six running (at least as of now), but mainly because pretty much all of the fillies in here have a fair amount of ability and like to win races. The hang-up for me is that I genuinely like SS Shelby quite a bit, but she's liable to be a prohbiitive favorite and I've suffered through dramatic last second maneuvers to barely get up for second or the win enough from her that while she usually comes through for me, she makes me hold my breath a little too often. Couple that with the fact that she went a bit off form when she left here last year and has worked her way down again a bit for her return effort here and if there are others like me that really like her, I want to be rooting against her at a short price in here. The problem is, from there, the rest of the field is sort of a crapshoot for who outranks who in a spot like this. I was able to talk myself out of thinking Might Tizzy has a realistic chance (which probably means...) but beyone her, I'm back to thinking that maybe I need to single SS Shelby just to avoid using practically everyone. In the end, I went the other way, decided in this case I need to try and beat her and spend the extra cash to try to carve out a bunch of live tickets at this point.

Which takes me to the final leg. At this point, because of my approach to the eighth, I'm stuck with a race where I really need to be sure that I'm not cutting my nose off to spite my face and eliminating horses with a chance just to save money. If SS Shelby get there, I'm going to need a single in order to get a reasonable return in all likelihood - but if I beat SS Shelby, then I really need to make sure that I connect and don't tear up a ticket because I wanted to save $20 or $30 when the will-pay is in the couple of hundreds.

Iniitially, I thought I could take two and feel okay, but then I just had to include a third horse. Then, I realized that there's just no way I'll feel comfortable without the fourth either. And that's where I ended up with this ticket. I went from thinking that Fit and Awesome may be enough, but I better include a freshened Deluxe Bus to talking myself into the very rapid Sea Viper dropping out of the Bienvenidos Stakes, where he was just far too aggressively spotted. If he had never ran there, he'd look pretty good off of his Los Al form in here, and the fact that he did run in the stakes gives him a race over the track, which for me, only makes him look a little better. The question then became what to do with Wolgan Valley - who's races here last year make him an enormous threat - but he was completely off his game at Arapahoe this summer - bad in the gate, disinterested in running, and even looking gimpy in his last start. But, even though like Bolden I doubt his level of preparedness for this one, the way the race sets up and given his style, if he comes back wanting to run and reverts to his efforts last season, there's just no way to discredit his chances. Then I tried to talk myself into Moose Lake and at that point, I slapped myself in the mouth and said enough is enough.

Here's what I've come up with, again, about 30-50% more costly than I'd like considering pool sizes and field sizes, but if EVERYTHING were to go just right, I think I can get about 3-1 or better on a single that is likely to go postward at about half that price.

Race 5: .50 Pick 5 - ALL / 3,6 / 3 / 1,2,3,4,6,7 / 1,4,5,7 = $120
Race 5: .50 Pick 5 - ALL / 3,6 /3 / 4 / 1,4,5,7 = $20
Race 6: .50 Pick 4 - 3,6 / 3 / 1,2,3,4,6,7 / 1,4,5,7 = $24
Race 6: $1 Pick 4 - 3,6 / 3 / 4 / 1,4,5,7 = $8

.........

I'm feeling a little limp now as my early tickets really weren't exactly worst case scenario material and they still project to return a loss even if I connect almost across the board with anyone but the best pay in the pick 4. My stand against Whiskey proved wise as I think he went off favored and just wilted to fourth from the rail, but the pick 3 was still dreary with the CO-Bred winning and the pick 4 payouts I saw posted were demoralizing unless Good Mango makes me proud here.

[johnhannibalsmith]

...This shall be ugly or reasonably pretty-

Race 1: .50 Pick 3 - 1,3 / 2,3,4,6,7,9,10 / 2,3,4,7 = $28
Race 1: .50 Pick 4 - 1,3 / 2,3,4,6,7,9,10 / 2,3,4,7 / 1,2,5,6 = $112
Race 1: .50 Pick 4 - 1,3 / ALL / 2,3,4,7 / 6 = $40
Race 2: .50 Pick 3 - 2,3,4,6,7,9,10 / 2,3,4,7 / 1,2,5,6 = $56

I think that's a $236 investment, including $152 alone in the pick 4, which is pretty hefty for me to play into a Sunday pool. But, I do think that this is one of those sequences where it can be justified... or as I like to do, rationalized after-the-fact. :)

Hmmmm...

So, I definitely killed myself when I used two in the opener that scratched down to four and the 1-9 favorite got it done late. Perhaps I went a bit too deep in the second leg, though I can't imagine too many tickets got it down to just a few. It seemed that four was the right number for the third leg and the winner went off at 5-1 or so, I think. The 4th leg the favorite did in fact turn out to be a bad single, but she must not have been much of a single. Honestly, I'm a bit surprised the pick 4 didn't pay at least a little better than it actually did on a Sunday with almost $5,000 in the pool and two full gates of competitive QH right in the middle legs. Well, had I singled the opener appropriately, I still barely eke out a profit with what appears to be about 121 bucks back, or just over half of what I laid out. Considering I scored on three of four tickets, missing only the saver if the erroneously labeled most likely single got there - that's just plain pathetic construction. Even if I had nailed down one of the longer ML priced QH contenders in the middle legs, I don't think I could have gotten any kind of return. I knew I wasn't looking at much, but I'm still a bit wowed by just how minute those pays came back in light of the sequence and how those tend to go on a weekend pool.

[johnhannibalsmith]

I get the sense that after three legs, my late pick tickets will suffer a similar fate as the early. In leg one, the favorite did indeed fail in his first over the track, but Pursuxit made a relatively easy lead to the turn and when you have Smarty Matt breathing fire down your throat at the quarter pole and nobody else doing any running - well, it's a good day to be Pursuxit. He didn't even run very well, but there was no way he was going to get beaten with that kind of scenario unfolding. So, I don't really think I played it wrong per se, it just didn't work out ideally with the other turkeys just unable to put any meaningful or sustained pressure on the winner.

Legs two and three went well enough, with Bolden looking exhausted at the three-sixteenths, but just too good and gutsy to let the other mare by her. Went off at 3-5... yeah, no way to bet her at a price like that and with the Sunday pools, a $100 bill probably knocks her to 2-5 anyway. Onwards and upwards, it'll be fairly tough to miss from here, but probably just as tough to come out ahead for the day the way leg one ran.

[johnhannibalsmith]

I get the sense that after three legs, my late pick tickets will suffer a similar fate as the early. ... Onwards and upwards, it'll be fairly tough to miss from here, but probably just as tough to come out ahead for the day the way leg one ran.

Basically... looks like the late action brought in just shy of $200, or a meager $26 or something in profit, not enough to cover the "winning" early tickets. In all, trying to get cute and cover one more horse here and there was ultimately the difference on this day.

[lamboguy]

Well, whatever. When his name was in print I made a lot of money, but now that he or his son are jockey agents, it means zero. Thanks for not understanding what I wrote though. Continues your streak of gibberish.
congratulations, you seem to make money on every thing that you put your hands on

[johnhannibalsmith]

Well, it's tough enough to come with a sorry POS for a single in an AZbred maiden race - and then you actually get a good spot early over the track out off the fence and just behind the pace and some chowderhead has to run you completely off the racetrack en route to getting DQ'ed.

Ugh. I never mind having a good excuse for why I was wrong, but up until that happened, I actually was thinking good thoughts about my chances. Brutal way to get stuffed.

...

My wacky single from this day just ran back and paid $24.80 to win... and I barely came out of my naptime coma in time to catch or it I mighta made myself look bright by mentioning he was back in after the horror trip last time. :bang:

[johnhannibalsmith]

I picked my head up long enough to see that as we approach 10MTP for race 4 today, Reds Wildfire is hanging tough at 1-9.

Great spot for her, comes in off of a smashing win while probably actually needing the race off the shelf and my bud Utah Chad is rolling. But you know I like Rasin a Delight - she's not a bad filly at all.

The favorite is not made of steel by any stretch of the imagination. She isa hard trying, but still cheap filly, that as much as I'm rooting for her, is a preposterously short price compared to Rasin a Delgiht, currently at 20-1.

I'm sure we'll see the tote balance out a bit in the next eight minutes, but even though I'd be rooting for Red if I were there, I'd be putting my money on Rasin A Delight if she stays above 4-1 all the way until post time. Decent filly, bad race, perfect spot, awful price on one that is perpetually vulnerable.

[johnhannibalsmith]

Well, good for Red, Chad, and Smokin Joe B... but Jake, Jake... come on man, you're going to put her loose on the lead like that? Well, both fillies were unbettable at 1-5 and 2-1 respectively by the time we went to the gate, so I guess I would have just been in the cheering section.

[johnhannibalsmith]

Ah hell, very next race... another slimy favorite... Estancia isn't going to drop too far below the 10-1 he's at now, and maybe I'm thinking a little too much with the heart here, but he's as good as the rest of these if this shaky looking claim on the outside comes unraveled. Really, once you get past this 3-5 shot, you can make a case for anyone and Estancia may have just needed the last one... though I like the rider switch back to Iammikey, not too sold on the barn switch.

[johnhannibalsmith]

Yeah, think I'll avoid Estancia from now on. Ran okay to be fourth at 12-1, but was in a good spot on the turn and didn't look like the same horse through the lane that he has in year's past. 3-5 goat is all out to get it done... don't think he's one to play in the future either after exiting his last condition if that's as good as it gets.

[johnhannibalsmith]

Okay, well, since my last minute efforts at beating eventual odds-on clunkers has been a bust thus far - I'm going to double-down on the effort now that I'm awake.

Two Violins is 3-5 in the opener of the pick 4... eeeeeee... I like this hard trying fool, but man oh man, that makes a guy want to piece together a ticket right off the bat and at least try to swing against. Have to single leg two, but then come back and go overly deep in the third leg trying to beat another short priced M/L fave that simply doesnt run his best here in AZ, then come back with enough coverage to just about secure a ticket if we get there.

