Quote:
Originally Posted by philcski
No, I agree with you. I was REALLY mad when the scratch came down despite using both in nearly the same amount. However, with the scratch, I had twice as much invested in Wise Dan as I originally intended and on top of that had the unenviable position of having to root AGAINST my own pick because of the payoff which would have occurred if he had lost (I think at least).
We had $5 on a Wise Dan-Orb/Overanalyze ticket, $4 on a PoE-Orb/Overanalyze ticket, and between $1-$5 to other horses. If either of those two loses we have $1 to Orb and a couple others and $.50 to a bunch of others. At that point there was probably 95% of the pick 4,5,and 6 pools going through Wise Dan so it would have actually benefitted to lose. That isn't what I intended to bet and I'm sure others were in the same situation.
Shug is a great horseman, among the greatest of all time. Obviously I am very happy he won the big one. But he did everyone a huge disservice this time around- it's not the 9th on a Thursday at Belmont, it's the highest handle day of the entire year and if you're questionable to run, scratch early.
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I don't think he has any business considering anyone but his horse and owner. In fact, I think what he did demonstrated a great amount of integrity. He wanted to run the horse. He waited to the last legal minute to try to do that. When it was clear that he could not run the horse in good conscience, he scratched. I know many players don't want to hear this, but trainers should never concern themselves with what is going on in the betting pools when making decisions. Had he run even though he didn't think it was a good idea or scratched earlier, just so players wouldn't be inconvenienced, I believe he would have done the worst thing possible. Wanting trainers and owners to make decisions based on what betting pools look like is asking for big trouble no matter what the size of the pool or race. If you know Latin, my sig line says all you need to know on the subject.