December 2009

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$96 at 10,000-1

The most amazing part of the lone winning ticket (worth $969,345) sold on the Belmont Day Pick-6 was not that it only cost $96 but that the 12 horses used on it were the six winners -- and six horses who finished off the board.

According to the NYRA, this was the winning 1x2x2x2x3x2 ticket, purchased by a YouBet customer:

Leg 1: Fabulous Strike (1st)

Leg 2: Diamondrella (1st), Raw Silk (6th)

Leg 3: Munnings (1st), Hull (4th)

Leg 4: Gabby's Golden Gal (1st), Livin Lovin (4th)

Leg 5: Gio Ponti (1st), Cosmonaut (5th), Wesley (7th)

Leg 6: Summer Bird (1st), Charitable Man (4th)

What we don't know is whether this was the winning bettor's entire play or part of a larger one. Maybe he singled Forever Together on his main ticket and this was the backup ticket for the Just a Game, using Diamondrella and Raw Silk?

In any case, there's nothing fishy about the ticket. NYRA said in a press release that it "utilizes progressive scan technology, which generates a report after each leg of any multi-race wager so that all dollars can be tracked throughout the wager, ensuring no one has tampered with any ticket after the first leg of the wager" and that "the winning Pick 6 wager was placed via Youbet at 1:56 p.m. on Saturday, and the pool closed at 2:34 p.m."

--Here are the winning Beyer Speed Figures for each of the Triple Crown races since the figs were first published (in The Racing Times) in 1991:

As discussed in the last post, judging the quality of a Triple Crown class in June is a dicey proposition, especially in an era when horses are so lightly raced and may still have plenty of upside if they're allowed to stay in training and race. But just for fun, let's see how the Triple Crowns since 1991 stack up when ranked by the combined winning BSF's for each race:

Posted by Steven Crist Jun 10, 2009 8:15:55 PM | Permalink

Keywords:

Comments

bruce_friday says:

blue_horseshoe raises some very interesting questions ragarding BSFs as measured over a period of time. Unless the Par Times change from year to year in some time-weighted fashion, any speed improvements realized by "improvement in the breed" or track maintenance technology would be cancelled out via the track variant...

Posted by Bruce Friday Jun 13, 2009 4:10:06 PM

blue_horseshoe says:

RE: Triple Crown BSF assignments

First of all, what does the BSF assignment in the Belmont Stakes mean, really??? If this year’s version was won in a final time of 2:29, what would the figure have been? I’d suggest that it would have been similar to the one assigned…

Second, in an era of technological developments in sports medicine and performance enhancing drugs (both legal and illegal), are horses really running slower these days versus prior years?? If we are using Beyer Speed Figures assignments as the basis of the argument then I would suggest a couple of considerations:

1) Has the process of developing and assigning BSFs been consistent over this historical period or has it evolved to less of a final time basis to more of a subjective interpretation of what a horse is capable of doing in the future (leaning heavily on prior figures that were similarly subjectively obtained) versus what it actually did, from a time standpoint, in the race in question.

2) How can there possibly be any confidence in comparing BSFs over different years? Isn’t it the reality that BSFs don’t so much capture final time as they attempt to capture relative time differences (based upon historical norms) between the various classes of horses? What I’m suggesting with this is that, if due to improved technology and medications, that lesser horses are running faster than they have historically (or at least compressing the time performance difference between them and better horses) then wouldn’t we expect to see a reduction of the figures earned on the upper end of the scale, assuming that the upper end just isn’t capable (a time performance ceiling) of improving at the same level of the lesser horses beneath them?

While the jury is out on the quality of this year’s Triple Crown group, I’m inclined to think that a compression in time performance (lesser horses running faster, not merely a synthetic phenomenon although exaggerated on some synthetic surfaces) is a factor in the lower BSF assignments that we are seeing at the high end. It just doesn’t make sense to me that in this day and age of technology advancements, that horses are getting slower…

Posted by Blue Horseshoe Jun 12, 2009 12:02:28 PM

teresa says:

For what it's worth (not much), I've completely abandoned "in the money" because of the ambiguity--got a check or finished in the top three? I pretty much exclusively use "hit the board," which most people understand to mean finishing first, second, or third. (Let's leave for another time the craziness of what it means when a horse "places.")

From Gerald Hammond's The Language of Horse Racing: "In the money, first attested in 1902, means that a horse has finished in one of the prize-money places."