4 MTP, so I'm moving quickly... not that anyone is silly enough to read this and actually part with real money.

R6: .50 Pick 4 - 1,2,3,5,6 / 6 / 1,2,3,4,5,8,9 / 1,2,3,7,8

Edited to note that my primitive math skills lead me to believe this is an $87.50 ticket.

DOWN WITH TWO VIOLINS!!! UP WITH HOLY BUPKIS at 20-1!!!

[johnhannibalsmith]

Well, poor Holy Biscuits could do no better than fourth, but he did run over Two Violas just enough to get that one to drift and let the eventual winner Tribal Dreams up through the inside. So we didn't get the ideal outcome, but we knocked off some tickets leaning on the 3-5 fave right off the bat.

[johnhannibalsmith]

The single made it at oh about the price I figured, actually the second wagering choice because people can still convince themselves to back Metz at a short price. I'll be nauseated if I miss from here, the only question now (famous last words) is whether the ticket outperforms a flat win bet on the single which would have brought in around $200 - a bit more than I actually expected when I set out to beat Dos Violinas.

[johnhannibalsmith]

Well hell, my big spread leg to carkill the favorite was an atrociously run pigfest as expected and SOMEHOW that sorry favorite gets the best of a three-way bob - eating up the pacesetter in the last jump and hanging his head just long enough to hold off the big rallyer. Bummmmmmmer... I thought fo sho someone would get the best of him the way the race figured to run.

As an aside, after consulting with the charts, my statement about my single being the second choice was bogus. Somehow went from 5-2 vs -e- on the fave at 2 MTP to 8-5 vs 6-5 on the fave as they went into the gate to closing at 1.50 vs 1.60... Usually that big of a swing on two getting action is reserved for Fri, Sat, Sun 0 MTP wagering action.

[johnhannibalsmith]

Ho-hum clunker hauling over this way off a few bad races at SoCal and Pomona figured to be the favorite, but looked hard to love at a short price even in this bad field of maidens and just walloped them. Got bet like a winner throughout and made this a lousy chalkfest...

I think Chamberlain just bellered out $44.10 for the P4... ouch... bad day to stand against a series of ugly looking chalk, they turned out to be one eyed men in a kingdom of the blind and it looks like just pounding the single was in fact the move to make. Screw all that, no fun at all... gotta shoot at the turkeys even if they survive.

[johnhannibalsmith]

Sunday Bloody Sunday.

Welp, I coaxed myself into making the trip down for one of the only decent live cards of the meet yesterday. Field sizes were considerably better than what we've been enduring for the most part with a couple of decent stakes and a nice little starter allowance with some pretty salty mid-level claiming types. I crashed and burned early with a couple of narrow misses in the quartering events and then got run out of a couple early pick 4 tickets in leg three. Rebounded nicely in the aforementioned starter with a half-dozen exactas in which the runner-up was a big price, then wound up blowing my feet off again later in the card when I missed the last race (including the P5) by a dang nose.

So, a few bad plays and an overall loss yesterday with real money means I have to torture myself in public with an opinion or two.

Today's card is typical of the meet. A couple of quarter horse races that aren't even full gates and actually move the daily average field size up nicely. The meat and potatos of the card is a five horse gate, four straight sixes, a seven, and the lone big field on the card with ten is a puzzling gaggle of straight-threes trying turf going seven and a half. There may be something to make out of that portion of the day, but I'm struggling with pinpointing it.

So, by default, we'll try to parlay some of the quarterhorse chaos into an early pick ticket. The first two are the trials for the AQRA Futurity, which is basically two-year-old AZbred quarters scrambling about.

Leg one isn't all that cut and dried in my opinion. Yes, it seems that the two morning line favorites (two shortest ML prices) are probably deserving in that capacity off of their limited form, but there are a handful of first timers, some with decent pedigrees, solid connections, fast works, or combinations of two or more of those factors. This will be the leg where I try to snip apart from the bulk of live tickets right off the bat by using more than half, but I think it may be prudent to come back with a second ticket using only the two logical looking on paper.

Leg two, the second trial, looks much more discernable to me with Madd Dogg exiting a great effort against open futurity runners and Jessa Secret, who was able to beat open maidens at Los Al, so obviously is probably a little better than many of her AZbred peers in here. I'll toss in a FTS, El Estero, coming by way of Myra and Omar Lorta with a really sharp gate work last time.

Leg three is a weird group of fillies going five and a half and now scratches down to five from six. There's really not a ton of speed and the logical play here is M/L favorite Roullete it Roll, who got away rather poorly last time in a mildly tougher spot lat time and couldn't get the job done, but at least kept trying throughout. She's just not in very great form, but she is almost certainly just too much mare for her rivals here from a purely talent perspective. Now she has a race over the track and has an excuse, so she's pretty hard to knock in the context of what is left here. The price however, will be awful, and she probably makes 'single' status on many tickets. For that reason, I have to scramble to use one other and though I could make a case for each to be the "one other", I'm opting for longshot Kinda Cute. She has good speed and is drawn outside. She too has now put in a trip over the track this season and I wouldn't be shocked if she's allowed to get sort of an easy lead. She isn't any superstar, but she has won here in the past, and you know, if she does get that early lead and improves this time, it isn't out of the realm of possibility.

The final leg saw me unable to separate three of these. Class Five Rapid is probably as good as any in here, but he ran just terribly last time. It was his second race back off the shelf and came back sort of quick from a big try, plus he isn't exactly smooth as silk, so now going from ancient veteran Vinnie to fresh-faced bug-boy Vinnie, I have to give him the benefit of the doubt as the longest ML price in the short field. Anotation is honest and has run well here - he's just ultra logical. Smokin Fame is making his TuP Debut following a career consisting mainly of solid check earning efforts on the NorCal circuits and fairs. Barn has been faring well thus far and honestly, old Scott Stevens has been riding as well as he ever has and is quietly making the most out of his chances and making a lot of other riders look bad. The combo of trainer Kenny Mac and Stevens has been especially tough so far.

Okay, so -- the $2500 Nw1y question is -- can we make a buck here in a sunday pool if we spread to use 2 and 3 in fields of five and six? Hard to guess anymore, but thankfully, with the QH races starting us off, there's a little more chance that with just a little luck in beating a favorite or two, we can be among the last tickets standing by the time we get there.

Going to try this out:

R1: .50 Pick4 - 1,2,3,5,6,7 / 3,5,7 / 3,6 / 2,3,5 = $54
R1: .50 Pick4 - 1,7 / 3,5,7 / 3,6 / 2,3,5 = $18

Edited to point out that EQB got around to posting two new scratches of the #3 in leg 1 and of the 5 in leg 2. Rather than ignore it and take the post-time favorite strategy here which I probably would have been stuck with the way that I have to bet if I actually do hit an OTB, I'll use the accounting method that fortunate ADW players get to use and just adjust the ticket.

1,2,5,6,7 / 3,7 / 3,6 / 2,3,5 = $30
1,7 / 3,7 / 3,6 / 2,3,5 = $12

I actually don't really like this play as much now at all... the QH upside is almost completely gone and along with it the bulk of the profit angle.

[johnhannibalsmith]

Well, this doesn't figure to have a scintillating conclusion from here. Effectively had one in the first leg that had no chance when he tried to tear the gate apart and was allowed to run, but the way the winner and eventual post-time favorite ran, it probably was irrelevant. Crushing win at around 4-5, I believe. Second leg ran as it figured with Jessa Secret running a big race, but Madd Dogg just overwhelming even that one despite an unspectacular beginning. Two stone cold faves to kick it off. No bueno, really need for Kinda Cute to somehow get this one ... currently 30-1 and the only one higher than 5-1 in this five horse gate. :D

[johnhannibalsmith]

Three races, three odds-on winners, this one at 1-5... short fields, $2.01 winners and $2,000 win pools... oy vey... it's hard to even feign interest in this garbage.

The second half of the card isn't much better especially with a couple of new scratches shrinking already small fields even worse. Ho hum... I'm not sure I can even dream up a pick 5 to stab at that makes sense and the races themselves sure aren't very playable at all. Sad days.

[johnhannibalsmith]

Yeeeehah! I beat the favorite... with a horse that was 8-5 or something... what a great card today... the early brings me back a whopping $24.20, for a $17.80 loss on two winning tickets.

:jump: :jump: :jump:

Okay, I've settled on a pick five construct that I'm not completely ashamed of (in the sense that if I have to do it, well...). Double, Double, Single, then one ticket with five and a secondary as a double, and four in the finale. The first three legs are demoralizingly short fields where the most creativity allowed is deciding whether or not you can justify using the other speed, Jestintime, in leg number three of the sequence, a race scratched down to five from seven. Well, I can't justify doing it since there's a decent chance that the entire day will be a parade of odds-on winners. The ticket needs to stay under $50 at the absolute most.

The only place where there's some room for separation are the last two races. The aforementioned straight-three-year-old turf race is probably the only spot in the sequence where there is a legitmate chance to have something occur that singularly increases the value of the winning combination.

The race is chuck full of maiden winners, shippers from here and there, sprinters, you name it. The morning line favorite, Mr. Shane The Pain is the first one that I am just plain leaving off the ticket. Not because he can't win, but because I want to keep this ticket reasonable and I don't think he's a legitimate M/L favorite. He'll be on almost every ticket and at post time, I expect he'll more likely be third choice at about 9-2 rather than favored and I included him last time he ran and honestly, thought he probably should have run better with a set-up that shouldn't differ greatly from that which he figures to be in receipt of in this spot.

