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June 8, 2008 - June 14, 2008

Crist Blog | June 13, 2008

Twilight Time

Go back to bed -- not just because it's Friday the 13th but because first post at Belmont today isn't until 3 p.m. ET, the first of six straight Twilight Fridays at Belmont.

The race on the card most worth watching is the 3rd at 4 p.m., the $75k Postponed Stakes for 3-year-olds at a mile and a sixteenth. The field of six includes Unbridled Heart, who won his career debut on the Peter Pan undercard by 10 lengths, earning a 101 Beyer; Mint Lane, the Peter Pan runner-up; and Spurrier, third in the Roman Emperor-Da' Tara Barbaro Stakes on the Preakness undercard.

Unbridled Heart, Darley/Albertrani in his debut, has been transferred to Godolphin/bin Suroor for his second start.

--Here's the lineup for the Stephen Foster Handicap card tomorrow at Churchill Downs:

Three of the six graded stakes have likely odds-on favorites: Hystericalady, who is 4-5 ML for the Fleur de Lis; Curlin, 3-5 ML in the Foster; and Dreaming of Anna, who could dip below her 1-1 ML in the Mint Julep. Derby refugees Pyro (7-5 ML fave), Recapturetheglory and Visionaire headline the Northern Dancer.

Posted by Steven Crist on June 13, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (38)

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Crist Blog | June 11, 2008

El Gran Carryover

2:31 pm: Eight minutes to post for race four, first leg of the pick-six with a $1,186,625 carryover from Belmont Stakes Day courtesy of Da' Tara.

My tickets are in, a little under $2k worth, on what I found to be a skullbuster of a card, one better suited to some $1 pick-3 and pick-4 plays trying to catch bombs in one tough race after another than to nailing six in a row. The sheer size of the pool compels me to play anyway and take my best shot, just in case it's easier than it looks. A caveman ticket using all my A's B's and C's would have run a little more than $46k, so I mixed and matched on seven tickets -- an $1152 main and six smaller single-backup tickets.

Ninety percent of my play involves one of the two favorites winning the first leg. Here's hoping, and good luck to all.

2:50 pm: Second choice My Dinah($6.90) kept the whole world alive for at least one leg, running down 7-5 Love Co in upper stretch and drawing away from 33-1 Aly's Colors. Love Co blazed the first quarter in a crazy 22.52 under Prado, opening a six-length lead that dissipated quickly around the turn, and the final quarter of the race was run in 29.09 (that's not a typo) for a mile in 1:41.57. My Dinah, a half-sister to turf stakes-winner Them There Eyes, is now 3-for-4 on dirt, 0-for-3 on grass.

NYRA's announcing a gross pool of $4.4 million, meaning we all put in about $3.2 million today. Guess the Belmont didn't sour everyone on the game.

3:30 pm: Youbethecan ($21.00), trained by some guy named Rick Dutrow, blew past the field through the stretch to win Leg 2 as the 5th choice in a field of 12. Good news: I used him. Bad news: Only as a "C," so I'm down to one live ticket that singles favorite Dancing Tin Man in the next leg: 8/4,5,9/5,7,8,9/7,8.

Youbethecan ran a dull 5th as the 2-1 favorite in the April 23 version of this $35k N2L grass claimer, then was freshened up by Dutrow during the three editions of the race during May that produced most of the rest of this field. I know the horse's name is pronounced "You Bet He Can" but for some reason I always read it as "You Be The Can."

Let's go Dancing Tin Man.

3:59 pm: Can you say Three Million Dollar Carryover? We could all be saying that in about an hour and a half, after Willsboro Point won Leg 3 at $47.80 , completing a $1937 pick-3 for the first half of the pick-six.

Willsboro Point was hard to like unless you favor pedigree over past performance. He might have been the best-bred colt in the field, out of the multiple turf stakes-winner Petrouchka, but he was coming out of a very slow and slow-paced front-running victory against weaker, where he was claimed by Scott Schwartz from Roy Lerman. That was the race much of the field in the 5th race was coming out of, and all of them ran poorly.

I have no idea why Dancing Tin Man was dead last and in a race of his own far behind all nine of his opponents. Belatedly cut loose, he was running over horses but managed only to get fourth. Oh well.

4:30 pm: Myakka dimmed hopes for a Gargantuan double-carryover py proving best as the 8-5 favorite in Leg 4, surviving an early mild (45.12) duel with Classic Love before pulling away to win this statebred turf sprint in 1:08.86. Second to Lost Without You in her turf debut in the May 26 version of this race, Myakka looked best on paper but I couldn't emphasize her more strongly because it looked like there were six one-way speeds in the race and thus a potential meltdown.

I know the parlay's under $5k through four legs but Willsboro Point was so tough that I still think we could have a carry if anything goofy happens in the last two legs.

