I’m going to give what would seem like a sheepish and weak reply to your reply.......I honestly thought that yesterday was Friday. Bear with me....
So my son graduated from the University of Texas yesterday (5/5) and the whole morning felt like a Saturday with the travel and greeting old friends and the such. I was panicking knowing that I had to sit through 1100 names just for his College of RT&F. Tried calling both my Mom and Sister in a panic needing someone to put my wager in, lol. Hence, me asking for your thoughts!
My Sister texts back and reminds what day it is.....all I could think of through the quagmire of Austin traffic was that I needed to let you know that I was a day off and didn’t mean to put that kind of imposition on you.
Anyway, my bets are in now. Kind of a relief because the whole UT class actually graduates tomorrow and I won’t be able to watch the Derby or worry about my picks being in. Lol
Pardon my ramble. Wanting to make sure that 1-2-3 knows how appreciative I am of the effort and insight.
GBR
Husker, first of all, congratulations on your son's graduation! I didn't think twice about what you asked because I struggle with someone losing money on a horse race if they relied on anything I said. I don't mind losing my own money, but I sure hate others to lose theirs.
It bothers me if I think I played a part in someone else losing. Even with my wife, son and daughter, if I really like a horse, I'll just play money from my bankroll and then hand them the tickets, and fortunately, they could all afford to lose their own money.
It's like the race I posted yesterday. My 10/1 won the race, my 29/1 ran 3rd and the favorite, who should have run well, and my 2nd choice both ran dull races. I'll be taking several shots today before the Derby runs and likely be setting good before the Derby even runs.
It's still a really tough race. When Johnny Velasquez (riding the 7 horse Reincarnate) says he expects the Derby pace to be 22/45 that means "he" thinks the pace could be pretty fast. If that's the case, it sets up well for the closers, if they can avoid too much ground loss. Frankly, that type of pace would cook the majority, if not all, of the front runners. When the pace melts down like that, there's typically some wild outcomes.
As I've told my wife for years, in a huge field like the Derby, it only takes one horse to screw up the entire outcome, and it's near impossible to account for every single horse. Outside of 3 pretty large supers I've hit in the Derby in the last 5 years, I've actually had my best returns by playing 1 horse/1 horse/ALL trifectas. The trick is being able to run 1-2 and then you can account for the other 17 horses. So, you can play a lot of combinations, for not a whole lot of money, and still hit some big ones.
In all honesty, horseracing is such an easy game and at the same time its a really difficult game. Day in and day out, its so easy to find overmatched fields with a horse that will bring home the money for you. But with these 3 year old studs, all of whom are good in their own way, when some of them don't get their way in a horse race, they just pack it in.
I made my bones in this sport playing trainer angles with intent. You can't imagine how many really good trainers there are out there that only win 8%-10% on the year. They all have their specialties. People talk about a horse being a "distance specialist", the same applies to trainers. There are some trainers who win almost every one of their races at a specific distance, and train their horses accordingly.
An example is one of my trainers at Gulfstream. Small timer, but he is an absolute machine with Maiden Claimers for 12.5K going 5 1/2 furlongs on the synthetic. Now, most gamblers would never play real money on a 12.5K claimer, but this trainer always overpowers that class level, and his mutuels are always in $ 50.00 to win or more category. If he does that 7-8 times a year, (and he does) its easy to make 15K-20K just on that one guy. If you track 150 trainers nationally like I do, there are opportunities nearly on a daily basis.
For example, during this Churchill Downs meet. You will find a fairly big trainer, Michael Maker, has claimed a Maiden for 30K, run this horse back and win at 50K virtually every single time. They are not big payers, but in the 15.00 to 20.00 range. Another is James Baker at 7f. Almost automatic. These guys, and hundreds more, have their specialties. Some are great with male horses, and not worth a shit with females.
Typically, if you find a trainer that's a little tough on male horses, his female horses just will not run well. Other than the masochists type females like Zenyatta, fillies and mares don't like to be roughed up. That's why Michael Matz, Graham Motion, Richard Mandella tend to be spectacular with filles and mares. They are gentle, but great trainers.
It's a great sport, a really dirty sport, and it's not for eveyone, but I do love the game. Sometimes a horse just fails to run worth a crap, other days they light up the tote board. Some days, you can feel like a dipshit, other days you look like a genius. (Right Pelini?) I know he knows this game, but we both wound up liking a horse yesterday, and neither one of them picked up their hooves. It just happens and doesn't mean Pelini and I don't know the hell we're doing, because I promise we do. We're not designed to enjoy success every single time or where would the challenge be it that?