Congrats Ski comes here by way of Pomona - and a strong second against a solid older horse that ran a big race early in the meet here fresh off the claim. I happen to really like horses that handle the Pomona configuration when they move over to the Turf Paradise "grass" course. I also happen to like it when competent barns bring them over from Craig Lewis' operation. I think he probably goes off favored with second choice going to the horse to his outside, Lookn Mighty Tough. The latter has a start here in a conditioned main track race and wasn't terribly impressive, but going back to his early days, he already has experience on the turf in the form of solid performances on the turf at Golden Gate as a maiden. I did toss in some ridiculous ones too, such as the gate to wire sprint bottom maiden winner and the one exiting a win at four and a half, just because this race figures to be bizzarely run, but my two most likely both figure to benefit from what appears to be a herd of pace.

The finale is a joke of a bottom maiden race at five eighths. Morning-line favorite Eighteenhundrednme can barely run at all, and I wanted to just pitch him altogether and then another and play all in the eighth race, but jeepers, there just isn't much here. Love You Buddy is an 0-fer-a billion no running maiden, but ran pretty well against mildly tougher while dead short off the bench last time. At a minimum, he should get a decent trip and is used to eating dirt, plus he's being led up from a significantly better barn than those he was enduring in the past. Then we get to Princeofthefifth, who is 5-2 M/L second choice and 8-1 Causehesapistol. You know, you pretty much have to like Princeofthefifth as bad as this race is and if you like him, then you can't just toss out Causehesapistol - who actually outran Princeofthefaith a couple of race back at Fresno. They both suck, but Causehesapistol may be the key to a ticket that pays three times what it would with either of the other plays in here.

So there it is: boring, boring, boring, wacky, crappy. Enjoy.

Race 5: .50 Pick 5 - 1,5 / 2,3 / 1 / 3,5,6,9,10 / 1,2,3,8 = $40
Race 5: .50 Pick 5 - 1,5 / 2,3 / 1 / 9,10 / 1,2,3,8 = $16

[johnhannibalsmith]

Through seven races, and three legs of the pick five following the completion of the early pick 4 - I decided to look back at the win payouts that we are treated to this afternoon and is symptomatic of many of these enticing cards lately.

$3.60
$3.00
$2.40
$5.20
$2.60
$3.40
$3.80

How sad is that?

Here are the $1 pick 3 pays today:

$7.10
$7.60
$7.80
$8.90
$6.40

Man oh man, it's hard to practice and make it a little racket about the place when this is what you get all day long.

[johnhannibalsmith]

...
Congrats Ski comes here by way of Pomona - and a strong second against a solid older horse that ran a big race early in the meet here fresh off the claim. I happen to really like horses that handle the Pomona configuration when they move over to the Turf Paradise "grass" course. I also happen to like it when competent barns bring them over from Craig Lewis' operation. I think he probably goes off favored ...

Geeez... I truly thought this horse would end up at 8-5 or something and continue the parade of short prices, but somehow went off at 7-2. Dang, now, that was probably the play of the day here today... if I had any real confidence that he would stick up around 3-1 all the way to the wire, I don't think you could have avoided dropping what you could there. Opportunity missed, but at least we have two pick 5 tickets and beat those that ended up favored to my surprise.

[johnhannibalsmith]

Yeeeehah! I beat the favorite... with a horse that was 8-5 or something... what a great card today... the early brings me back a whopping $24.20, for a $17.80 loss on two winning tickets.

....

Race 5: .50 Pick 5 - 1,5 / 2,3 / 1 / 3,5,6,9,10 / 1,2,3,8 = $40
Race 5: .50 Pick 5 - 1,5 / 2,3 / 1 / 9,10 / 1,2,3,8 = $16


Well heck, I thought we might get the 3 for a bit there as the big kahuna of the bunch, but alas we landed another M/L favorite in the finale and presumably the lowest of the P5 pays. Still, it wasn't a tragedy - $45.10 a copy for $90.20, or $34.20 ahead for the play and a trivial $16.40 in the plus side over the day... which considering we didn't exactly cut loose with monster tickets and cashed 4 of 4, is pretty pathetic. Shoulda just been playing the winner of the eighth I suppose. By the way, in case I wasn't clear in every post, today's card was PATHETIC.

[johnhannibalsmith]

i didn't mind the single, i just remembered the races of SHOWSTOPPER ELLA, i bet her in one of those races and didn't think much of her.

...

I was about to kick my own ass Lambo - she just went off as the longest price in a field of five, tougher than the last she was in - and looked like she was going to hold on until the sixteenth. Still ran a good second at 10-1 to one of the two most logical... I almost went to the OTB a little while ago and was about to shat myself for opting out again. :lol:

[johnhannibalsmith]

Welp, most of the total crap races are now completed, so I'll try to take a look at any money making prospects since we are on a Monday card.

Starting with race 4, we have kind of an interesting three race sequence in that as of now, leg one has an old veteran of the course at even money. He's pretty legit, but he's hardly unbeatable, and really though almost any one in here could possibly win under ideal circumstances - two others are probably easy enough to promote to being on par with the current favorite. Free Beer was claimed last year out of the opening leg of the turf distance series and though it wasn't a stellar group overall, he was easily one of the better runners in the collection. I kind of like him in general and couldn't leave him out, but at the moment, St. Patrick's Appeal is lingering at 5-1 and he's just a horse for course. His form is always all over the place, but he's also always in with a shot at this level on the grass course.

Leg two figures to have a short priced favorite that goes as a single on a number of tickets. The rail horse, Beyond Blessed, just comes off a romping win in her local debut for His Holiness and is indeed a bit of a standout, but she is stepping up to face two-time winners for the first time and figures to get quite a bit more early pressure. You can't try too hard to beat her and run up the ticket cost - she did beat the bias of the opening couple of weeks to win so easily on the front - but using that same principal, Redseasalt sort of intrigues me as the bias probably hampered her last time and she represents strong outside speed and arguably exits a much better race.

Leg three is where it gets tricky because we finally get to see Ranger Joe drop into a spot that all local gamblers have been hoping to see him in for about five years. By far the lowest level he's seen, he has a half-dozen works, so he figures to be all-but a standout in a spot like this, but my concern is a simple one - has he lost the knack for winning? He's always run over his head and been a reliable check earner just begging for a shot in a spot like this, but maybe he's just one to try to beat the first time he gets that chance with the hope that the long spell between trips to the circle has him vulnerable. I will pop a second ticket that singles him because he is the best horse. I love that ChapChap worked old Engineer back after the first race off the shelf and want to see a number like that pop here if my first theory holds up.

The ticket

R4: $1 Pick 3 - 1,2,5 / 1,3 / 1,2,4,6,7 = 30
R4: $2 Pick 3 - 1,2,5 / 1 / 2 = 6
R4: $1 Pick 3 - 1,2,5 / 1,3 / 2 = 6

Suerte.

[johnhannibalsmith]

They ran 1-2-3 in leg one and did so in what was probably the best order with the 6-5 fave running third, M/L second choice St. Patricks Appeal running second at 2-1 (took a ton of money late), and Free Beer wearing them both down to win at around 3-1, down from a 9-2 M/L.

Our second leg does indeed sport a heavy favorite - which you didn't need to be Jeanne Dixon to figure - but she's 1-9 with 4MTP and has been since the fourth went official. Yowser. Five of the seven at double digits with third betting choice, my other play, at 15-1. Chambo's play of the day, a 1-9 shot... welp, I hope Redseasalt runs better than the rest of Lucarelli's have been so far this meet.

[johnhannibalsmith]

The ole' 1-9 express got the job done and my other pick could manage only third behind the second choice. That kind of sucks.

Looking ahead now to the pick four and I'm stuck on the last race. Straight three-year-old fillies, many of whom have already run here once, a couple of which have won, a couple of which disappointed a bit at short prices - it has the feel of an "ALL" leg... but dangitall, I already decided that the N3L allowance going five-eighths was such a mess that I wanted to try to take that approach there and hope for a mess. I'm a big fan of Master Demand and could single him, but that's not much fun. I was thinking maybe in the last I could single the Boise shipper as the "unknown quantity", but then I'm stuck debating the merits of a simple win bet if she may be close to double digits. Maybe I should do both tickets with singles? Do I really want to get at least $75 into the late P4 instead of $35 or $40?

Hmmm... well, if I avoid doing both and spend even more trying to actually just eliminate those that I believe belong on the lower tier and build one big one and a couple of smaller ones, can I get away with that move on a monday?

Hell, this is all hypothetical and going to be posted too late for any maniac to actually consider playing anything I post, so maybe I'll try that for my edification.

R6: .50P4 - 1,2,4,6,7 / 1,3,4,8 / 1,5 / 2,4,6,7,8 = $100
R6: .50P4 - 1,2,4,6,7 / 1,3,4,8 / 1 / 2,4,6,7,8 = $50
R6: .50P4 - 2 / 1,3,4,8 / 1,5 / 2,4,6,7,8 = $20
R6: .50P4 - 2 / 1,3,4,8 / 1 / 2,4,6,7,8 = $10

The more I look at it, the more I kind of like it. It's a lot of overhead for a pseudo-confident second leg and a pretty shaky vote of confidence for a last out claimee switching to turf as well as a cheapie that has past success on the surface in the third leg. But, you have to strike where you can on these lousy cards. What's the worst that's going to happen? Someone is going to read this?

[johnhannibalsmith]

...
R4: $1 Pick 3 - 1,2,5 / 1,3 / 1,2,4,6,7 = 30
R4: $2 Pick 3 - 1,2,5 / 1 / 2 = 6
R4: $1 Pick 3 - 1,2,5 / 1,3 / 2 = 6

Suerte.

Considering we got what had to be the best of the three in leg one and probably one of the better of the contenders in the last leg, even with the fave winning the middle portion, I really thought it had to pay a little better than $36.10. I missed the will-pay, but it's too bad old Engineer couldn't hang in just a bit longer or it's probably quite a bit better.

