I'm trying to remember the horse who was 2nd to her in the Ballerina that i hit an exacta with. I am certain that it was a Kentucky based horse. All I remember was sitting with Nick and hitting the exacta and tri on the race as Bailey got in traffic and nicks friend going ballistic when Bailey got in trouble.

Country Hideaway per chance?

I just remembered her name. It was Bourbon Belle. The exacta and tri paid nicely.

Bourbon Belle lost to Freddie Frisson, dam of First Samurai at Turfway the Sunday after Thanksgiving 1998...

That's bullshiat...

Probably one of the more ignorant statements I've seen you make. Shame on you...

Tom Albertrani had great teachers to help him learn the game. He was Mott's assistant as well as assistant to Saeed Bin Suroor. He had hands in Cigar, Street Cry, Imperial Gesture, Fantastic Light and Dayalami. He also had a brief career as a jockey

Sorry, but I have a significantly different take on Songster, and said as much at Siro's yesterday morning. Yeah, I figured he would probably win yesterday, but only because the field was weak, but I still used an all in that race in my ( losing ) Pick-4 play. Simply put, I thought he was all dressed up with nowhere to go, and his previous two races were FAR from spectacular and merely the result of perfect trips ( coupled with Toomuchbling's bad one ). As a horseplayer, I am very careful about relying heavily on overbet favorites who are nowhere near as good as their undeserved reputations. There was little question in my mind that Songster fit that bill.

The idea that someone could watch that race, see the obvious premature move that Prado made, and then go on a tirade ( calling the trainer " incompetent " and a " dwarf " among other things ) and blame him for somehow disingenously running a " short " horse, all the while proclaiming himself to be some sort of respected person in the sport is as incredible to me as it is insulting in general. The simple truth is that if this horse was truly worth his odds he would have won in spite of the mediocre ride and he still would have won if in fact he was " short ", something I HIGHLY doubt. As I said before, I think he ran as well as he did in either of his last two races.

The person who should be mad, and unlike the author of this thread he is most likely blaming only himself, is Allen Jerkens, who almost certainly would have won the Amsterdam with Saint Damon had he run yesterday instead of Sunday. Or, perhaps, you think he is screaming something akin to " if I had only known that " expletive deleted " Albertrani was going to lie and run a short horse I would have scratched Sunday ".

The first thing I said to Steve after the race was how stupid the trainers were who did not enter the race because they were scared of Songster. I feel he would have finished off the board had enough decent horses entered. When playing a pik-4 the odds a horse goes off at are a different story than the odds on a horse you might bet to win. Noone alive is going to take 1-5 on a horse on a win bet or even in a dd bet, there is simply no value available.
The horse had numbers and his "perfect trips" were against horses who were MUCH better than those. Knock Bling all you want but hes won nicely since then and won nicely before his last race as well. The horse probably fell at least 5 points on Thoro.
I disagree with Edgar's ride. I thought it was great. The outside part of the track was DEFINITELY the place to be and on the backside he was very careful to keep him well removed from the rail. He also postioned him right off two dueling leaders and didn't realy ask him to make the lead, the horse did so willingly. Were the fractions fast? Yes. But the Songster who had been showing up to the races this year certainly wasn't the one who showed up yesterday. he was obviously beaten at the top of the lane when a wilted el nino came back at him. Prado rode the horse exactly as you want a guy to ride a horse. Now, the horse was obviously short. That happens. To say how ready he was means the trainer was either lying or had misjudged his fitness. I believe very strongly that the trainer will use being short as an excuse at some point before his next race. Which means he either lied or was incompetent in asessing his horses' fitness.

And I find it beyond incredible that anyone who claims to be an expert could say that the horse ran as well yesterday as he did in his prior races. I have no knowledge of his sheet numbers or Beyer from yesterday's race but its 1-9 that he takes a significant drop in figs on Rags, Thoro graph, and Beyer. To make it sound like he ran his typical race and simply got beaten to me is as far fetched as the tampa bay Devil rays winning the World Series this year.