Again, congratulations to your son, have a great day, and let's hope we don't get too many surprises in the Derby, but I say that with no conviction whatsoever. LOL There will be chaos.
It would almost be really interesting to have some of the horse players in here join me in a private chat room where we just talk horses. That way it doesn't interefer with the real purpose of this forum and that is Husker football. I'm at the age, where I've mastered this sport and don't have an issue with passing on some handicapping tips to guys who really enjoy the game. I just don't know who the degenerate gamblers are, and that causes me to not offer to do it.
To be honest, other than the Triple Crown races, the Breeder's Cup, I don't generally play big races. So many times you settle on a horse, and he runs great only to get beat by another outstanding animal who just gets a better trip or is just a little better than day. I'd much rather play trainers that i KNOW have pointed their horse in a 15K claimer, or a cheap optional claimer and play the guy who I know has that horse ready to roll. If I have my druthers, I'll go after the easy money rather than trying to handicap a dozen closely matched horses. Few guys ever are good enough to win consistently doing that. I've never separated the money I won on the Kentucky Derby or a Breeders Cup race and felt it spent any better than the money I won at Delaware on a Tuesday afternoon. It all spends.
Let me give you guys some food for thought. There is no doubt, the majority of these trainers today have worked all year getting these horses in the Derby as sharp as they can for today's race. By that, I mean, they have designed their workouts, they spent 3 months getting that horse ready for a top effort TODAY. What is the difference from a small time trainer at GP, or TB or EvD or Haw from doing the same thing? Sure, they may have a 10,000 claimer who will never be a great horse, but they can get that horse razor sharp for an out next month that they've targeted for 3 months. Some of these cheap animals are push-button.
The trainer has ran them poorly, darkened their form, convinced the betting public that the 10,000 claimer is a piece or crap. So they run 7th by 15 lengths. Then they run 8th by 12 lengths. All the time, if you're savvy, you can see in those races, they keep the horse off the rail, they keep them away from other horses in the race so the horse doesn't get roughed up. At the 3/8 pole the jockey gets into the horse with the whip to the 1/8th pole, then they reel the horse in. The whip only serves a purpose for the NEXT out, when they will need to ask that horse for everything they got in order to take the purse money. When they push the button in the targeted race, that horse runs huge. That's how a guys who wins 5% of his races survives in this sport. If that horse doesn't fire big that day, the trainer don't eat for a month. It all happens right underneath gamblers noses, and they never even suspect it. Yes, even long term gamblers I've talked to are as clueless as you can get.
For the experienced guys. Trainers that run 6th, 7th, 8th and worse for 2 or 3 outs, typically are setting this horse up for a big effort. Why do I know that? Because if a horse doesn't finish in the top 5, they are virtually never tested for drugs in the test barn. So, they can run a horse up the track today, inject that horse with a bronchial dialator, work the horse out, run another race where they intend to finish 6th or worse, come out of the race, give the horse another bronchial dialator, enter a race, run up the track again. Then the next out, they fire the horse and they get a huge effort with the purse money and likley a wager. That horse has had 2 or 3 bronchial dialator treatments and is prepared to the gills. Dialators are PED's that clear up the breathing passages and are also steroids. These horses can be totally different physically when the trainer wants them to be.
One more example then I'm gonna sign off for the day. This is an actual horse. The horse has had 10 outs, remains a maiden and has had horrible results over a 10 race period. The trainer has run the horse in sprints, then tried routes, then back to a sprint. He gave the horse lasix, then gave the horse phenylbutazone, added blinkers, took them off, added front wraps, then took them off. Then on the 11th out the horse goes a route, wins by 9 lengths and pays over $ 100.00 to win. How can that possibly happen?
You see the Beyers throughout his 10 race career. 37, 41, 28, 31, 42, 41, 37, 19, 47, and 38. The day he wins he runs a Beyer of 73. That's no shit, that's one of the guys I play. Another trainer at Tampa Bay fires the 7th out at the track.
Money in the bank and has been doing it for 20 years. That stuff passes right over the head of 99.9999999% of the best handicappers in the country. These type of trainers are all over the place in this business.
They don't have to be Steve Asmussen, Brad Cox, Bob Baffert or Chad Brown to be great horsemen.
Name a track. I can give you 20 trainers and what they do. They gotta eat too.
Good luck to all today that play the Derby, I'm hoping some of us will have good luck and avoid bad luck.