[johnhannibalsmith]

... but dangitall, I already decided that the N3L allowance going five-eighths was such a mess that I wanted to try to take that approach there and hope for a mess. I'm a big fan of Master Demand and could single him, but that's not much fun. I was thinking maybe in the last I could single the Boise shipper as the "unknown quantity...

See, I knew I hated the second leg! Some Kinda Boy over Brother Charlie? They were all pretty cheap horses and almost all that had any chance needed to make the lead going five-eighths... I knew better than to try to even handicap that bunch of turkeys. Ah well, lesson learned - if I had stuck with my instinct, I'd need a single in the last, but I'd be into the pool cheap enough that it wouldn't hurt to be wrong. It would be nice if a few of these races would just be playable as races instead of as sequences of races... maybe I can dream up something for this grass race upcoming.

[johnhannibalsmith]

Alright, well, after that stinkbomb of a play, I have no choice but to act like I just gambled away half of the rent money and now need to get it back with the other half. Taking responsibility for your poor wagering choices and making them right in the very next race is always an excellent idea.

So, I had used Brady Blue Eyes (currently 1-2, yikes) and Tobiah's Journey (currently 19-1, about right) on my ticket. I really don't love many in here, including the favorite off of the barn switch, but it's basically a lateral movement. The fact that he's on the TuP grass for the first time while 1-2 is especially not heartwarming, but the only other horse really taking action is Buff Daddy, who's not exactly a champion either. Sure he can win, but frankly, I think I'd still rather need Brady Blue Eyes. Exactas with my longshot in here are pretty square, but maybe I should go a little deeper even and figure a way to get past Buff Daddy also. Maybe I should just sit here and watch the race. Probably.

$12 exacta: 1-5 = $12
$8 exacta: 5-1 = $8
$12 win 5 = $12
$1 tri 1,5 - 1,5 - * = $12
$1 tri 1,5 - * - 1,5 = $12
.20 super 1,5 - 1,5 - * - * = $12
.20 super 1,5 - * - 1,5 - * = $12

Even $80

[johnhannibalsmith]

BOOOOO!!!!

No running Tobiah's Journey broke like a crackhead and then wilted to fifth (I think) the last sixteenth after being used up to get close up early. I guess I'm betting the rest of my rent money and the spare change I was going to use to get a Big Mac on Susan's Luck in the last since that's who I'd be live to if I had played my original P4 ticket.

[johnhannibalsmith]

...I'm betting the rest of my rent money and the spare change I was going to use to get a Big Mac on Susan's Luck in the last since that's who I'd be live to if I had played my original P4 ticket.

:bang: :bang: :bang: :bang: :bang: :bang: :bang:

Talk about turning a pile of gold into a pile of shit.

Talk myself out of a $40 pick 4 ticket to play some unwieldy ticket that costs four times as much and misses in leg 2 and naturally, Susan's Luck gets up at 5-1 and the P4 pays $288. Even worse, the Pick5 which started with the 1-9 winner in my pick 3 pays $731...

It's hard to suck as bad as that.

Oh yeah, like I said in my previous post, I bet all my rent money on the winner at 5-1. I had $20,000 for the rent, so I'm up about a hundred grand for the day now.

[fmhealth]

Many thanks go out to "Hugging the Rail" for his sage insights into HST shippers. Two more winners today. They are particularly lethal when sent post ward by Henson. I believe he's batting around 100% winners!!

Henson has a few in on Fri, Sat & Sun. The fans have caught on as today's winner paid $4.00. Although another winner from our friends up north paid $14.00. We'll see how long this streak lasts.

BTW, two HST invaders are running in the BC. This might be stretching it a bit, but @ 50-1 i think it's worth the risk.

Be Well,
fmhealth

[johnhannibalsmith]

The Breeder's Cup sucks. At least I've heard of these horses at this dump in Phoenix. Ocassionally, I even pick one that runs a little.

Race four is coming up and there's a horse in here that I vowed to play against next time if he came back at a short price. That would be :3: Me Salty, currently 2-1 in this field of seven. He's won back to back races - but a non-winner since, followed by a non-winners of two since condition, and now has been claimed off of that win and steps into open company. I will grant that he's an old classy sort that may have found his confidence again and this isn't a stellar bunch, but, neither of his wins were very visually impressive.

Looking at who else is taking money in here - I mean, Inflatable Dreams and Lewkacy at 9-2 and 5-2, respectively? Sure they can win, but why on earth is Fresh Ice at 7-2? He's arguably the best horse in the race, exiting a much tougher race on turf and quite honestly, I can see almost ANYONE in the field hitting the board in here.

:7: Fresh Ice at anything north of 2-1 in the context of this group would seem like a heck of a gamble and with a bunch of vulnerable short priced cheapies in the mix - I could take him in a tri wheel on top at almost ANY price.

Assuming he's 2-1 or better (which I'm thinking Me Salty may guarantee if he keeps taking money), I'd be down for a $40 win bet.

I'll give it a go on the trifecta wheel with him on top as well - Lewkacy is honest but cheap and he doesn't need to be there at 5-2, Me Salty is my play against at 2-1, and Inflatable Dreams as the fourth choice has just not been on top of his game since he finally got fronted at Arapahoe in July.

Edited to note - in case that last part isn't clear, yuuuuuup, I meant 7 ALL ALL.

[johnhannibalsmith]

Well heck, I had the right idea playing against the favorite, who ended up fourth, but everything else I opined was gibberish as my pick ended up a staggering third behind Lewkacy and Inflatable Dreams.

Damn Breeder's Cup has me all confused!!!!!! Must focus!!!!!!

[johnhannibalsmith]

Jeff Metz alerts all day long. The late pick quatro kicks of with him and a 6-5 shot on the tote. I'm just going to pitch that one completely and go deep, pretty deep, deep, and then single a horse that is 9-2 on the M/L in a race that looks wide, wide open - but I wouldn't be surprised if this one just gets CRUSHED today in tote action.

The rail horse got a wretched ride last time, the two has been off forever, the four could stay on a little longer, the five ran awfully good for the barn off the bench, the six gets no love from me at a short price off of a second at a short price in a bad race - he can win and feel free to use him at 6-5 - but there are those horses that I just revel in dismissing out of spite and accepting the bite in the ass if I'm wrong. The two outside horses are just enough of question marks that I can't dismiss them at decent prices.

Second leg is an 1x/2L allowance for non-allowance horses apparently. You have to draw a line in the sand somewhere here and as much as I like Shae N Denae, I'm just going to use four in here that aren't little more than bottom conditioned claimers.

Leg three is group of non-two allowance turf horses. Gonna pitch Metz again as this one should have run by the winner last time if he was any count. The winner of that race was under pressure the whole way and stopped to a walk at the three-sixteenths and still wasn't really threatened by this one. He can get it done if nobody else does much running, but with a deeper field than he faced last time, I'm banking on someone doing enough running.

Last leg I single Koricancha in what is really probably the worst field he's been in yet this year. He came up short the first time back, but actually ran well. Now he's run a few times and you kind of have to figure that if he's going to ever pop like he figured to off of some of his good races last year, this would be the time and the spot. If he's dead on the tote, then I'll be a little nervous, but I really had to find a single in the sequence anyway.

.50 P4: 1,2,4,5,7,8 / 1,4,6,7 / 1,5,6,7,8 / 6 = $60

[johnhannibalsmith]

Laf... got the six home. :D

[johnhannibalsmith]

Okay, okay, okay... so I got cute there thinking that there were two very vulnerable favorites and pitched the known quantity and included the unknown quantity off the long layoff. But, I thought it was one of those races where you could get brazen and wind up with one of only a handful of live tickets with some good shots through the lane to the wire.

That backfired (unless you read my disclaimer for my poor rationale for omitting the six and did include him) but I still think the remainder of the ticket is worth playing to the single in the last for a smaller ticket.

Onwards, upwards, and outwards...

$1 pick3 1,4,6,7 / 1,5,6,7,8 / 6 = $20
.50P3 1,4,6,7 / ALL / 6 = $18

[johnhannibalsmith]

...$1 pick3 1,4,6,7 /...

Oy... Leg 1 runs 6-7-1-4 with B oooooo ger getting the best of the four home at the wire for a super worth $602.80... NEVER the right pool! :bang:

[johnhannibalsmith]

Well now we've had two horses come untrained in the gate for the seventh, one of which was backed out after going totally apeshit and promptly got loose and is touring the infield, resulting in two scratches. So, if the :1: wins as the favorite, I guess if nothing else, there's a herd of live tickets instead of just two.

[johnhannibalsmith]

...Last leg I single Koricancha in what is really probably the worst field he's been in yet this year. He came up short the first time back, but actually ran well. Now he's run a few times and you kind of have to figure that if he's going to ever pop like he figured to off of some of his good races last year, this would be the time and the spot. If he's dead on the tote, then I'll be a little nervous, but I really had to find a single in the sequence anyway.

...

Wow, go watch this race and this ride. That was pretty... ummmm... interesting.

[fmhealth]

You're right Mr. Smith. That was some unenthusiastic effort. Watch for that one next time. For whatever it's worth, Henson won that race with yet another shipper he has from HST. What an amazing run. When Barton is motivated, he can ride with the best of them.

Be Well,
fmhealth

[johnhannibalsmith]

You're right Mr. Smith. That was some unenthusiastic effort. Watch for that one next time. ...

Yeah, those types cut both ways. The fact that Morales (who doesn't enjoy collecting losing jock mounts and doesn't stick around to ride the last if he doesn't want to) took the call after a QH jock had been up the first two times kind of tilted me in the direction of thinking that they expected a big one after showing great speed and tiring in the first two back. I really thought that the money would show and it really never did, at least not as much as you might have thought if everyone was on the same page with this one's chances today. I'll try to come better equipped with an idea for his chances next time. ;)

[johnhannibalsmith]

Since we have a delay here for a moment while Iron Mike picks up the 6 in the opener at the last minute...

