9/5 (CD): Derby Trail Probables ~ 11 for Preakness with Swiss

[Kasept]

BLUE GRASS

1- Shivaree
2- Finnick the Fierce
3- Art Collector
4- Mr. Big News
5- Man in the Can
6- Hard Lighting
7- Swiss Skydiver
8- Basin
9- Attachment Rate
10- Rushie
11- Hunt the Front
12- Enforceable
13- Tiesto

[Alabama Stakes]

Filly gets to strut her stuff

[moses]

Looking through the final odds for the Oaks and is it just me or a little crazy that Speech was 10/1 and Swiss Skydiver 9/2 while Gamine was 2/1? I know Gamine ran an incredible race last time out but it was around one turn...and I think those other two are fairly close to her going around two turns.

I’m sure I’ll be wrong and she’ll win the Kentucky Oaks by 10 lengths but I hope they stay at 2 and 5 times the odds as Gamine because they’ll be pretty solid value.

[Dunbar]

Originally Posted by moses

Looking through the final odds for the Oaks and is it just me or a little crazy that Speech was 10/1 and Swiss Skydiver 9/2 while Gamine was 2/1? I know Gamine ran an incredible race last time out but it was around one turn...and I think those other two are fairly close to her going around two turns.

I’m sure I’ll be wrong and she’ll win the Kentucky Oaks by 10 lengths but I hope they stay at 2 and 5 times the odds as Gamine because they’ll be pretty solid value.

I'm pretty sure the 2nd half of your last sentence contradicts the first half!

What struck me about this round of Future Wagers is how small the pools were. For the Oaks, just $35K in the win pool and $20K in the exacta pool! For the Derby, just $126K in the win pool and $65K in the exacta pool. Compare that to Derby Pool 2 which had $440K in the win pool and $151K in the exacta pool.

I would've thought that with so little sports to bet on, maybe the future wager would have attracted some attention. Nope.

[moses]

Originally Posted by Dunbar

I'm pretty sure the 2nd half of your last sentence contradicts the first half!

What struck me about this round of Future Wagers is how small the pools were. For the Oaks, just $35K in the win pool and $20K in the exacta pool! For the Derby, just $126K in the win pool and $65K in the exacta pool. Compare that to Derby Pool 2 which had $440K in the win pool and $151K in the exacta pool.

I would've thought that with so little sports to bet on, maybe the future wager would have attracted some attention. Nope.

Haha - true. The notion of a "good price" of "value" on a losing horse.

There have been so many pools, though, that there is probably bettor fatigue. Plus, the pools seem to fluctuate a bit - Pool 5 had over $200,000 in the win pool, Pool 4 had less. And who is going to keep betting on Tiz the Law or Honor A. P. if you got them at a much better price earlier on?

Tiz the Law was 5/1 in Pool 4, 2/1 in Pool 5, and actually ticked up to 5/2 in Pool 6. Honor A. P. was 15/1 in Pool 4, 6/1 in Pool 5, and stayed at 6/1 in Pool 6. Neither Uncle Chuck nor Art Collector were in Pool 4. Uncle Chuck was 13/1 in Pool 5 and 6/1 in Pool 6. Art Collector was 20/1 in Pool 5 and 8/1 in Pool 6.

If I had to guess, people already have bets on the big horses at similar or higher odds than they were in Pool 6...and the horses that dropped in price (Uncle Chuck, Art Collector, NY Traffic, King Guillermo) are ones that people didn't bet in earlier pools but figured they'd take a shot at this time around.

I wish there was another Oaks/Derby double pool. I probably would have thrown some money into that...but not particularly interested in the win pools at this point.

[Hoblin]

There was a second Oaks/Derby double wager offered July 17-19, but for some reason the KD website isn’t showing the final odds for it like it does for the March 6-8 pool.

[Betsy]

Sorry if this doesn’t belong here, but I didn’t have a chance to reply before the Travers post was archived.

Rollo, thanks for responding. I do have to strongly disagree with your negativity about the AP Indy line ...

But, Honor A.P. was the main topic, so...here goes. I’ll come out and say that I’m biased because I love his sire, I love anyone from Slew/Indy line..and I adore this colt. However, I can be objective, so...

I agree with a lot of what you said, but not all of it. I think Mike didn’t want to lose position after being slammed at the start...so he rushed up a bit. Then, because I think his intention was always to be aggressive in a tiny field - stay close to the pace- he made that first move. My friend has a real issue with that and others have as well. For me, I still blame Shirreffs (who I’ve learned a great deal from watching HAP’s works and seeing interviews on TVG) more because of the training, but...I understand your point.

What I don’t agree with is this notion that HAP has little to no speed. He closed from the clouds in his debut because he didn’t break great and Mike didn’t push, but he broke his maiden wire to wire. People forget that because it came between his flashy second under debut and his very good second in the San Felipe. He’s versatile - he can close from well out of it, stalk as in the SF or run from mid-pack as in the SA Derby. I’m not trying to convince anyone to think more highly of him than they do, but these are just the facts.

