Race Results Today was a day for the favorites and also for yet another one of Tapit's progeny. That is to say that early rumored favorite, Frank Conversation, came through with the win in the El Camino. Tapit son Tusk came second, not too far off the leader, and second favorite Kasseopia came third. I was sort of disappointed by Diplodocus today- I'm not really sure what happened with him, but it looks like he may have gotten too bunched in to ever make a successful move. Lessons Learned In a perfect world, once I would realize what was working for me, I would just keep doing that forever and ever; we do not live in that world. Despite my best efforts, I was researching the contenders in this race down the wire, and making my bets as the horses were mere feet from the starting gate. While my predictions for the race worked out, I didn't leave myself enough time to calculate what the most efficient bets would be. Did I lose money? Yes, by a little. $2.20 is like a small iced coffee at Dunkin Donuts, which isn't nothing. One of the things I regret with my bets today is the last minute bet I placed on Algenon. In my notes, I mentioned that his 3rd place finish in the California Derby after having weakened in the final furlong "does not bode well for a good performance today." Despite that, a brief glance at him before the post parade made me decide to bet on him. That was me trying to go with my gut, thinking about how good I had felt when I saw Collected in the Sham Stakes post parade. But Collected didn't win the Sham Stakes simply because he was impressive looking, he won because he had a good race record and had what it took to best the rest. Once again, I'm struck by how difficult it can be to draw the line between a purely logical and objective approach to handicapping and the subjective, intuitive aspect that definitely has some place in these decisions.
Going forward, I'm going to try and be more resolute in trying to finish handicapping sooner before post and giving myself enough time to do calculations. Today when asked how much I stood to win on the bets I had place, I didn't know the answer. As much as I don't like math, I'm going to need to start doing it before placing my bets or otherwise I stand to lose more than just a small iced coffee if things go south. At the same time, I still want the emphasis of my bets to be on who I think has the best chance of winning, not just who could make me the most money. Although I'm not completely dissatisfied with today's bets, I definitely feel like I could have done much better. That said, the real benefit to handicapping these Derby prep races is that I'm familiarizing myself with the likely Triple Crown race competitors for later in the year. Haha, or at least this is what I tell myself when I spend several hours on a weekend on Equibase and Pedigree Query running names and numbers. Who did you think was going to come out on top in today's El Camino? Do you place more of an emphasis on logic and results or intuition when betting? How has this worked out for you? Stay warm, folks! ~Gallant Vixen
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Sometimes when handicapping you get a "deep" field- this means that the horses are all pretty talented and rather evenly matched. The field for today's race, however, was on the shallow side. I'm grateful for that, since having to decide who to bet on between 14 equally qualified horses would have been a disaster for me. And in an effort to try and actually turn a profit, having less horses to choose from was convenient. Although I anticipate that Kasseopia (2) will place or show, his odds are too good to really make money from. So while I think he could pull it off, my betting does not reflect that. Otherwise, I really like Diplodocus (10) and Frank Conversation (12) to come somewhere in the money. Diplodocus has actually won at 1 1/8th mile before, and Frank Conversation has proven himself recently at 1 1/16th mile on this very track in the California Derby. I placed show bets on Marqula (7) and Tusk (8) due to their experiences either with the track (Marqula) or similar distances (Tusk), plus a wild card show bet on Algenon (9) because I liked the way he looked before rider's up, and since he had come 3rd in the California Derby.
As I'm beginning to research and handicap tomorrow's El Camino Real Derby, I finally got the chance to watch amazing Mohaymen's win in the January 30 Holy Bull. My original plan was to handicap it since the field was projected to be pretty small, but unfortunately I missed it. Buuut, let's just take a moment to admire this performance: So in case you missed that, Junior Alvarado never even needed to touch his crop. You get the sense that for Mohaymen, this was essentially a more competitive workout. Watching this race is reminiscent of American Pharoah's run in the 2015 Rebel Stakes at Oaklawn, with the obvious differences being the much larger margin Pharoah won by and the fact that he held the lead the whole time. But going into the Derby, whether Pharoah would be able to handle a duel with Dortmund, another standard frontrunner, for the lead was a pressing question. Here, we know that Mohaymen can handle starting out toward the back of the pack, fight his way to the lead with hardly any urging, and then romp away home.
At four for four, Mohaymen certainly appears to be living up to his name, Arabic for "dominant." Plus, he seems to be on the track to live up to his $2.2 million purchase price at the 2014 Keeneland September sale, with over half a million in race earnings already. Once again, very much looking forward to what's next for this boy! ~Gallant Vixen |
About Gallant VixenNew lawyer with a degree in equine studies and a penchant for handicapping. Archives
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