A Very Hard Game...... 4th at Bel
 

I would ask anyone to provide any handicapping rationale to have seen the 2 ahead of time in the 4th at BEL..... :zz:

I/L

I'm not betting today and this isn't redboarding - but that horse was far from impossible.

Gotta agree with you as I loked at the race and saw three standouts, none of which were the 2.

Spyder

far from impossible maybe, but i had him as the 6th most likely winner...

you know what i change my mind, this horse does look impossible, weaver is 0-10, dam tell me one thing this horse had going for it ?

Anyone who saw the Belmont no longers talks
 

about impossible, I was seeking just wanting to generate some dialog about an angle that could have raised the interest level.. Obviously, good jock. FWIW my pace program had the 2 and the top pick based on first start, but of course I disregarded as.....too improbable given pedigree of others.

Oh well, onward and upward...:)

I/L

her first race on turf wasn't bad at all - not too far off from the rest of these and at a distance too short for her. . . the slop race is a toss but probably gave her some conditioning. . . weaver does well sprint/route and the horse's ped suggested she'd want more ground. . . her dam side pedigree also suggests some class. . . i'm not saying I bet her or that she was obvious, BUT, to say that she was impossible (she only paid $30) is defeatist and won't serve you very well in the future. actually trying to understand how and why longshots win is a good way to help you find them in the future.

A few tidbits that may help give a little credibility.............

Belle Artiste (dam) was a pretty nice horse in her day, she compiled a 30-7-5-4 record in her life and bankrolled $325,000. She won the West Long Branch stakes at MTH. Pedigree says distance would not be a problem with Came Home as 'daddy' and Broad Brush as broadmare 'daddy'. Only start on grass was decent figure with a mild close. Definitely liked the 2-3-4 finishers better but not totally unreasonable.

Weak explanations I agree..............but it's something.

Her Gulf race was fine. She didn't run at all except the last part and got passed by nothing. If you can toss the slop race, there was no reason to think she'd not run decent. She certainly looked better at 14-1 than the 1 did at 7-1 or the 7 at 9-1 (layoff), and looked almost as good to move up to me as the 3 at 5/2 and just as likely to improve as the 6 at 2/1. Ped seemed ok and Weaver with 3 yo fillies is a bit of a plus.

I had her figured 3d/4th best behind the 8 and 3.

The winner of the 6th is a half to one of my horses. Another one, Dr DFC, runs tomorrow in the 7th for what it's worth.

I did not use the work impossible.... just improbable
 

given the other runners many of whom looked like they would love the grass

So why did you start a thread about this?

I think the reason I posted the thread is pretty clear..
 

[quote=infield_line]I would ask anyone to provide any handicapping rationale to have seen the 2 ahead of time in the 4th at BEL..... :zz:

asking what might have tipped me that the horse was live ahead of time...

so young horses, little to go on.... you get beat.

sorry I wasted your time Hockey....

This is yet another way to get beat in the game: the perfect storm in terms of the trip. So, instead of asking whether the horse figured, you might want to approach it in terms of the trip it got.

1) sat a perfect inside trip behind a lone speed

2) incredibly PATIENT ride by a typically impatient jock --- the is the KEY--- Castellano doesn't ask this horse until the last possible second --- he goes after the speed but in hand, never asking the horse to move prematurely. what this does is effectively take the closers out of the race, as there is a minimum of moves --- the closers are thus left to do all the work; as such, Kapanga was best.

3) Kapanga not only lacks room and has to steady and go around horses early stretch, she also has to wait behind horses mid to late turn. These couple of seconds lost translate into a 2nd rather than a win.

In other words, take a field of horses, gave 60% or so (maybe higher) a perfect trip, and that horse can win.

And you thought the game involved skill? It does; it's jsut not about picking the best horse.

Boy do I disagree with this.

Which part exactly?

2) incredibly PATIENT ride by a typically impatient jock --- the is the KEY--- Castellano doesn't ask this horse until the last possible second --- he goes after the speed but in hand, never asking the horse to move prematurely. what this does is effectively take the closers out of the race, as there is a minimum of moves --- the closers are thus left to do all the work; as such, Kapanga was best.

Castellano had no choice but to sit the trip. The lone speed was very cheap speed, and Belle's Home has first run on the lead.

As much as I respect your opinion, I saw the race completely differently. To me, the winner was the best horse, and ran the best race ( much as I would have preferred to see the place horse win ). The second finisher is a bit of a plodder. She hasn't broken particularly well, and has been sluggish early, in both of her races. She saved ground and had to alter course in the stretch which I just don't think means much. IMO the winner did more work than her early and beat her reasonably comfortably.

Now, considering the trainers, perhaps the second finisher will improve down the road, and the winner will go nowhere, but based on today's race I prefer the winner. I also thought she took sneaky money ( which is irrelevent....just thought I would mention it ).

Kapanga had to tap on the brakes a few times. If she had a clean trip she wins. But her running style is a make one huge run and unless she gets lucky, she's bound to run into a bit of traffic problems. If she gets up and wins I hit the early pick four but it wasn't meant to be.