Posted by Teresa Jun 12, 2009 7:30:07 AM

dan_mackenzie says:

lacroso:

Free House: 110, 118, 108 = 336

http://community.drf.com/formblog/files/free_house.PDF

Posted by Dan MacKenzie Jun 11, 2009 11:50:09 PM

laf says:

This reminds me that the estimated BSF for Secretariat's Belmont is 139. Wow that really brings it home.

Posted by LAF Jun 11, 2009 8:50:09 PM

evan_gewirtz says:

Steve,

Regarding your most recent post, I did not see the New Yorker cartoon, however, I certainly trust that it says what you said it does. Nevertheless, I have independent recollection of the fact that during the spirited "decimate" debate, the"lions share" of the definitions put forward by the blogees ascribed a different meaning than you and the New Yorker. Let's not renew that debate though, one might say that we already "decimated" it. Yea, I stretched that one just to provide a little levity.

Posted by Evan Gewirtz Jun 11, 2009 8:29:22 PM

gary_c says:

Steve
What is happening with the Nassau OTB and the NYRA? Will this go on forever. Don't see anything in the daily NY papers. Seems to be a poitical problem that the betting public is made to suffer.

Posted by gary C Jun 11, 2009 8:02:23 PM

bochalls says:

I hope you cats are dissecting one of my P6 tickets like that some day... Happy Ticket died last night. She had just foaled and had complications. Baby is fine; it was her second. In my opinion she's the best La bred mare ever (Hope List, Sarah Lane's Oates, Hallowed Dreams) some others I may not know of or have forgotten. Any La bred that can hang with the big girls in New York is something special...Steve, or anyone: is Birdstone the first to sire two different winners of a Triple Crown race in the same year????

Posted by bochalls Jun 11, 2009 7:35:28 PM

steven_crist says:

mark_the_shark: I like where you're coming from, but I'm not sure that "out of the money" works better than "off the board" as a synonym for 4th or worse since everyone pays down to at least fifth place and there are many races where every starter earns something. Maybe the best thing would be to abandon both idioms and just say "4th or worse" when that's what we mean. Speaking of sticklerdom, did anyone else see the recent New Yorker cartoon regarding a word we discussed here recently? Two barbarians stand amid a scene of utter carnage and one says to the other "You DO know that 'decimate' means reduce by one-tenth -- right?"

Posted by steven_crist Jun 11, 2009 5:01:16 PM

mark_the_shark says:

Steve I know you are a stickler (gender vs. sex) and so am I. Surprised you don't know the difference between on-the-board and in-the-money. ITM is obviously the first three (win,place,show) while the board refers to the old style totes that did (and still often do) show the first four finishers, i.e. they are on the board. Fifth or worse is off the board.

Posted by Mark the Shark Jun 11, 2009 4:34:20 PM

lacroso says:

good stuff, Steve,
In 1997 Free House was within a head of Silver Charm in the derby and preakness, and within a lenght of Touch Gold in the belmont, his overall beyer should have been about 341-342, and he did not win a single triple crown race...

Posted by lacroso Jun 11, 2009 4:33:15 PM

ryang says:

I've been a reader since the start (back to the Saratoga Journals), but my fist post here.

Mr. Crist, as always a great post/point. I initially was thinking it was a small play that won the Pick 6, but there's a good chance it may have been a backup ticket.

For those saying or thinking it's good to see a small ticket take down the big score regardless if it's a backup or not, I think you're missing the point. If it was a backup ticket, then the entire "bet" or play has to be taken into account.

Following that logic, you could technically say that it was a $2 ticket that won the Pick 6. To avoid the "caveman" ticket and utilize Mr. Crist's betting system, the bets have to be made on separate tickets.

I hope it WAS a lone small ticket that won, as it's nice to see there's a chance for those of us that don't have large amounts of money available to play the Pick 6.

Posted by RyanG Jun 11, 2009 1:03:04 PM

matt_m says:

Pretty impressive back to back figs by Point Given. I always liked him and am happy to see him coming around nicely as a sire that can get you dirt,grass or synthetic.

Remember seeing him in the paddock/walking ring for the Haskell and thinking that this was a man among boys....absolutely looked the part.

Posted by Matt M. Jun 11, 2009 11:49:33 AM

rich_p says:

I feel this was a really intelligent play. He essentially turned it into a Pick 5 play using Fab Strike right off the bat, then used Hull, Gio Ponti and Charitable Man, all horses vying for favoritism at some point in the wagering. Maybe he just took a stand against Forever Together, for which this wasn't her best distance (she was 3rd in last year's Just a Game) and Justwhistledixie, who was coming back from an issue after being scratched from the Oaks. One thing's for sure, he obviously favors pacesetters and stone closers.