The :1: entry is 7-5 and the :4: is 2-1. These are 2yo. QH maidens, which is almost always a train wreck anyway here.

Just glancing at the monitor during warm-ups, the :3: sure looks fired up in the post parade. Willy Marquez has resurfaced for Marsteller and I wouldn't be shocked to see this one put a little charge into the outcome.

$20 WP :3:

.10 super 3 / 1,4, / * / *
3 / * / 1,4 / *
1,4 / 3 / * / *
1,4 / * / 3 / *

I think that's $64. I'll make sure not to hit submit until they are just about loaded so that nobody plays it after my horrible day yesterday at the track.

[PhantomOnTour]

Parx invader in your TuP thread !

R6 - Ex: 9-10 w 1-6-9-10
Ex: 1 w 9-10
Win: 9-10

[PhantomOnTour]

Parx invader in your TuP thread !

R6 - Ex: 9-10 w 1-6-9-10
Ex: 1 w 9-10
Win: 9-10
A swing and a miss :mad:
finished 4-1-9....the #4 was 40-1
Parx invader out !

[johnhannibalsmith]

Parx invader in your TuP thread !

...

:D :D

I love it!

Dang my QH race was a mess and the lousy rules that let one half of the entry come and and muck out the field and get DQ'ed to last while the beneficiary other half gets to stay up kind of suck. Would have been nice if both came down, especially since the plain one did pack my three right down into the the deepest part of the track from the word 'go'. He ran okay and did so while in sort of tight and on what sure seems to be the worst strip to be stuck in. Next time.

[johnhannibalsmith]

Alrighty, well I managed to beat an odds-on Two Violins last time he ran and I'd like to try to do so again here in the start of a pick 3 that ends with a crazy bunch of no-running two-year-olds. This looks like a spot that Two Violins should win, but he is coming back sort of quick for him after running his guts out, and he's not THAT much better than a few in here. And, as usual the price sucks and he's certain to be singled on a lot of tickets.

The second leg is a great little turf race. Short field, but they all have a shot. The third leg is the 2yo. race and after I looked at it for a long time yesterday at the races, I came away thinking that barring a big FTS efforts, Midway Surf could easily make the lead and never have anyone else do enough running to catch him. He needs an aggressive ride from Jake, which seems to never happen these days, but he is 8-1 M/L, so for shins and grits, I'm just gonna play straight into him

R3 .50 P3 ALL/ALL/6 = $18

[johnhannibalsmith]

Welp, Two Violas got out pretty bad in the corner again today when pressed from the outside and did look spent early - Hamel puts a winning move on the :5: coming inside of him, opens up inside the three-sixteenths and then just eases him up at the sixteenths pole at 6-1... and gets nailed at the wire by the longest shot on the board at 12-1... :D ... Helps my ticket, but that was pretty sad.

fmheath gave out the shoulda been winner in the other thread using the CAN angle - and got robbed. Stews need to get a little involved, that isn't the first time this week someone blatantly cost their horse a placing due to a perceivable lack of perseverance.

[johnhannibalsmith]

So, I haven't messed with this goofy pick 6 since opening weekend, but there is a nineteen day carryover or something with a few thousand in the pool, so why not try a smallish ticket with three singles for some fun and games.

R4- $1P6: ALL / 6 / 5 / 1,7 / 1 / 2,3,4,8,9 = $60

I'm basically appending a late pick 4 to my existing pick 3 ticket here. I think that Sabrina Sunrise in the 6th is probably the most likely winner on the card the way that she ran in the debut race. Conclave in the next race would be a single off of his lone start if I had to use just one, but I gotta double up here and toss in Earnednotgiven as the main threat. Come back with a single of Warrens Performer, who had just a horror trip in her lone start when second, and excluding 6-5 M/L fave who ran second in the Queen of the Green Stakes with an absolutely PERFECT trip that day. The last leg is a bit of a mess, so I covered a herd of them. What the heck. Ticket costs less than my impulsive stab at the QH 2yo. maiden race.

[johnhannibalsmith]

Since my P3 and P6 has the :6: as a single... and he's the only horse higher than 6-1 on the tote at 18-1 at the moment, I feel fairly comfortable being in a mini-panic about my assessment that this one could get hustled to the early lead and nobody in here will do enough running to run by anyone.

So, even though I know it makes Lambo cringe, it's a six horse field of snails, and I can hit the button on a pick 5, hedge against myself, still get the best number by a mile if I'm right, and be live the rest of the way on my last ticket if I'm wrong. I'm going to hit the last on this one too if I get there. It's Monday, no reason to save myself $24 and sweat out the last... I'll still have 5 of 6 at least on the other ticket if my original plays get it. So now you see why I lose money at the races lately.

R5: .50P5 - ALL / 5 / 1,7 / 1 / ALL = $54

[johnhannibalsmith]

Well, for missing the single, it was the next best outcome... but it kinda sucks that I was sitting with the connections of the winner yesterday when we were looking at the form and both of us thought that whoever was in front at the head of the lane would probably win... and bot h thought it would probably be the six :lol: Dang it... no faith at all, I tell ya.

[johnhannibalsmith]

Wow, just wow. I need to forget everything I ever knew if Sabrina Sunrise doesn't park in that race.

A first timer that runs in an open maiden race, gets left, circles half the field from last on the turn and makes up about ten lengths from the three-eighths to the wire to finish third and gallops out well past the winner... then comes back to face AZ bred maidens second time out, horrible AZ maidens at that, 0-fers and never wills, and can't destroy the field... these horses win for fun from barns that don't win races for years at a time... but not today... it's a darn good thing I can't bet online because my account would be empty now after that. :faint:

[johnhannibalsmith]

Okay, I'm out of retirement, but for just this one race since Warrens Performer is still 7-1 and Sarah Got Even is 1-2. Wow, I get it - Sarah ran second in the Queen of the Green, but I'm tellllin' ya', she could not have gotten a more perfect trip in what was hardly an amazing stakes field while the others were all over the place. Warrens Performer got beat in a conditioned race, but she was stood on her head for a quarter mile in the first turn. I reeeaaallly don't think they are that far apart.

Get out of jail play:

$20 W/P #1

$10 exacta box 1 with 3,5

Okay, I'm officially retired again until at least post time for ninth.

[johnhannibalsmith]

Sarah gets up by a nose to beat the AZ-bred that did all the running and somewhat inexplicably took all of the late money. Warren runs third. I suck, but I sure hope Sarah gets bet like that again next time.

[johnhannibalsmith]

Bienvenidos again. I was going to swear to never play the early pick four ever again, but today's card kicks off with ten sorry quarterpounder maidens that are all pretty awful. I thought I could knock this down to five, but the more I looked at it, the more I started to think this might be a good sequence to play into today because the last leg is really tough to narrow down with confidence, like many of the bottom open turf claimers without a standout. There's seven in there, so if I swing at them all, can I possibly assemble a ticket where I get enough coverage in the opener... especially as I look harder and harder at it and can't really find enough to just pitch without just thinking starting with an all is the only realistic play?

I think so. Probably not, but that won't stop me. The AZbred maiden race in leg two is a bit of a crapshoot with what looks like four legit contenders, but I can feel okay using two in there and ditching the M/L fave who is lacking in recorded works for his first race back and then the horse that bolted last time. The horse that bolted could definitely get there if he doesn't misbehave again, but for the purposes of trimming this down to one or two, I have to draw that line.

The third leg is fairly up for grabs, and I'd be lying if I wasn't in a mini-panic about not using the Hastings shipper, but I don't want to tread on fmheath's angle and her races here in conditioned races last season are all strong efforts, but perhaps just a little below par for the level, so I have my excuse. Of course, this isn't a great race for the level, but I assume few people will confidently single this race, so I'm going to try, albeit without a lot of confidence. I've never been a big fan of hers per se, but Lucky High may hold the aces here as speed going six and a half. Her last two aren't great, but Super Miguel isn't panicky and just moves her down one little level and tries to get her a little easier pace scenario at this distance.

So, in the end, I'm going this direction:

R1 .50P4 : ALL / 2,3 / 6 / ALL = $70

and a little saver ticket in case the early spread backfires and the money comes through:

R1 .50P4: 3,4,6,10 / 2,3 / 1,6 / ALL = $28

Okay 1 MTP, I can hit submit and noone can want to kill me.

[johnhannibalsmith]

...I can feel okay using two in there and ditching the M/L fave who is lacking in recorded works for his first race back and then the horse that bolted last time. The horse that bolted could definitely get there if he doesn't misbehave again, but for the purposes of trimming this down to one or two, I have to draw that line....

F me and my line drawing. Even trying to get out he runs them off their feet. Second and third with the M/L fave fit to go a quarter-mile finishing nowhere. Really... F me.

[lamboguy]

race 6 #2 CATMANTOO

[johnhannibalsmith]

race 6 #2 CATMANTOO

Interesting horse... don't know what to make of him as he got bombed with money while facing Dunscombe and Asperity last time who figured to take all of the loot there. I'm not sure how he gets bet today. I sort of like Proper Causeway, even though I'm not big on ASD shippers in general. If he's a big price, I'd consider him as some sort of key in here. Bears Home Run is another that I've always kind of liked and generally faced much better here in the past, but this is a slightly contentious race and he doesn't seem to be quite the rockstar he has been in years past. This is the type of race I almost have to wait to see the tote action, because you can make a half dozen pretty convincing cases.

