new linemaker for spa
 

Travis Stone
‏@TravisStone
I'm excited to share this summer I'm switching from binoculars to spreadsheets as I'll be making the morning line for @TheNYRA at Saratoga!

Congrats to Travis and good luck with this challenge! :)

Probably harder.... Nothing riles horseplayers than someone that is putting out horses at 10-1 and up that go off as favorites if it happens consistently. A lot of us put in a lot of effort based upon a somewhat consistent line. Nothing worse than finding a 10-1 morning line jewel that is in a later leg of a sequential wager that goes off as the favorite. Not to add any pressure but New York lines are very consistent.

congrats to travis, and best of luck to him.

Thats why i posted it for a heads up.i thhink the ML maker should be posted each day with pp's just in case a sub steps in.;)

We need a Morningstar like rating for Lines makers and Public Handicappers. ;)

Thanks everyone. It will be a fun challenge. The first race on Friday nearly gave me an ulcer. Ha!

Yesterday (Fri) shows how tough a job that is. It takes great courage to make the ML at the Spa. I will tell my grandkids about you.

You'll be great Trav. That first race didn't give me an ulcer till after it was run and I was 3 deep and not in the money with either of em

Whats new?

You do the best you can do. Then you walk in to that track and walk straight into the face of an alternate universe. You see the alcohol, but notice a strange smeĺl. It's the smell of Testosterone. You see a sweaty man pull a wad of $100 bills from his pocket and there goes the Morining Line. Sometimes it's good to forget.

It's like the running of the bulls without the bulls. I was going to go over and do that with a buddy and then go to Saratoga and he said Saratoga would be much harder. But you can just smell the ego in the air. Everybody wants to beat the beast.

It's like Quint with the shark, Ahab with the whale. Setting odds on this is very inexact.

I think you are doing a good job, Travis. Don't give up.

Pretty solid so far except for that 4/5 on songbird. Keep up the good work Trav:)

Thanks. I'm pretty sure if I was given the chance to make that line again, I might go 3-5 but I honestly thought Carina Mia would take more $ than she did. In fact, I think they ran closer to 4-5 and 8-5 than they did 1-5 and and 2-1ish.

I've had a few misses but for the most part, I'm pleased. After a few more days I'll actually run some data to see how close I am. These 2yo races are brutal though, so I might just have another beer instead.

You've had ZERO complaints on the selections thread. That in itself is an amazing feat. Cause I pretty much piss and moan and complain about everything but I havent had the need to complain about the Toga line.

Nick Tammaro just retweeted this very nice article.

http://www.dailygazette.com/news/201...ccolumn/?dgzrg


Travis has taken some undeserved heat imo. Most likely this is due to the publicity of taking the new job so people are looking for things to critique. I think for the most part his lines have been spot-on.

Oh well I didnt get 12-1 on Chico Grande. First Steamer of the meet

Underserved heat from who? Seems like everyone is praising him.

i may have jibbed Travis a bit, but I think he's doing great. I just wanted to highlight how difficult that job is. Need a thick skin on this job.

I think after this stint, Travis will be right at the top of ML makers. Still have to give tops to Jon White, though. Best I've ever seen.

100% good job Travis.

Firing Line is going to scratch tomorrow so they made him 20/1 on the ML? Why not make him 99/1 and take away any doubt if you're going to skyrocket his odds? I would have to think people will see 20/1 not knowing he's going to SCR and think the linemaker is an idiot.
First time I've seen something like this. Is that what normally happens or do most tracks just leave him at 9/5 or whatever he would have been?