Let's go goofy!

5:02 pm: Pennington was insufficiently goofy at $9.20, so eight of the nine horses are covered in the finale. Unless you're alive for something you're probably rooting for #4, Say Karakorm Sandy, the only one who can deliver a $3 million carry. The will-pays, posted above, range from 29 live tickets to favored Ten Forty to just two at $1.49 million to Mackinaw. I guess I'm rooting for either a carryover with SKS or one stinking conso with either Newmont or Estimator, which might get me my money back if they pay around half a percent of the $499.405 or $334,050 top prizes.

5:28 pm: Ten Forty, whose charms I clearly did not appreciate since he was only a "B" in my book, galloped at 4-5 in the finale to enrich 29 sages to the tune of $103,754 apiece. No conso, no carryover, but just wait until next time.

Posted by Steven Crist on June 11, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (50)

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Crist Blog | June 10, 2008

Undercard Heroics

The Belmont Stakes aside, there was some very competitive and high-quality racing at Belmont Saturday on what was the best overall day of racing of this year's three Triple Crown cards:

Race 1: Desert Key, 3-year-old Centennial/J. Jerkens colt by E Dubai, got a soft opening half of 45.12 and made the most of it, rocketing away from a sold N1x field with a final quarter of 23.68 for a five-length victory in 1:08.80, good for a 104 Beyer even though the track was judged faster in races 1-4 than later in the day. Desert Key, now 2 for 4, had been second to Ready's Image in the overnight Adjudicating Stakes May 14, a race where I had been unimpressed by the winner's time and how hard he seemed to work to get up, a position that I now unfortunately rethunk, causing me to waste money adding Ready's Image to my tickets later on.

Race 4: Forefathers, dropped back to the N2x level after making seven of his eight previous starts in graded stakes, including a second to Daaher in the Jerome, shot through at the rail and won this N2x allowance by 6 1/2 lengths. The 4-year-old Zayat/Mott Gone West colt ran the mile in 1:34.48, good for a 107 Beyer.

Race 6: Benny the Bull was 1-2 in the G2 True North Handicap but didn't look like a winner until the final strides, when he belatedly kicked in and made up four lengths in the final furlong to nail loose-on-the-lead Man of Danger by a neck. The race got a Beyer 106, not comparable to BTB's best efforts, but this was not one of them, more a case of a superior horse doing an inch more than he had to in order to get the win. It was a pretty solid return for Thor's Echo, the 2006 sprint champion making his first start in almost 15 months, who broke well, chased Man of Dangerto the eighth pole, and settled for fourth, beaten 1 3/4 lengths.

Race 7: Ventura probably busted out any pick-six tickets that would have been alive to Da 'Tara here in the newly G1 Just a Game for filly turf-milers after getting through at the rail under Gomez and holding off the more troubled Lady of Venice by three-quarters of a length in 1:32.75. The Juddmonte/Frankel 4-year-old Chester House filly is now 3-for-4 in North America and was coming off a loss in the Distaff Turf Mile on Derby Day behind Bayou's Lassie, who got loose that day over a softer course (1:37.70) but faded to fourth here. Vacare chased the pace early and flattened out late in her first start since October. Nice late move from 44-1 Augustin/Sheppard Forever Together, who flew home from last to be third in her second grass start and may have a future in this division.

Race 8: There may be more strength at the top of the 3-year-old filly than colt division this year. In addition to the late Eight Belles and Proud Spell, add Zaftig to the leaderboard after a 4 1/2-length drubbing of 7-10 champ Indian Blessing in the Acorn, run in a sparkling 1:34.50 -- just two-hundredths off Forefather's allowance time and provisionally awarded a gaudy Beyer of 113. Even if you didn't split the variant and gave it "only" a 107, that would tie Sky Beauty's 1993 victory as the highest Acorn fig since the Beyers were first published in 1991. The only other triple-digit Acorns during that span have been Sharp Cat's 103 in 1997 and the 101's earned by Island Sand and Round Pond in 2004-05. Zaftig, a gray Gone West filly owned by Susan Moore and partners and trained by Jimmy Jerkens, is now 3 for 5 and was coming off a 5 1/4-length victory in the G3 Nassau County May 3. Jerkens said he thinks she'll go farther, though it's unclear if she'll take on Proud Spell in the Mother Goose June 28.