Posted by Rich_P Jun 11, 2009 11:47:56 AM

el_angelo says:

Why does everyone assume that the player liked Forever Together? On paper she was an excellent bet-against at 3-5; the soft turf wasn't going to be her preferred surface, her last race BSF wasn't much better than a bunch of others in the race (it wasn't even the best--that belong to My Princess Jess), and the field had a bunch of interesting newcomers. I see nothing odd at all about taking a play against her; I did the same (albeit without Diamondrella).

Posted by El Angelo Jun 11, 2009 11:34:30 AM

paul says:

The winning Pick 6 pick for The Belmont Stakes makes sense to me because I had the following thought process: I excluded Charitable Man from my trifecta because I thought he would be crushed by Dunkirk in a duel. Thus, I too, picked Summer Bird as the closing winner. On the other hand, if had I played the Pick 6, I too would have picked Charitable Man as my alternate, believing, if Summer Bird did not win, my pace theory would have been wrong and then Charitable Man would be the winner. There was no scenario in my mind in which Dunkirk could win and I felt Mine That Bird would be too tired.

Posted by Paul Jun 11, 2009 11:15:16 AM

sean says:

Thats a pretty reasonable Pick 6 ticket except for leaving off Forever Together. I didn't like Justwhistlindixie in the Acorn and Pletcher was quoted as being concerned about Cowboy Cal getting the distance. That being said...Id love to know how he ended up on Gabby's Golden Girl...i thought she a total toss.

As for the Triple Crown Beyers...I can't believe Birdstone got a 101. That seemed to be a much better race than Jazil or Commendable.

Posted by Sean Jun 11, 2009 10:53:52 AM

bob_m says:

steve,

any way to go into the beyer archives and get the speed figures for the 1989 triple crown with the great duels of sunday silence and easy goer?

very curious to see what those would be. to me they are considered two of the best triple crown horses in last 20 years.

Posted by bob m. Jun 11, 2009 10:46:26 AM

jbc says:

Nothing makes my day more than reading "racing is outperforming other forms of gambling" as nothing else remotely compares as far as an attainable ROI goes. You might make more with other investments but your capitol outlay is going to be much greater. An excellent pick six player once told me "Ive
had newmerous businesses but nothing beats horseracing"
and he would spend no more than $48 per pick 6.

Posted by JBC Jun 11, 2009 10:16:32 AM

sherpaguide says:

Whether it was a back up ticket or not, it's still nice to see a ticket under $100 can pull down a score.

Posted by SherpaGuide Jun 11, 2009 9:00:23 AM

p_ensign says:

"Maybe he singled Forever Together on his main ticket and this was the backup ticket for the Just a Game, using Diamondrella and Raw Silk?"

He or she left off five favorites in a row - I understand that Forever was 3-5 and all, but there were 3 other fairly heavy favorites in the sequence, along with the lukewarm Cowboy Cal.

Maybe someone just got lucky AND put together a dang good ticket....

thanks for the info- always nice to see it's definitely possible for a little guy to hit the big one!

Posted by p ensign Jun 11, 2009 1:04:07 AM

spectacularbid says:

steve,

another great table. i had started to add up the figures before finishing your blog but then thought...of course steve will summarize it. two things stand out to me. i thought the grindstone year was a very poor crop but it got a 330 and i think that big brown would have won each of the last 19 derbies and his year is right near the bottom.

Posted by spectacularbid Jun 11, 2009 12:53:10 AM

cat_thief says:

Gotta be a backup ticket with some logical longshots, how do you leave out the fav in leg 4 and use just those two?

Posted by cat thief Jun 10, 2009 11:04:37 PM

peewee says:

Funny you mention Funnycide. Remember Durkin referring to him as the "gutsy gelding". MTB as a gelding , a fact never much mentioned, wins and no mentions of geldings winning the Derby. Guess, its a new trend, as well as prepping at Sunland.

Posted by peewee Jun 10, 2009 10:21:25 PM

otbtony says:

Steve, good stuff. Nice to see all of them together like that. Always surprised by Funny Cide's figs. He really was splendid for those few months. His Preakness was destructive. Still don't think he got enough credit.

Posted by otbtony Jun 10, 2009 9:24:02 PM

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About

Steven Crist has been the Publisher and a columnist for Daily Racing Form since 1998. Previously, he covered racing for The New York Times from 1981-1990; was founding editor-in-chief of The Racing Times in 1991-92; and a vice-president of the New York Racing Association from 1994-97. He recently released an instructional DVD titled "Exotic Tickets," and is the author of several books including "Betting on Myself" and "Exotic Betting."

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