I didn’t expect or want the colt to be cranked for the Shared Belief, but I expected him to be trained like he was for the San Felipe. He wasn’t. I was seriously concerned about what HAP got out of this race, but his fantastic work a couple of days ago made me feel a little better about.

I’ve been waiting for him to go 1 1/14...beating Tiz will be tough, but I have faith. Good luck to your selections !

Sorry for being long-winded, lol.

[moses]

Originally Posted by Betsy

Sorry if this doesn’t belong here, but I didn’t have a chance to reply before the Travers post was archived.

Rollo, thanks for responding. I do have to strongly disagree with your negativity about the AP Indy line ...

But, Honor A.P. was the main topic, so...here goes. I’ll come out and say that I’m biased because I love his sire, I love anyone from Slew/Indy line..and I adore this colt. However, I can be objective, so...

I agree with a lot of what you said, but not all of it. I think Mike didn’t want to lose position after being slammed at the start...so he rushed up a bit. Then, because I think his intention was always to be aggressive in a tiny field - stay close to the pace- he made that first move. My friend has a real issue with that and others have as well. For me, I still blame Shirreffs (who I’ve learned a great deal from watching HAP’s works and seeing interviews on TVG) more because of the training, but...I understand your point.

What I don’t agree with is this notion that HAP has little to no speed. He closed from the clouds in his debut because he didn’t break great and Mike didn’t push, but he broke his maiden wire to wire. People forget that because it came between his flashy second under debut and his very good second in the San Felipe. He’s versatile - he can close from well out of it, stalk as in the SF or run from mid-pack as in the SA Derby. I’m not trying to convince anyone to think more highly of him than they do, but these are just the facts.

I didn’t expect or want the colt to be cranked for the Shared Belief, but I expected him to be trained like he was for the San Felipe. He wasn’t. I was seriously concerned about what HAP got out of this race, but his fantastic work a couple of days ago made me feel a little better about.

I’ve been waiting for him to go 1 1/14...beating Tiz will be tough, but I have faith. Good luck to your selections !

Sorry for being long-winded, lol.

I’d point out that Code of Honor broke his maiden going wire to wire so that mere fact doesn’t prove anything...however, the Timeform pace projector appears to have HAP ahead of Tiz the Law early in the race. I guess we’ll soon find out how it will all play out. I haven’t really looked closely at the PPs for projected Derby horses.

[RolloTomasi]

Originally Posted by Betsy

I think Mike didn’t want to lose position after being slammed at the start...so he rushed up a bit.

That's downplaying the terrible move Smith made. He basically made a 5-wide sweep in the middle of the first turn after a 1/4 mile, way too late to be establishing early position.

What I don’t agree with is this notion that HAP has little to no speed. He closed from the clouds in his debut because he didn’t break great and Mike didn’t push, but he broke his maiden wire to wire. People forget that because it came between his flashy second under debut and his very good second in the San Felipe.

I know he broke his maiden wire-to-wire, however, to say he ran in one of the worst 2yo maiden special weights of the year in CA would be an understatement. Only the now 1-for-10 Tizamagician subsequently won a MSW, and one of the also-rans came back to win a bottom level maiden claimer before going on the bench for several months. The others are all still toiling in the maiden ranks. Honor A.P., coming off his debut in a sprint, was ripe to show more pace on the stretch-out, and probably found himself dominating the race on sheer class judging by his rivals' subsequent records.

He’s versatile - he can close from well out of it, stalk as in the SF or run from mid-pack as in the SA Derby. I’m not trying to convince anyone to think more highly of him than they do, but these are just the facts.

I don't see much difference between his trip in the San Felipe and SA Derby. He's a stalker with a strong turn move--and Smith's ride in the Shared Belief played against that style.

At any rate, the comparison was with Art Collector who is clearly more versatile than Honor A.P. having shown winning form at multiple levels, over multiple distances, with different running styles.

I didn’t expect or want the colt to be cranked for the Shared Belief, but I expected him to be trained like he was for the San Felipe. He wasn’t. I was seriously concerned about what HAP got out of this race...

I wouldn't have been, Smith made the horse run for over 3/4 of a mile and the colt still finished with good courage. If he was lacking any fitness for the Shared Belief, he probably wasn't afterwards.

...but his fantastic work a couple of days ago made me feel a little better about.

This is where I would be concerned. The classic overreaction on the part of the connections. Not only did they work the horse a mere 7 days after that gut-busting trip courtesy of Smith in the Shared Belief, but then they breezed the horse a near bullet in the afternoon over one of the most tiring surfaces in the country. Smith even went so far as to push the horse aggressively on the gallop out, needlessly giving the horse a couple of shoulder taps a few strides before standing up on him at the 7/8 pole.

A good candidate to be over-the-top come Derby day, a la Bolt d'Oro.