Race 9: Maybe Harlem Rocker's flop in the Queen's Plate Trial made people question J Be K's second-place finish behind him in the Withers, and maybe Desert Run's first-race victory made dodos other than me overrate Ready's Image, but it's pretty amazing that J Be K went off at 2.60-1 instead of half that price here in the G2 Woody Stephens. J Be K was probably the leader of the nation's 3-year-old sprinters (at least until Bob Black Jack returns at more reasonable distances) going in, and he certainly was after a smashing 5 1/2-length victory here in 1:21.85. (By the way, why do Big Brown's connections keep talking about a "loose," "slow" and "deep" track when the day's winning times included six furlongs in 1:08.80, seven furlongs in 1:21.85 and two miles in 1:34.48 and 1:34.50?) J Be K, a Zayat/Mott Silver Deputy colt, is 3-for-3 under a mile, 0-for-2 at a mile or more, and earned a 108 Beyer here.

Race 10: Only 2 1/4 lengths separated the first five finishers in the G1 Manhattan Handicap, where trips made the difference in a very closely-matched field. Dancing Forever, the late-blooming Phipps/McGaughey 5-year-old by Rahy, got the clearest run under a perfect ride by Rene Douglas and outgamed 3-1 fave Out of Control to score by a nose. Pays to Dream finished well for third but came out of the race with a career-ending sesamoid fracture, and 9-year-old Better Talk Now was a good fifth despite being taken up near the wire while checking inside fourth-place Strike a Deal. Dancing Forever and Out of Control have both run second in G1 races this year to Einstein, the division leader who would have been favored here but was not allowed to run because of licensing issues surrounding his ownership group.

Dancing Forever's victory came two Belmost Stakes Days too late for me. I needed him to win his second career start at 12-1 to complete a pick-four score two races after Jazil's Belmont. Instead he was beaten an agonizing half-length that day by a completely impossible 28-1 Contessa trainee named Taken Not Given, whose past performances you can find in the second leg of Belmont's $1.18 million carryover tomorrow. Since that day, Dancing Forever has become a G1 winner while Taken Not Given is 0-for-16 and is in for $35k N2L tomorrow.

--Speaking of which, here's the lineup for the largest one-day carryover in New York pick-six annals:

Race 4: 3+F NY AlwN2x/OC25k -- 1 mile (10 entered)
Race 5: 3+ Clm35k N2L -- 1 1/8m-IT (14)
Race 6: 3+ StAlw C50+N1x -- 1 1/16m-WT (12)
Race 7: 3+F NY AlwN1x -- 6f-IT (13)
Race 8: 3+ AlwN1x -- 7f-WT (10)
Race 9: 3+ Clm25k N2L -- 6f (14)

It ain't easy.

[Update 10:35 pm:] It just started raining here 5 miles northeast of Belmont, and there's a "Severe Thunderstorm Warning" in effect for the next six hours. It's all supposed to blow out by dawn and be clear and sunny in the 80's thereafter. Since Belmont Day, when the grass course was already fast enough to produce a 1:32.75 mile in the Just a Game. there have been three straight hot and sunny days here. But on the off chance the meteorologists are wrong and tonight's storms prove severe, it might pay to check track conditions in the morning.

Posted by Steven Crist on June 10, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (28)

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Crist Blog | June 09, 2008

Unfishy

--Before we get to that promised recap of the five other graded stakes on Belmont Day -- coming later tonight or tomorrow -- could all those who keep insisting the Belmont Stakes payoffs were so fishy that the fix was in please remove their aluminum chapeaux and consider the following realities:

1)There was nothing particularly fishy about the payoffs. The place and show payoffs were entirely square and not too many bridgejumpers are going to unload on a horse with a loudly-publicized foot problem in a 1 1/2-mile race that the Derby-Preakness winner had lost 10 times in a row. Nor were the tri and super payoffs amiss. First of all, people complaining that the tri and super paid "only" $3k and $47k are forgetting that there was a dead heat for third, halving the payoffs. I suspect that many if not most players who had a 6-4-8 also had a 6-4-9 and that super players with a 6-4-8-9 also had a 6-4-9-8 -- if you're playing against Big Brown, I don't think you drew too fine a line between Anak Nakal and Ready's Echo, similar clunk-up-for-third candidates.

Add the two dead-heat payoffs together and you're really looking at a $7,657 tri and a $95,946 super, perfectly reasonable payoffs in a nine-horse field with a 25 percent takeout, only 504 tri and 3,024 super combinations available, and the clear 7-1 second choice -- the only horse in the race other than the favorite who went off at less than 14.50-1 -- finishing second. Also, it is always unreasonable to expect a parallel distribution of exotic bets mirroring the win odds when there is a heavy odds-on favorite. Exotics players are far more adventurous and plenty of them were specifically shooting for a monster payoff by eliminating Big Brown.

2)Suggestions that the favorite's connections loaded up on combos without their own horse and stiffed him to cash tickets make no sense if you consider the larger economics surrounding the race: Big Brown's defeat devalued his estimated paper worth of $60 million by something in the neighborhood of $30 million. While I don't buy the repeated speculation in the general press that a victory would have increased his value to $100 million or more, the idea that he was yanked for parimutuel gain is -- I'll resurrect the word -- absurd, considering how much more they lost in defeat.