[johnhannibalsmith]

The fourth here... some wacky prices in a pretty tight race... Friggin' Oconee always screws up a race for me, but even though he was tons the best, the race that Catorce de la Fama ran last time was pretty impressive for these cheapies that run here - got pocketed in the turn and shuffled back, passed by two horses, and just dug in and persevered like a bit of a racehorse. At 5-1, even though there are a couple of others in that range, and even though he is definitely moving up here and now trying this turf - I dunno, right price to take a shot with this crew now that I feel pretty confident he isn't a one-dimensional pace-controlling cheapie.

[johnhannibalsmith]

Yeah, don't think he's a bonafide turf runner... instead of being on the pace, he was last by a dozen early and just sputtered up late to try and get third. Better stay on the main track at least until the marathon series on turf.

[johnhannibalsmith]

I DO NOT think that this filly really likes the two-turn mile distance, but 8-1 on :2: Irish Hazel V in this field is a pretty good price. Yeah, she's partly that price because Flawless Jewel is 4-5 and probably is a legit favorite in here. But this filly is pretty game when she's right. She had a little break at the end of ARP and has one race here in which she didn't do a lot of running, but that's okay. If she gets at least mildly involved and into the running before the three-eighths and joins the leaders by the head of the lane, she'll try to the wire, even if she's probably better sprinting with real pace to run at. I'm not sure how to play her exactly, (no shit, right), but I could put a smidge on her to win and key her up with 3, 4, and 5 a bit in exotics with some emphasis on the 4.

[johnhannibalsmith]

...but 8-1 on :2: Irish Hazel V in this field is a pretty good price..... If she gets at least mildly involved and into the running before the three-eighths and joins the leaders by the head of the lane, she'll try to the wire, even if she's probably better sprinting with real pace to run at. I'm not sure how to play her exactly, (no shit, right), but I could put a smidge on her to win and key her up with 3, 4, and 5 a bit in exotics with some emphasis on the 4.

Great ride. Kept her close to the favorite, made sure to have her vying at the quarter-pole and she did indeed fight tough as nails through the lane, but the 3 was just too much horse for all of them. The four held third.

Naturally, I pussyfoot around and don't actually compose some tickets like I usually would - but the exotics I alluded to returned $122.20 for the $2 exacta and $166.90 for the $1 tri.

[johnhannibalsmith]

Race 6 - Lambo and our buddy in the other thread both like the :2: , who is down around 3-1. The horse I kind of like, the :6: , is 11-1. Dunscombe and Bears Home Run, are vying for favoritism. The :5: keeps getting bet, but this is arguably a considerably tougher, deeper bunch than the one he ran third in last time, but that was his first over the strip this meet. Tough little race.

Maybe $10 W/P :6: (since I already opened my fat trap about kinda liking that one).

And just for kicks, a little supermofecta action:

.50 Super 3,6 - 1,3,5,6 - 1,2,3,5,6 - 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 = $54

[johnhannibalsmith]

Wow, if the six could run at all, he should have won by a pole... 25, 49.change on the pace and just wilted and meanwhile, the only guy with any sense in the race behidn the front two is Carreno who launches the mid-move while everyone else is napping. They just kept betting Just Heat and ended up as the 2-1 favorite. Nice ride to get first run in a race where you had to.

[johnhannibalsmith]

$5 W/P, $10 show # :8: Lucky Twist @ 40-1

:rolleyes: :rolleyes: maiden milers

[johnhannibalsmith]

That was exciting, the :4: is odds-on and en route to a romp at the sixteenth pole and decides he had fun in the paddock and ought to go check it out again. Moves ten paths at a 45 degree angle for a half-dozen strides and still almost re-rallied... laf... those races are hard to take as it is, then you back something like that that's home and cooled out at even money or whatever and get beat... blech...

Slightly better maidens here in the 8th... the filly :2: Judobaby ran really big in her debut, but is in with boys today, and a better field - still ought to be a presence. What do you do with the :9: ? Short price and form that is tough to translate... I don't like the one entry at 5-2 for anything but a piece... :3: Painted Slew ran big last time, but he seems destined for an minor placing unless everyone else just caves in...

Alright, here we go...

.50 super 2,9 - 1,2,3,9 - 1,2,3,9 - ALL = $81
.50 super 2,9 - 1,2,3,9 - 1,2,3,9 - 1,2,3,4,8,9 = $57
$1 super 2,9 - 1,2,3,9 - 1,2,3,9 - 1,2,3,9 = $12

[johnhannibalsmith]

:D :D

I had that hedge play almost perfect to negate the worst case formful run of 9-1-2-3... which is how it ran, returning about $2 shy of my tickets... figures the one grass maiden race at TuP that actually runs almost exactly as it looks like it will from top to bottom. :p

[johnhannibalsmith]

...
.50 super 2,9 - 1,2,3,9 - 1,2,3,9 - ALL = $81
.50 super 2,9 - 1,2,3,9 - 1,2,3,9 - 1,2,3,4,8,9 = $57
$1 super 2,9 - 1,2,3,9 - 1,2,3,9 - 1,2,3,9 = $12

Actually, I think my calculations there are way off the mark... laf...

The first should be $36 not $81
The second should be $18, not $57

I have no idea how I did that... -$66 + $145.80 sounds a little better... I can't multitask... and I can't afford to be claiming to actually do worse than I actually have been... an $80 profit! :jump:

Edited to mention that I havent been able to do math on supers all day apparently as I look back at the last one from race 6... I overstated that one too... WTF am I doing here today? :D

[johnhannibalsmith]

We MUST connect in the last. First order of business is stand against :6: Coatofmanycolors at 8-5 and :8: Gentleman's Red at 5-2, though both did run well last time. I have no real idea why Alvey's horse is getting played like it will suddenly show something, but I guess that complicates an otherwise simple looking superfecta move.

$1 super 1,4 - 1,4,6,8 - 1,4,6,8 - 1,3,4,5,6,7,8 = $48
$1 super 1,4 - 1,4,6,8 - 1,4,6,7,8 - 1,4,6,7,8 = $36

Back on small pool Friday for more afternoon wasting babbling!

[johnhannibalsmith]

Bah! Raggin Wood (aka Ragin Wood) who I've used both times previously as a kicker on tickets fires today and steals the third spot to carkill the super. The one didn't run a lick, the eight just isn't much, and I knew better than to put any serious stock into the fact that the seven was getting bet for some reason. Probably one that there was no reason to miss really, but those dang HST shippers make you do a double take now... :D

[HuggingTheRail]

A couple o' more HST trainers are starting to enter horses.... James Brown (no, not THAT James Brown!!) has A Lasting Peace entered on Sunday.

Jim had a great season at HST, and usually enters them where they can win...usually not afraid to lose them through the claim box (although this one is in a starter stakes). I haven't read the form yet, so I don't know what he's in against, but may be worth a look see...but "I feel good" about Jim's chances most times he has entered a horse this year...

William LaVanway is apparently there as well, and will be entering horses shortly. William had a career year at HST this season....seemed like he did well with some 2YO and first time starters.

[johnhannibalsmith]

Good deal... the more the merrier and the sooner the better...

Friday has arriven indeed and I just watched the :2: entry in the opener for 2yo. QH maidens drop from 25-1 to 3-1 in one flash, even with the :1: entry at 1-5, so I'm assuming there is a TON of money in the pools already! :D

(Two minutes later, the :7: drops from 9-1 to 3-2) :D

I should have asked if Veteran Vince is out of town today or something, but I'm a little curious why he isn't on Allred's in this race. Colorado-bred gelding has run twice last season in a trial and then the finals for a futurity and took some money for the debut and even a bit the second time out, but didn't run all that tremendously in either.

Still, right now, he's 8-1 versus the extremely short prices of the :1: , :2: , and :7: . Allred might lead a few up that aren't exactly 100% for the paid-in races where you either meet the deadline or you don't play, but when he's out of the woods and just looking at the book, it's safe to assume that he went shopping for a spot once he has done all he feels can be done to be close to that 100%. In other words, he's just a little bit sharper than a lot of these other guys and doesn't go looking to fill races with $3,000 purses.

If the price remains up in that range - really, even at 7-2 or better - I would probably be willing to play on a wing and a prayer that this one is well-intended and may be good enough to break his maiden in this field with his very best.

$20 W/P :4: = $40
$8 exacta box 1,4 =$16
$10 quinella 1,4 = $10
.20 super 1,4 / 1,4 / ALL / ALL = $12
.20 super 1,4 / ALL / 1,4 / ALL = $12
$5 double 4 - 5,6 = $10

[lamboguy]

i saw a Hasting trainer win a race yesterday at Golden Gate. thought the Hasting meet was good, not great. i must be wrong, or this Turf Paradise meet must be terrible. a few years ago, there were plenty of horses coming from Turf Paradise that were winning.

i am going to have to give the Hasting horses a second look from here on in.

[johnhannibalsmith]

Well heck, close but no cigarillo. The :1: entry destroys the field at 2-5 or something and my :4: just barely gets beat out of the exacta and quinella at the wire and ends up in the show (4th place) spot with the entry 1-2 at the wire. Good run for him, the entry was legit, and without those two in there, he's in a drive for the win at the wire.

The superfecta was a bit of savior, returning eight pennies over $54. I'm guessing we'd have done pretty decent had we held the exacta/quinella spot and maybe gotten between 3-2 and 2-1 on the 2-5 winner.

[johnhannibalsmith]

Race five is a herd of turkey fillies in a non-winner since condition going a mile. Really this race didn't interest me all that much, but the price on Double Zado keeps going up.

Here's how you know you can probably ignore this whole line of thinking: I was down there on Sunday and I bet on Double Zado in a bad sprint and cussed Jake up and down for not getting more aggressive early and keeping her in the race.

My inclination is just to be appalled at how badly she ran, but they literally ran up and entered her the very next day after she ran. Roberson isn't a dummy or anything, he's an old-time, crafty type of trainer. If hadn't ran on Sunday, she's probably be 4-1 in here. She's 15-1 at the moment.