I think you guys are over analyzing the winners trip. She sat the garden trip, and had enough in reserve to hold off the hard charging Kapanga.

If you have time, you might want to watch the race again, only this time focus exclusively on Castellano. Especially, on the turn. Notice how long it takes for him to go by a horse that he can put away just about at any point on the turn. He doesn't take the lead UNTIL AFTER they enter the stretch, sitting chilly all that time. (This is the way to ride.) By doing so, he holds the race together. He gives nothing else a chance to run, neither the chasers nor the closers, as he has the reserve necessary to finish. She didn't only get a garden trip because she happened to be inside chasing; she got a perfect trip because she was asked correctly.

I think you're right about a lot of this. There's no reason why the 8 being behind horses on the turn and having to steady and come around can't be seen as a good trip. She's able to thus last move the field. And it's not like Venetian Causeway and Madame Bling are actually horses.

i love him

That's very much part of my thinking. She was clearly the best of that group exiting the prior race.....I'm just not sure what that really means. And, after today, I'm still unsure but I'm leaning towards mediocrity. But, Penna's pretty good, so she could improve. The other two? Good luck to them.

I taped the race and have watched it four times. The quitting Christie Village gave way at the quarter pole. Castellano is not a good grass rider. Put another horse in the mix on the turn and he probably screws it up. He's screwed me more than Prado has with terrible grass rides

I think you're missing what's important, and maybe the Fat Man is unintentionally misleading you by focusing on the rider, as what really matters is that the winner received a patient ride. Yes, this was aided by the lack of an early mover, but she was handled perfectly. After breaking to the lead, she was rated off the speed, and then did not attack that one until the field turned for home. It was the best of trips for a capable stalker. It was also the best of situations in that the speed offered her no effective resistance. This is an important point....in that had Christie Village battled her to, say the eighth pole, it's possible this would have softened her up enough to allow the second finisher to pick up the pieces.

I agree with you. I'm disappointed in myself that I did not foresee the perfect trip before the race. I gambled on the cheap speed and Penna's horse.

The winner didn't do much running in her five furlong turf debut in Florida though she did gallop out OK ( which is usually misleading ). Plus, her dam was a severe closing sprinter and predicting her to stretch out successfully was not easy to do.

The only way you could realistically have had her in the Pick-4, and this is often a good strategy, was to decide that everyone from the Madam Bling race was mediocre, and thus use ALL the strangers.

I used the same two as you. It didn't matter as I also thought the favorite in the 5th was a cinch and didn't like the winner at all. It really didn't matter because I bet next to nothing in the Pick-4.

LOL...... the key operative word in the question
 

was "in advance"... with the benefit of having seen the race run, we often go "of course", but I always enjoy the in-depth analysis of the assembled sages.... :)

Infield

Our two cents looking at just this thread and the chart of the race where much can be gleaned.

The race is for maiden fillies on the lawn... so pedigree is the first place a competent capper looks and this filly was bred by the late John Peace who was a member of the Jockey club and a director for the Breeders cup. His wife Agnes is the owner meaning they did not cull this filly which could lead one to believe she may have a bit of talent.

Still on pedigree, this one is an early foal by Came Home and out of a Broad Brush mare that had some talent according to the thread contributors. Most would view this pedigree as STRICTLY middle distance with a strong tilt towards grass.

Apparently this one started at GP sprinting on the lawn which we would consider practice and then from the chart ran the last day of May indicating she missed a little time. That race, again according to the thread, was contested on a sloppy surface but; did the race come off the turf ? A circle with an x inside denotes such. If not, it was certainly another prep! We would assume it was six, six and a half or seven furlongs with the longer the better; at least as far as her chances yesterday. As someone posted she would get some condition out of it.

So at this point in the handicapping process we have a homebred filly with probable talent, making her third start, stretching again in distance to a trip she is solidly bred for.

What is the configuration of the course should be the next question and the chart states that the rail is set at eighteen feet. Few cappers understand the nuances of how the movement affects the dynamics of the race and we'll skip that discussion, but suffice to say after two sprints this fillies connections had to be very pleased with the setting.

No matter the merits of the other horses.....none of them have ever won! It certainly seems $30 is a big price. We feel most jockeys in the colony would have won on this filly and disagree with some of the comments posted. BBB

I'm stupified.

This is bad even for you.....and that's saying something. It might be the most incorrect redboard in the history of redboards.

Congratulations......you have outdone yourself......and that is no easy task. Honestly, when you pass away, if they give you an enema they could bury you in a matchbox.

we find that interesting.
Maybe our guys could meet your guys in this thread and discuss some opinions of how rail movement affects race dynamics?:D
seriously.
Would love to hear even some of the basic generalities.

You know, he didn't look at the race and you know he didn't see it. He is just compelled every 40 days or so to say we.

And we appreciate that!

Of course we do!

And he tossed us an extra bone with his semi-annual reference to portable rail placement!

Really, how much more can we ask?

True.....that post really had it all.

Hey, whattya know. Dr DFC won today. That's both my guy's siblings in two days :)

Is it good or bad things that happen in threes?

If that's the case... can I hit the Hollywood Pick 6 tonight as the third good thing?

As lucky as you usually are, you just might :)