DTers Road to the Roses Contest

[Withers]

Originally Posted by bmont22

Am I missing something? How can someone get 13 total points, when only possible pointer were available in the 3 races today?
AGS = 4
Johnny V = 3
Pletcher = 3

Where is the other 3?

You are right -- folks got 10 points only for the Sam Davis, but I assume that the other 3 points are from the Borderland -- if you had Asmussen as trainer, for example.

[todko]

It's a stupid contest really -- doesn't reward handicapping skills at all. The winner gets you the same points whether he's 50-1 or 2-1. And you're stuck with the original horses plus a few add-ons. Last year I had the same 5 horses activated from late March to the Derby -- all my others were injured and I think one or two were even dead by Derby.

It's a management issue too. The activation feature is bizarre. You have to pay attention to it and "activate" 5 horses and deactivate others before each weekend. You can have a horse in your stable win and if you forgot to activate the horse you don't get any points. With all the other things going on this time of year who wants to worry about things like this?

Then by all means DON'T bless us with your presence!!

[Withers]

Yeah, it's not a handicapping skills contest, but where else can you get tickets -- and a nice lift -- to the Derby?

Originally Posted by todko

It's a stupid contest really -- doesn't reward handicapping skills at all. The winner gets you the same points whether he's 50-1 or 2-1. And your stuck with the original horses plus a few add-ons. Last year I had the same 5 horses activated from late March to the Derby -- all my others were injured and I think one or two were even dead by Derby.

It's a management issue too. The activation feature is bizarre. You have to pay attention to it and "activate" 5 horses and deactivate others before each weekend. You can have a horse in your stable win and if you forgot to activate the horse you don't get any points. With all the other things going on this time of year who wants to worry about things like this?

[todko]

Originally Posted by Withers

Yeah, it's not a handicapping skills contest, but where else can you get tickets -- and a nice lift -- to the Derby?

Brisnet Race of the Day for one. It's handicapping. And it's across a lot of different tracks. Good practice for anyone.

[Cajungator26]

For some reason, I got signed up twice. Sorry guys... I can't figure out how to delete one of the profiles.

Originally Posted by Withers

You are right -- folks got 10 points only for the Sam Davis, but I assume that the other 3 points are from the Borderland -- if you had Asmussen as trainer, for example.

Now we know who took Asmussen as a trainer. I took ONeill instead, along with Pletcher. Asmussen has more horses, but ONeill looks to have high quality.

If this year goes as consistent as the past, half of my stable will get injured very early.

And yes it is not a handicapping contest. But a lot of those handicapping contests are stupid also. You try to pick a few long shot winners and hope all the favorites lose in many of the setups. I dont see any use in handicapping against other handicappers, I see it much more valuable as taking horses based on the likelyhood of winning v. the reward as decided by the public, and thats not an integral part of many handicapping contests.

[Withers]

Originally Posted by pgardn

Now we know who took Asmussen as a trainer. I took ONeill instead, along with Pletcher. Asmussen has more horses, but ONeill looks to have high quality.

If this year goes as consistent as the past, half of my stable will get injured very early.

And yes it is not a handicapping contest. But a lot of those handicapping contests are stupid also. You try to pick a few long shot winners and hope all the favorites lose in many of the setups. I dont see any use in handicapping against other handicappers, I see it much more valuable as taking horses based on the likelyhood of winning v. the reward as decided by the public, and thats not an integral part of many handicapping contests.

Yeah, well, I'm kind of kicking myself for picking Asmussen too. O'Neill no doubt would have been a better choice. On numbers alone, though, one should have gone for Pletcher and then Zito (18) I think...or Baffert (17).

[lemoncrush]

Originally Posted by Withers

Yeah, well, I'm kind of kicking myself for picking Asmussen too. O'Neill no doubt would have been a better choice. On numbers alone, though, one should have gone for Pletcher and then Zito (18) I think...or Baffert (17).

I think Numbers here are deceiving. Zito may not get even one horse to the derby, although he'll surely have some horses running in the major preps.
CP west may not make it, Silver Express, Righteous...I'm not sure about.

Same with Baffert. If EZ Warrior stays sprinting (and or injured), I'm not sure who he has that realistically has a chance to make it to Kentucky.

It's almost better to take a trainer who has his hopes pinned on a few legitimate candidates, rather than a trainer who nominates all of his stable, but realistically..does't have much for the derby trail.

[txshorns02]

Originally Posted by Withers

Yeah, well, I'm kind of kicking myself for picking Asmussen too. O'Neill no doubt would have been a better choice. On numbers alone, though, one should have gone for Pletcher and then Zito (18) I think...or Baffert (17).

Picking the trainer with the most horses in his stables isn't always the best for this game. If you like a particular horse and you think he can win the Derby you take his trainer. For example, last year Matz had one great horse (Barbaro) and if I'm not mistaken, I believe Matz was the highest scoring trainer.

[Withers]

Couldn't agree more -- I was just responding to pgardn giving me a bit of friendly teasing because I picked Asmussen over O'Neill, and I was trying to say that I HADN'T chosen on the basis of the numbers game alone -- or I would have gone for Zito or Baffert. Your point about Matz is actually what I was thinking to myself when I was looking at all the trainers with one big shot -- like Tagg again this year. I am just not astute enough to be able to pick the Derby winner (and thus his trainer) in February -- nor on the first Saturday of May for that matter! Last time I succeeded in doing that was when Smarty Jones won!

[ddthetide]

the first year i played, i didn't follow close enough and missed out on some points. the second year half my stable was hurt by mid april. last year i made nice horse picks but didn't have the right jockey, trainer combo and still scored 180 pts. i was plenty happy with that !
before i picked this year. i looked over the guy's picks that won it last year. he had Barbaro,Prado, Matz, thats a lot of points and luck.

[Nascar1966]

Has anyone gotten the PP's to work at the website?

[Sightseek]

Originally Posted by Holland Hacker

UPDATE: The league is now set up and accepting members:

Thanks to Withers the league is now set up and accepting new members: See below for specifics:

You will need an activation code in order to sign up for the League.

This message confirms that you have successfully created a new league in the
Kentucky Derby 133 Fantasy Challenge.

Your league information is:

League Name: DTers
League Identifier: 3749089599
Activation Code: 2080673275

I will be trying to set up a "League" for DTers in the Road to the Roses Contest. Unfortunately I'm at work and can not access my home e-mail account and do not remember my password from last year. SO i can not set up the league until later tonight.

As of no the only prize that I can offer for the winner of the league is the bragging rights here at DT (For what that is worth) and an 8 x 10 of their choice from the pictures on my website (www. billtheobaldphotography.com) also not worth much.

As I said I will try and set up the League this evening and update this post so you folks can join.

Since I'm not very creative the League will be something lame like "DTers"

If anyone has time today and can set up the league feel free but please update this post so we don't have a bunch of people creating a league of their own.

Thanks HH

I've got a few racing related things I can add to the prizes as well.