Now, how do you use that last line to make a judgment? So what if she hadn't ran, she did run, and she ran like crap? Or do you figure, well, she's literally right back in and maybe she just had a real good excuse other than the distance? She is 13-1 now at 2MTP, so all things considered, I guess the way my broken mind operates, I have to look at it from the cagey veteran trainer perspective and expect that there is at least a chance that she will run one of her better races and do so at a great price.

$20 W/P :5:
$1 trifecta :5: / ALL / ALL
$1 trifecta ALL / :5: / ALL

0 MTP... I can hit submit.

[johnhannibalsmith]

Ho-hum, no comment other than to wish I could get someone that would get down and ride her like the cheap goat she is... the other longshot ended up winning the race at 12-1... the race was just crying for anyone to step up to the plate.

[johnhannibalsmith]

Welpers... I'm thinking there might be a shot to get some money out of a late pick 4... I hate to single an AZbred maiden, but leg one doesn't impress me, and the last two seem to have a few that look capable of winning - but there's no telling how they get played on the tote on a Friday, so sometimes the best hedge is the pick 3 or pick 4 or even pick 5 against short prices on the tote.

R6-.50 P4 ALL / 1 / 2,5,7,10 / 6,8,10,11 = $56

[johnhannibalsmith]

.... I'm also tossing in another monster bomb here - #6 Lionell. Lionell has run four times and ran as close to last in each as you can run without actually finishing last. Here's the thing about him - he was in CO, IOWA, OKL at that time last year, and I don't think he was quite ready for racing. He's a big, big colt that looks like he's going to find his niche around the hook - like his big brother did - the monster Leo Beaudash. Yeah, if you love 870, you probably remember that old hard knocker that banged out about $200k the hard way, primarily in claimers - this is a fully brother, so I'm willing to give him a bit of a chance off a break, another period of maturity, and in such a horrible field - considering he should be 20-1.

...

Just want to dredge this up from page two of the thread and mention now, in case I'm sitting at an OTB for the first on Monday that after two starts here, Lionell is in Monday in an 870 maiden. Naturally, they can't find a record of his 660y work at ARP two summers ago, so now he has to work around the hook in the morning unfortunately. I'd just assume that he didn't have to blow out two days before the race... not exactly a traditional winning move for quarters... but anyway, he's in... and it's not a very scintillating field, so just in case....

[johnhannibalsmith]

Damn... Matthew Straight shows up in town, his only mount... crushes... buries the all pick players by paying...

$123.80 :eek: :eek: :eek:

I thought I did enough going four deep to try and avoid a couple of bad favorites... :lol:

[johnhannibalsmith]

No Matthew Straight in here, just the usual suspects on a bunch of oddballs, including a rare treat from the Hollendorfer barn.

I guess this makes it a betting opportunity - with King Jerry at 8-5 here - but heck, this is another messy looking race. I'm still trying to make these sloppy superfectas work, and I just missed a chance in the last with a dimer that paid $1500 or something ridiculous. Ah hell, lets go this route:

R9 .10 super - 6,8,10,11 - 6,8,10,11 - 1,5,6,8,10,11,12 - 1,5,6,8,10,11,12 = $24

Now obviously, I'm boned if this runs too much to form or the 12 sneaks in the exacta since he took early money and now at 4-1, but hey, swwwwinggggg...

[johnhannibalsmith]

...or the 12 sneaks in the exacta...

All you needed to know... ;)



Even I can't get too jazzed about these races today... man oh man, these are some uninteresting staggerfests.

[johnhannibalsmith]

Saturday, la la la, you know it is the first of the day.

$6250 N2L going 870 yards and I'm looking to key a mare that is 1 for 24, with 8 seconds, against the boys and off the shelf since the end of Arapahoe. :rolleyes:

It is worth being aware of the fact that With Love Too amassed most of her losing record before she became an 870 specialist and the groups she faced in Aurora, CO are quite a bit better than this crew. Her narrow loss to I Should Say pretty much spells out why I'm a fan - he was an old classy veteran, albeit off-form at the time, but was a legit allowance/high-end claimer on much tougher circuits at one time. She got headed and never gave in an inch all the way to the wire - she's a trying thing that has just never had it easy. On the downside, by the end of the meet, she really needed the time off. It's a bit of a question mark assuming that she's going to bounce back now in top form, but, what are you going to do?

I suppose I better piece together a pick 4, but this could easily pay $12 if it runs formfully. The second leg is for two-year-old winners and several are back to face one another again, including Oso Caty, who is 2 for 2 with a last out win here over Gadsden Purchase, who finished third as a strong favorite. Now, if either one of those two win, there will be plenty of live tickets heading into the final half of the sequence. It's a short field, and I'm hitting the button here, just because they are two-year-olds and the two favorites have run hard - juveniles aren't easy to hold together anyway and it doesn't always take a lot for one to regress quickly or improve quickly and the only hope I see for a decent ticket is to just plain get lucky and catch pretty much anyone else in the field.

The third leg I pitch a couple that have a legit chance and use the two Canadian regulars here to keep the ticket small. The last leg I use the four that look pretty much solid to get there. His Holiness has one in here that likely goes off favored, but quite honestly, his favorites thus far haven't been as rock solid, straight-in as they have been in the last half-dozen years.

I'm mainly trying to get somewhere off of With Love Too - I'm willing to concede that the opener doesn't need to run formfully at all, but I'm trying to find at least something on the card that I have something resembling an opinion on so that I can waste some time this afternoon again.

R1: .50 P4 - 5 / ALL / 2,7 / 1,2,5,6 = $24
R1: $8 exacta box 5 with 3,7 = $32
R1: $1 tri 5 with 3,7 with ALL = $12
R1: $1 tri 3,7 with 5 with ALL = $12
R1: .20 super 5 with 3,7 with ALL with ALL = $12
R1: .20 super 5 with ALL with 3,7 with ALL = $12
R1: .50 super 5 with 3,7 with 2,3,7 with ALL = $10

[johnhannibalsmith]

...On the downside, by the end of the meet, she really needed the time off. It's a bit of a question mark assuming that she's going to bounce back now in top form...

Cooked. Done. Broke, ran to the lead for 80 yards, and then completely folded two jumps into the turn. Thems the breaks, too bad, at least mares let you know when they've had enough.

[johnhannibalsmith]

Race 2 - the race for two-year-old winners (except the maiden 2nd time starter) and not a race that I think is necessarily worth playing at all. Gadsden Purchase and Oso Caty are both legit and taking the sort of money you would expect, but for some reason :6: All Our Lass is 12-1. Well, there's no money at all in the pools, so that's the reason...

...but this gelding can actually run some - he has yet to run a bad race in his five career starts, including a fourth behind the aforementioned favorites in their common race. He ran in some of the better maiden races in Denver - and the better ones aren't as bad as you might think - and his race in the $100,000 Goldrush was a huge effort right off the maiden win. I had him pegged as a possible play at 5-1 or better with his excellent speed and outside draw.

He's 12-1 still at 3MTP... unlike most of my other counterfeit plays here that are just me trying to tinker with strategy and a ruse to entertain myself - I'd be hard pressed not to make a little win/place wager, maybe even a bit into exotics with the price he's still at. Definitely not any sort of standout, but he certainly represents value in the overall context.

[johnhannibalsmith]

Broke two in front and broke down before the half-mile pole.

Great start, I've massacred two horses with two picks.

[johnhannibalsmith]

See if this one is left standing after this turf race 1x/2L allowance... Looks like ample pace to run at and can't settle for even money on His Holiness.

:4: Dr. Hudson - just dropped to 3-1... oh well, kinda needed to be closer to 4-1 to warrant a win bet, but his style and the fact that he is a multiple winner with experience over this course makes him a legit key to avoid chalk. If he drifts up again around 4-1, may be worth considering.

[johnhannibalsmith]

Maybe forget that... the :5: just got sideways in the gate and looked like he was stampeding the four in the process... yuck...

[johnhannibalsmith]

Both :4: and :5: scratched... oy... four horse gate, no betting this 1-5 steamer to show now.... :rolleyes:

But I did continue my streak of getting my picks injured in some way.

Back up plan - :6: :1: exacta is listed as $4 will pay.

Now maybe the six can get away easily and the one can fall a hare short. Six is 2-1 at the moment also. The pace scenario seems to have shifted to his benefit if the two doesn't just plain run off in his two-turn turf debut.

[johnhannibalsmith]

...The pace scenario seems to have shifted to his benefit if the two doesn't just plain run off in his two-turn turf debut.

Yeah, two sends into the turn, then packs everyone (I mean both horses outside) wide, the six finally gives up and takes back, and then the two just flat bolts to the outside fence and one ends up on the lead leaving the first turn. Oh heavens, what else do we have in store on the docket for today?

[johnhannibalsmith]

Wow, 1-6 exacta paid $4.40 and the Q was $3.40... that's actually a gift there... and I think I actually the six return in one piece...

[johnhannibalsmith]

Okay, okay, here we go - the moment we've all been waiting for - the start of the .50 pick 5 with a nice carryover of five large and change... and really... a bunch of bad races that kind of make for a decent little sequence if you can survive a few legs with just a couple.

Non three cheap ass fillies - can't use more than four here - I'd sort of like to include Ticklemeterrelmo because she at least goes around the track and runs her race every time, but she's not very inspirational as a win candidate. So, we end up with 1,3,5,6 - have to root for the rail filly, who I liked the last two times a bit, but the Lucarelli barn has simply been frigid here. Still, can't jump off the wagon entirely now for the purposes of this sequence if she's going to be 5-1 or so.

Then it's off to horrible maidens. This is the type of leg you never feel terribly comfortable with unless you have almost all of them covered, but I'll use just two coming out of a common race - both of whom I liked in that spot and ran well for different reasons.

