As I had pondered, Gun Runner did indeed just coast on through to a finish on Saturday's Classic. I got a full return on my investment in this race and then some (about $13.60), but my betting strategy highlighted an interesting difficulty in handicapping: what if one of the chief favorites in the race has a bad trip and doesn't finish in the money at all? More on this, including a video replay, after the jump.
Race Results
What happened here? Clearly Arrogate didn't break very well out of the gate, but then he just never really seemed to get in his groove. Mike Smith and Bob Baffert both had different answers when asked about Arrogate's objectively lackluster performance.
So in summary: Mike Smith thinks that Arrogate just had a tough time with the track at Del Mar in general; Bob Baffert surmised that maybe Arrogate is just done with all of this and ready to retire. Either way, looking at the race footage it's plain to see that Arrogate just didn't have enough in the tank when Smith was asking him for more. It's likely that both Baffert and Smith were right- Arrogate just still wasn't that into Del Mar, and he's put a LOT of effort out in the past year and is just #overit.
What went well in this race though? Gun Runner and Collected both broke very well, and got right up there in the lead. West Coast wasn't exactly where I thought he would be, but still stayed just off the pace for most of the trip. War Story made a valiant effort, but ultimately didn't really surprise me. Lessons Learned
As I mentioned in my predictions post, I started toying a little with trifectas again for this race. I was pretty confident in doing so, considering there were just 4 horses who really seemed like they would come out in the money. My "fatal" error here (note that fatal is in quotes since it ultimately didn't lose me much money) was my assumption that Arrogate would definitely come in 1st or 2nd. I simply did not fathom that he would put out such a poor performance, even though my first impression of him coming into this race noted that his last two starts at Del Mar had been poor. If I had simply added Gun Runner-Collected-West Coast to my bag of trifecta bets, I could have had a return of $64.50. It wouldn't have been a stretch either, since I had considered all of those horses as capable of either W/P/S or P/S (West Coast).
It can be tricky, of course, since horses like Arrogate become a chief favorite for a reason. I don't think I was wrong to have as much faith in him as I did, but the primary lesson here is to consider the possibility of the biggest favorite (in terms of overall profile, not just odds) having a bad day and losing. Until the next time, ~Gallant Vixen
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About Gallant VixenNew lawyer with a degree in equine studies and a penchant for handicapping. Archives
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