Am I The Only HR Handicapper Here?

"Graveyard of Favorites'" strikes again.
9-1Vexation nosed 1/5Bisou at the wire. Inquiry dismissed. Point of Honor third.
Kind of shocked at this, but not really. I passed on playing the race.

There was an Honor Code horse enterted as FTS in R4, but scratched in front of the gate. Name is Futuro.

Boy did I call it! Honor AP wants more distance but ran well. Nice training race for the Derby.
Improbable WON! I should have bet both races today.lol

Yep, you sure shoulda! And follow that by calling it a day while you were ahead. That's what I didn't do and I got steamed for my trouble with a losing day cause I overplayed the last 2 races and lost them both.
I passed on both Whit and Ensign.
But every day you lose just gets you one day closer to the next winning day.

But I got back on the WIN trail today. Kind of a fistfight but I got some of my money back from yesterday. Now I'll take at least a couple days off and get some work done around the place to clear my mind!

I love watching the maiden 2yo races at the Spa. There was a nice 2yo by Jump Start that won going away on Saturday. I always look at their pedigrees and connections. Every time I see a Shug horse owned by the Phipps, I drool over the family tree. They own great female families. 8)

WIth you there. In fact maiden races have been responsible for some of my biggest ever scores! It is often the case the only info available, outside connections (which almost everyone uses as their base for opinion, therby eliminating any sort of edge on that score), is pedigree. So of course pedigree is always on my mind in such cases.

Monday and Tuesday are always my dark days with regard to horse racing (other than holiday or special events). This particular Monday was the darkest of them all. Yesterday evening soon after racing ended I got one of those dreaded phone calls informing me my granddaughter was involved in a multi vehicle crash. She succumbed to her injuries this afternoon. Police suspect a drunk driver in a big truck was the accident instigator.

Last week was a tough one for me. Tried to find things to distract myself but nothing really worked. Will try to get back into the horse racing swing of things this week. Saturday another big stakes day. Saturdays used to be my best, but I've bombed the last 2 I played. Hoping to get tuned in to hit it this week, starting tomorrow.

Ah...good to be in the win column today. Didn't get rich, but added to the bankroll. Hit 2 supers today. Nailed the last race W/EX/Tri/Sup. Same with R6 and R8, but DNP R8.. Would have done some in R7 but did NOT have the 6 horse that took 4th and made it pay 522.95 for the dime super. But W @11.20, EX@153, and Tri@224 ain't anything to sneeze at.

Humbling day. Saratoga chewed me up and spit me out. Had the horses all day...except the cloud droppers. Ate me up. I call these kind of days a bloodbath. Need that big day game to kick back in now.
Whew. Glad that's over. Sure hope I got it cleaned out of my system!

Nice to have another WOOHOO day. It was correction day! As bad as yesterday turned out to be, today was twice as good. Got all my money back and won that much again, so I'm back to thanking Saratoga for being good to me. :lol:

Derby coming up in less than a month from now. CD is putting out requirements that any jock who wants to ride a Derby mount must be on site to stay by end of August. That could make a big difference to some of the other track still running. I know the NY colony will have a number of riders involved, including all my faves.

My Derby picks stay the same. I think I will try to play the Tri and super.

Tiz(monster-don’t think anyone can beat him), HAP, Art Collector, Max Player, Enforceable and Caracaro.
I will single Tiz on top and box the rest.

I have allowed myself to fall back into fist fighting the cards at Toga, and lately am coming up on the short end more often than I like. Still have my original meet stake X5 so all things considered I shouldn't complain, but I refuse to give it all back. If I get down to X2 I'll quit em.
Have noticed several Honor Code entries at Toga the last week. I believe at least one got a good win at first asking in the MD races.
I've been cleaning up on EX and tri at GPX lately and not even making a playsheet with all my factors, bias, etc. Just quick capping off my custom screen. Had the same thing going at Tam for a good stretch earlier.

Hey Seagal, do you like puzzle races?
If you can, check out R7 at Toga for tomorrow. Don't forget to apply your pedigree analysis. It's a humdinger. 5.5F sprint Stakes race on the grass with a big field (before scratches). Heavy Pressure of early speed. I may be forced to play more than one combination for this one if the odds warrant.

Derby Day tomorrow. I'll open the card tonight and see what I can see, but I'm doubting it will equal the opportunities the undercard produces. The first 2 days were stellar, and today was a winning day too, although in very modest terms. I don't spend time on the W pool, instead focusing on ex, tri, and or super plays. ex and tri have been barn burning good the first 2 days. I also caught some supers today, although I didn't get started until R6. Hit the super, unfornately that play was canceled due to a late scratch which made the field too small for sup play. So I hit it agin R7! R12 got me a 32.20 winner on top with the ex@ 118.80, the tri@ 58.40. I was disappointed the super only pd 27.93. Thought it would be better with such a nice winner, but 278.30 works (27.93 for a dime). Followed that up the Last Race today with W, ex, and tri, but missed on the 4th place horse so that was that. Last Race on the card is a game I play with myself. Over the past several years I've done so well winning that race I've considered not playing anything else!
Anyway, I'm kind of in tune with dancing with the girl that brought me, so I'll stick with my exotic game until it bags out on me. Derby look predetermined with a 3/5 fave in Tiz the Law. Odds like that don't help the exotic payouts much at all. THe one question is how he handles the 17 hole, from which there has NEVER been a Derby winner!
September, and here we are saying Derby Day. Amazing.

Took a quick look at the Derby. Wowzer, there are LOTS of big numbers on the ML. Trouble with that is thery're worthless if you can't get em home on the board. Big field and looks like it will be an unusually heavy early pressured race for 10F. That can play tricks with ponies without the gas to make that speed stick. All that speed to the outside will have to go early or risk getting hung up in a ton of traffic. That will make it extra hard for them to hang on for the whole way.
Could be interesting. in terms of throwing a few buck at a surprise horse. But I haven't seen one of those I can believe in yet.

I was mildly surprised at the results of the Derby today, more so that a horse beat Tiz The Law that had the same disadvantage to deal with than that the big fave was held to second. But even more surprised at the payouts. I didn't collect on it though because, although I had and played a super with 4 of the top five finishers I did NOT have the 9 anywhere on my radar. His 3rd place finish ruined my game. Had it not been for that I would have collected a nice prize. My super was a 4H box with 2, 16,17,18. My 16 and 2 fell 4th and 5th. That was disappointing.

Monday was the last day of Saratoga for this year, and the last card was pretty much a dud for me. Not sure yet where I take my tack, which is a good thing cause I have so much pre-winter work to get done here on the ranch I need to focus on getting that taken care of.

Got a couple nice stats from Bloodhorse this morning that are encouraging for the sport.
1) Saratoga announced they topped $700M all source handle again for this meet.
2) The Ky Derby was the most watched sporting event since the Super Bowl. Hoping that will translate into more fans and new money to enhance the price on horses I play.

Honor AP, who finished 4th in the Derby despite sustaining an injury during the race, was retired to Lane's end this week. Beautiful horse with a ton of run. Can't wait to do a nick with my mare to see what it looks like.

I'm still covered up with my pre-winter todo work list. But my daily update work last night showed CDX is producing a nice rate of high paying trifectas with my quickcap method. One yesterday was about $1600 for a $5 play.
My quickcap method only utilizes a combination of 2 base factors, which an additional contender rank of combined speed figs over last 4 outs. I can cap a race that way in a matter of not much over 1 minutes.