More bad non-three fillies - I'm spreading here - five of them - no need to explain, the all can barely run but one has to win. Then $6250 turf mares, gonna use three - likely favorite SS Shelby who was huge in winning last time catches a little tougher field, but I did explain my trepidation in singling here last time she ran, Pivotal Queen, another pseudo-standout that I actually played against last time as the favorite and was right for one, and throwign in Mighty Tizzy as the upset chance off of a good race last time behind SS Shelby. Since my top two picks are sort of vulnerable types, I had to find one another in case both run a little substandard.

The finale is the traditional non-winners in a long time and I figure that speedball Western Twist takes a lot of the action on these tickets. Rightfully so, but he's not exactly made of iron and has been enjoying most of his recent success going a lot shorter - still, I can't use very many here, so I'm only going to pad the ticket with Nativity Prep, who is a pretty good old horse that just needs to finds something resembling his best to be a HUGE threat here.

Okay...

R5 .50 P5: 1,3,5,6 / 8,9 / 1,2,5,6,8 / 2,5,9 / 8,10 = $120

[johnhannibalsmith]

...
Then it's off to horrible maidens. This is the type of leg you never feel terribly comfortable with unless you have almost all of them covered, but I'll use just two...

.../ 8,9 / ...

Yep, the nine is 6-1, two in front all the way around, still two in front at the sixteenth pole, the eight moves into second - looks like a cinch to run 1-2 with the one of the best prices in the field - and 150 yards before the wire they begin to walk and get mowed over at the line.

Ho hum... I would have had to single the last I think to spread enough here to get to that leg... I'm all mixed up like pasta primavera... yo homeboy why you throw that chair at Geraldo Rivera?

MUST get my act TOGETHER... tomorrow is money making day, this weekend has me nervous thus far...

[johnhannibalsmith]

Well well well...

My last chance to practice and you know I...

(wait a second, just looking to see that there is $619 in the pick 6 pool, and there was a few hundered dollar carryover today :lol: )

...you, um, know that I enjoy these .10 supermaffectors in the last race since it is usually the biggest field of crap all day long... which is a mouthful...

Western Twist is 3-5 now at 9MTP. Egads. Yep, this is a horrendous race and he has run some big races, particularly in the past, and yes, this is Super Miguel... but 3-5...

I guess I'll piece together something using my initial assessment that I thought Western Twist and Nativity Prep were probably the two most likely winners, but I'm a little interested in the outside horse, Evaluate. He exits one of the worst ever races at the level and was the beaten favorite, beaten a long way, but it was a completely paceless affair - and it was his first try over the track... Nativity Prep is 10-1 and Evaluate is 10-1... and Smarty Matt is 5-1 as the second choice, and he's a neat old horse, but I've given up all hope that he might ever win another race. (That's your cue to bet him)

So... let's see here...

8,10,12 - 3,5,8,10,12 - 1,3,5,6,8,10,12 - 1,3,4,5,6,8,9,10,12 = $36

Yeah, that's a monster, but I'm sort of digging it - but I will play the hedge with Western Twist on top...

.10 super: 8 - 3,5,10,12 - 1,3,5,6,10,12 - ALL = $16
$1 tri 8 - 3,5,10,12 = $12

Let's get tomorrow started right.

[johnhannibalsmith]

...
Let's get tomorrow started right.

Welpers, my top 3 ran 1st, 3rd, and 4th, and stupid ass Smarty Matt rolled up in the last jump to outphoto me for 2nd and screw it all up... but ah hell, that wasn't bad, just a bbbiiiiiiiiittt outside.

[johnhannibalsmith]

You're right Mr. Smith. That was some unenthusiastic effort. Watch for that one next time....

Be Well,
fmhealth


Koricancha just got beat a half a head at 18-1 with the QH jock trying to eke out the last 440 yards of riding... too bad Morales didn't think he ought to even begin to try on him last time.

[fmhealth]

I feel your pain Mr. Smith. But in any event you did an excellent job ferreting-out a very well-meant L/S.

Here's a shipper update for today.

HST-- Three starters, two winners

NP--- One starter, runs second

Looked at Friday & can only find three plays. In the 8th, the 2 comes in from HST & the 5 from NP. The ninth race has a HST 2nd timer # 4. He ran 10 days ago & was really roughed-up. Comes back pretty quickly & could be a price play if he gets away w/o much trouble.

Saturday has four interesting starters. More on these later in the week.

Be Well,
fmhealth

[johnhannibalsmith]

Race 2 here on Saturday - #1 Block N Tackle is as close to a cinch as you'll find in QH racing here at TuP. Been running well against MUCH better in CO - though he did miss a dance earlier in the meet here which has me a hare suspicious. Still... 1-2 is actually a gift if he runs at all...

I think #6 Jump the Creek could be a legit kicker here as a hard tryer that also has been in against tougher for the most part but hasn't run since ARP. Can be a total dink at the gate if he hasn't been schooling, but I'll shoot one here

.50 super 1 -6 - * * = $15
.50 super 1 - * - 6 - * = $15

[johnhannibalsmith]

Block N Tackle crushes with ease, but the kicker just didn't show much late after actually breaking well for him and contesting for about 150 yards. Ended up fifth I believe, but no threat to complete the wager midway through. On the plus side, I'm pretty sure he auto qualifies for the finals by finishing fifth, considering only eight went in trial one and Aldrete dropped two of them with his typical meandering about the track and then got himself placed behind the two DNFs.

[johnhannibalsmith]

Race 7: Welpers, either Chamberlain's endorsement will drive this one below fair value or it will boost it... :kiss: ... just kidding - consider the source here - but this is a pretty kooky little race of cheapies and Rocky Ice is dragging in a ton of action at 9-5, along with the Diodorotino Stamp of Approval, now also in that area.

#3 Stonewall Riot is a pretty neat old veteran and exits a third behind a couple of pretty decent horses, including a winner who came right back to win again on yesterday's card in the next condition. He's been sitting at 4-1 for a while and is now up to 9-2 - that's a good range for win betting, but really, he makes a hell of a key horse too if he does drop some. There's really no reason to love Diodoro's other than the fact that this isn't a stellar bunch, Rocky Ice didn't even find the lead last time going six and a half and raw speed and heart has always been his forte - and really, other than a few in here - there's no reason why any one of most of these couldn't get involved off of their best races in the past with an ideal scenario and trip.

If he's around 3-1 or better he's probably worth a win/place bet. I'd easily consider using him as a key in trifectaland with the 1,5,6,7,8 (omitting the Diodoro favorite just eliminate one of the chalk plays and limit the ticket, but that's probably not a bright idea if you actually think being fresh gives him an edge against these).

$20 W/P #3
$1 tri: 3 - 1,5,6,7,8 - 1,5,6,7,8
$1 tri: 1,5,6,7,8 - 3 - 1,5,6,7,8

Bingobango, stop the four!!!!

[johnhannibalsmith]

Race 7...

Bingobango, stop the four!!!!

Just take it all, turn it upside down and go from there... :lol:

Stamp of Approval, who ended the meet in terrible form last year after never showing much of anything in general last year, comes back and walks out of the gate and just runs over the top of everyone. Meanwhile, Stonewall Riot is in the garden spot from the word go just behind a dueling Rocky Ice as favorite and has NOTHING from the seven-sixteenths in, even as Rocky Ice is laying down badly in the lane. He was in fact a bad favorite, but I'm just not even sure how you can get jazzed about playing Stamp of Approval at anything shorter than 15-1. :faint:

[johnhannibalsmith]

Well after that tragedy and the fact that tomorrow I actually have to try to make something happen with actual money, I guess I better regroup for a look at this turf stakes for threes here in the eighth.

I have to say, I really do like the prices on :9: Born Force at 25-1 and :10: The Gov at 10-1, but I'm having some difficulty getting around :4: Fable Haven at 4-1... kinda thought he'd end up taking all the money by this point and be closer to 2-1 off the good last out second versus winners on the grass for the first time after breaking the maiden. He looks like he should get a perfect run behind what should be a strong pace from the inside.

Too late to assemble any kind of losing tickets here, but 3-1 or 4-1 on on the four seems like good money, and I'd probably put a few beans on my other picks, maybe cross the trio up in a small exacta just for kicks. Pretty fun looking race on paper.

[johnhannibalsmith]

The four got destroyed leaving the gate and shuffled back last, but it may have been a good thing as he was able to get a clear run on the outside into the pace and finished second at 9-2... behind... Diodorito and Carreno at 12-1 yet again! I coulda, shoulda, didn't!

Geeez... paid $8.20 to place somehow... someone must have been into that place pool pretty heavy to get that kind of return here.

[johnhannibalsmith]

Some weird action in the finale... have no idea why a few of these at 5-1, like Knoxville aren't 20-1 here, even if this is a sort of lame field. Rock Hard Bunny at 7-1?

Really, the way that Sunday Eve got bet for her debut way back in February and her works for this return race, you kind of have to assume she's a cut above the rest talentwise. But, she obviously may have a problem or two also. You also have Deputy Innovator at 5-2 as the second choice, who is just ultra logical with nobody else that really looks like a "new face" with much upside - the FTS on the outside may be a gem, but 5-1? No thanks, not here. Juans Babi is 11-1 and didn't run all that bad, so if you go looking outside of the top two obvious plays, I see no reason you can't give her a little shot.

Hows about...

Straightforward - $20 exacta box 5,6 = $40
$6 exacta 5,6 - 4 = $12

Fer a bit of last race fun and games...

.50 super 5,6 - 4,5,6 - * *

[johnhannibalsmith]

Bah... Sunday Eve romps and everyone else is staggering home and still maintain their early positions for the most part... thought for a moment that Juan's Babi might eat at the fast pace from behind but she just quit running altogether at the eighth pole. I think almost all of these need to really consider the fact that they write maiden fives almost every day...