So, you didn't think he was worth 1-5, but you still singled him despite feeling the need to use eight horses in the finale. Really? Sounds like instead of blaming Albertrani you should be blaming yourself as you made one HORRENDOUS bet.

And don't come back with " but I was trying to beat Biancone's horse " or any such hogwash, as the simple fact is you anchored your ticket with a horse you knew was going to be 1-5 and are now agreeing you knew he wasn't that good. There seems to be a substantial difference between the truth and the facts.

Once again....he did not run any worse than either of his two previous races.

I don't claim to be anything. Any respect I may have was earned. I claim nothing. I'll leave the ' claiming " to others.

Sorry, I claim one thing, to know that Songster ran similarly to how he has run in the past and without a perfect trip he didn't win. Frankly, if I dropped in from Mars and saw a video of that race, I would say, as any knowledgable racewatcher would, that the second horse was best.

Well you sort of have to be an expert to get a write up in the NYT and hit multiple 6 figure pick 6's, so I will call you an expert, just like Oracle has to be an expert considering he bought a grade 1 horse.

Hogwash? Well lets see, he was 8-5 despite showing only 3 published workouts and was overbet I thought(although he may have been best to be totally honest) off his expensive purchase price. Hushion's horse in the next leg always spots the field a football field in lengths and with that outside post was definitely beatable. The last race was simply inscrutable to me, moreso because not only were they evenly matched, but i felt that there was an outside bias that work agaisnt the prime contenders who all had speed. I think it was quite logical to think that a price could come in any of those three races and in two of those races very likely.
Actually had I gone one more deep in the race I would have taken Noonmark who was absolutely dreadful. No way I was ever going to play the winner, none. So its not like it cost me the 190 grand that the winning ticket paid to the winners.
As far as his price goes, I don't know a horse alive that anyone with a brain would ever bet at 1-5. Its simply silly. But trying to construct a pik-4 where you see possible value in three legs and use a very likely winner as an anchor is not at all foolish provided your opinion on the other races is good.

We simply disagree on that race. His opinion that Songster wasn't as good as advertised in general is one with merit that I happen to agree with. You may remember how gleeful I was when Bling got what I felt was a bad ride and I was lucky to have Songster get a perfect trip that day.
That certainly is a different issue however than the fact that the field he was facing yesterday was less than stellar to say the least. We disagree that he ran the same race as he had always run and I think that when the figs come out you will see that he droppewd severely on both sheet companies and on the beyers.

I understand that in order to play the Pick-4 that YOU CHOSE TO PLAY you needed a single somewhere. However, you chose Songster, and instead of moving on chose to call his trainer everything from a liar to a dwarf. It is that behavoir that I find reprehensible.

Once you realize doing that was, at best, a mistake we can move on to a logical explanation of why Songster ran a similar race yesterday to his two previous efforts. Frankly, if you can't just say your previous comments were a mistake, I have nothing further to say. Sorry if I believe Tom Albertrani deserves just a little more respect than that.

Hes either a liar or incompetent in this case. Once the figs come out if he has indeed run his usual race I will retract every statement and offer Mea Culpas. So if the figs come out lower will that be an indication that he did NOT run his typical race? Or is it just that its that way because you say so?

And I find calling leading trainers punks and cheaters equally as bad.

*GPK dips in the popcorn bowl and awaits the return volley*

Let's see how much Oracle makes fun of Albertrani if he has a 100K pick 6 on the line with Bernardini singled on Travers day. I suspect the dwarf will become a giant overnight if he wins and Oracle is cashing the ticket. I just think it is crazy to get personal about it because are you going to leave Songster off the Pick 6 ticket in the Kings Bishop just because you don't like the way he trains? Sounds like a way to get burnt to me.

So do I...and when you find me doing either on feel free to draw as much attention to it as you like.

I will bet him Albertrani or any trainer if I feel his horse has a chance to win. Its stupid to toss a horse out because of a reason like you say. I think Henny Hughes will be EXTREMELY tough to beat in the Kings Bishop though.

The Amsterdam got a 108 Beyer Speed figure....Songster got a 104 or one point higher than he earned in the Woody Stephens and three points less than the Hirsch Jacobs.