Posted by Steven Crist on June 9, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (76)

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Crist Blog | June 08, 2008

Brownout

Big Brown would have won the Belmont and the Triple Crown yesterday if he'd run his usual race, but he obviously didn't. His connections remained puzzled and "perplexed" Sunday morning, but something clearly went terribly wrong after a mile. Big Brown was unresponsive when asked to make his usual move and in enough distress to be pulled up shortly thereafter.

This was not a Crown-busting Belmont where a worthy rival close in ability to the favorite stepped up his game and ran the better race, a la Easy Goer, Touch Gold, Victory Gallop or Empire Maker. Big Brown effectively didn't show up. Da' Tara reeled off progressively slower front-running fractions, and was perfectly catchable by horses of high quality but there weren't any still running in the stretch. The winner's 2:29.65 for 12 furlongs earned a Beyer Speed Figure of 99, the lowest Belmont in the 20 years since the Beyers have been published, and one could argue that even a 99 was slightly generous.

Big Brown's performance was a bit reminiscent of War Pass's last-place finish in the Tampa Bay Derby just three months ago, where some argued he had been exposed as a pretender, others said there had to be a health-related explanation, and the whole thing remains a mystery, as it often does when a good horse runs a horrifically bad race. That race also came to mind since War Pass sure began the year as a likelier candidate than Da' Tara to put owner Bob LaPenta and trainer Nick Zito into the winner's circle after a Triple Crown race this year.

Two other races came to mind after the Belmont, ones involving previous skirmishes between the winning and losing connections. In the 2005 Woodward, Rick Dutrow ran two overmatched sprinters at Zito's Commentator to soften him up for Saint Liam. In the Wood Memorial two months ago, IEAH entered the rabbit Inner Light to wear down War Pass early for the benefit of their Court Vision. Both times it "worked" insofar as compromising Zito's chances. Zito never complained publicly about either incident, and I'm not saying he entered D'Tara and Anak Nakal in retribution, or instructed their riders to surround Big Brown on the first turn, but there was at least a pinch of karma involved in the way it all worked out.

I'm not going to try to pretend I liked Da' Tara, who was not one of the four alternatives to Big Brown I had gotten myself alive to in the pick-four for a small score. The only retrospective self-flagellation I'll indulge in was being too quick to dismiss his effort in the Barbaro Stakes on the Preakness undercard, where he lost a photo to Roman Emperor in the final strides. The time of that race (1:42.10 for a mile and a sixteenth) was in the same ballpark as Big Brown's 1:54.80 in the Preakness if you took it at face value instead of thinking the track slowed down or that Big Brown could have run a lot faster had he been extended rather than geared down late.

I doubt we'll ever get a definitive explanation for what happened to Big Brown in the Belmont. Romantics will say that the deities who guard the pantheon of greatness kept out a horse who wasn't The Anointed One, a horse who wasn't quite as fast or accomplished or deserving as the three great ones who are our only Triple Crown winners in the last 60 years. Horseplayers of a more cynical bent will simply shrug and say that heavy favorites often lose, and that this was simply the 11th straight Derby-Preakness winner to come up short in the Belmont.

---I'm pretty sure there's a $1.18 million pick-six carryover awaiting us at Belmont when racing resumes Wednesday. For whatever reason -- confusion because of the $1 million guarantee yesterday? -- Equibase did not report the pick-six pool or a carryover amount, so everyone's charts show only a 5-of-6 payoff of $1,106, and NYRA does not have its usual Carryover banner on its homepage. [Update: Ah, there it is.] I remember getting one brief glance at posted pick-six probables, and my memory is that the 2,6 and 8 -- Guadalcanal, Da' Tara and Anak Nakal -- were the only uncovered horses.

---Sorry about the failed iPhone-blogging experiment yesterday. I spent the first four races trying to make it work, but slow servers and intermittent wi-fi outages just made it impossible. Tempting as it was to duck out of the heat and into an air-conditioned pressbox, I was stubbornly determined to soak up the day in the stands, so I spent the afternoon in the great outdoors, perspiring, wagering and participating in the spontaneous conversion of men's rooms into unisex facilities amid water and plumbing outages.

It felt more like an oppressive day at Saratoga than a Belmont Day, though decidedly less crowded than the Smarty Jones and Funny Cide years. The crowd count of 94,476 and commingled handle of about $99 million were both 15 to 20 percent lower than the 2004 record numbers, though up sharply from 2007, when there was no Triple Crown on the line.

There was plenty of other good racing on the Saturday card, and I'll compose some thoughts on it tomorrow after spending some time with the charts and replays.

Posted by Steven Crist on June 8, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (97)

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