Best current offshore Derby futures

[Dunbar]

Originally Posted by MarkyD

What are your plays this year? I remember you also had HArdSpun last year. I had him at 18-1 on pinni, second week in.

This year, looking to make 1 bet instead of 2 or 3. Want to try and get BigBrown at +375 or higher and drop 1K on him. Not even about value this year, I just don't have that feeling this year with this crappy field.

I have a huge (for me) future bet from Pool 1 on All Others. So, I have Big Brown, Cool Coal Man, Gayego and the fillies covered at a combined 3.3-1. (I'll also have a couple of bonus horses with that, like Big Truck, RecapturetheGlory, etc.) I have a smaller bet on All Others from Pool 2, which gives me even more action on Big Brown at 6.5-1 (plus the fillies, etc).

At this point I'm looking for opportunities to hedge. If I had money at Pinnacle, I'd jump on the Pyro and Col John odds. (I don't have an opinion yet on whether those odds offer value; I'm just trying to hedge my Big Brown/All Others position. And I'm pretty sure those odds are not awful for Pyro and Col John.) I've already made hedge bets elsewhere on Smooth Air, Denis of Cork, and Bob Black Jack (the latter at less than Pinnacle's 75-1, I'm afraid!).

It's going to be tough to come up with a line this year, what with the inconsistent performances and the synthetic surface factor, too. My thinking right now is that Big Brown is the obvious standout in this group and that his talent towers over the rest of the field enough to make up for his woeful lack of racing foundation.

Oh yeah, for completeness I should add that I'm also sitting on individual futures on War Pass, El Gato Malo, Elysium Fields and Texas Wildcatter. I probably should have passed on the latter 2 simply because they were already part of my All Others bet. The War Pass and El Gato Malo bets were small hedges that I don't regret.

--Dunbar