I'll get Steve to ask Jerry Brown of Tg what he got in the race and if he ran his typical negative 2 then I apologize. I have no faith in Beyers.

lol
hey kev, how's things?
and i'm gnawing on dinner while reading this. very entertaining.

now back to your regularly scheduled programming....

This is only my second post in the thread. I agree with BTW that this is sour grapes about a bet. I think Oracle is a very smart guy who has lost it on this particular point. I bet he regrets the personal insults about Albertrani. He is a very good trainer, perhaps top 15 in the country and he had a horse who didn't run particularly well. I have owned many horses and would love to own one who finishes second in a Grade 2.

Now let's kill this worthless thread and move on to passing on info about future runners and races.

I'm going out on a limb here, but I'm predicting right now that Court Folly will run something less than a 108 BSF in his next start.

Lol.. not a very long limb!!! :D

I think you are wrong and i do not apologize. So beyer wants us to believe that Court Folly ran 15 points better than anything he ever ran? Hysterical!!! Thast why these are worthless folks. Lets check out the sheet numbers.

hes an incompetent little fraud Tbred!!!

Nothing like being a man of one's word.

Jerry will give me the number if I call him ( I'm also sure Byk can get it ) but they probably haven't even done it yet.

The race was pretty fast and anyone that understands comparing relative time knows that. You don't need the actual figs to know that Songster's effort matches up reasonably well to his previous ones. It's merely a question of objectivity.

Alright, I'll let you guys take care of it....I am doing the grunt work of the TG vs Rags study, pretty interesting stuff going on there

Black, you play with TG's?

No! I believe in the accuracy of speed figures in general but they are at best a very small part of my handicapping.

They improved my handicapping 10 fold, but I have noticed I have become reliant on them, and not even looking at PP's anymore, and it has cost me

Songster went way too fast. Not only did he run the half in :44 1/5(actually :44 2/5 because the actual number was 44.38), but he was three-wide all the way around the turn. Not only that, the track was dead yesterday. Considering that he went three-wide and the track was dead, his half-mile played like a :43 3/5 on a normal track. That's just way too fast for him. He normally runs the half in :45. He's gone :44 3/5 a couple of times but that was at 7 furlongs where more of the first half-mile is run on a straightaway and not around a turn. In addition, it was at Gulfstream which was playing 1000x faster than Saratoga was playing yesterday. Songster basically ran his half-mile yesterday about 5-6 lengths faster than normal.

Anyway, Songster got very tired yesterday but what would you expect with him setting those suicide fractions.

I have no idea how good of a trainer Albertrani is, but his losing with Songster yesterday doesn't prove anything. Pletcher has probably lost 200 times with odds-on favorites. That doesn't mean anything.

I don't care to get into a long response to any part of the talk here except in one area. Tom Albertrani is neither a liar nor incompetant. He is in fact one of the most gracious, decent, humble and genuine people I've come across in the industry, and he enjoys the confidence and respect of some of the most important people in the business. And that opinion is shared by everyone with even a modicum of contact with the backstretch. I certainly hope the bile spewed above is one born of frustration over an excruciating loss and will at some point be modified or retracted. Personally, I find it as insulting and lowbrow as the swipes taken by ladbrooke at First Samurai the other day.

As an aside to Mike, what you've written here is well beneath you.

Steve,
If hes such a friend why not ask him how tight he was for that race personally? IF he tells you he had the horse as tight as he told the public he was in the DRf I will retract it, otherwise hes a stone cold liar.

Bernardini sure looked tight enough coming off a similar layoff, and he was going a lot further than Songster had to go.....I really think this colt was compromised by the trip....I really do, Mike....look how much longer he lasted in the stretch in relation to the others that contested the early pace.....he got ambushed by the short field and the fact that all riders wanted to go to the lead and Borel capitalized on it.....

Why not give the winner some credit. He ran a hell of a race.

Albertrani who trains Songster, said: "I thought he was in great position. Edgar said he responded but the other horse just outran him."

Sounds like the better horse won. Songster ran his usual nice figure, just wasn't good enough.