September 27, 2008: Decompression

The Turk spent a few hours today glued to the 2 inch video stream from soggy Belmont. I was surprised to see Ginger Punch fall after leading into the stretch. I look at the PP trying to figure out why I missed: I see the 78% lifetime winning percentage on Coca Beach. I see a win in his only race since 29 March. I see a horse acclimated to Belmont since winning 29 August in Saratoga and I see a string of solid works. This isn't the first time I've overlooked a horse who raced mostly outside of the United States. I had the horse 4th in a 4 horse race. He paid 7.10 to win and I lost nothing because I stayed on the sidelines. That said, I would have had some throw away tickets.

Race 8 demoralized the Turk slightly, but us handicappers have to have selective memory and let go of the failures quickly. I applied good handicapping logic, I picked underlays that I thought made sense, and I discounted the horses I thought had no chance. The people cashing the $49.60 tickets for Black Seventeen are some keen folks. I bet the #1 Horse, $2 to win and that was a mistake. I didn't get the price I wanted and I bet the $2 anyway. I had $6 in this race and it's no longer mine.

Race 9 is a race I picked the winner in, but that wasn't my objective. My two exacta plays failed. My identification of the money horses and the also rans wasn't that good. This one I just have to let go, because I look at the PP and the biggest wildcard faced was the yielding turf. The PP has too limited a sample size to draw conclusions from and I left my super-computer off.

Race 10 was a fun race for me as a fan. I didn't bet against Curlin for any other reason except to find a good underlay if he failed to fire in the slop. I tied Curlin to Wanderin' Boy for a $9.40 exacta. I netted $5.40 after subtracting out what in theory were still good win bets on Wanderin' Boy and Mambo in Seattle. I also feel good about identifying Merchant Marine as a threat today, with a solid show finish.

At Santa Anita I decided against betting today. I handicapped the 5th race but saw no one that could beat Zenyatta and the Zenyatta-Hysterical Lady exacta isn't exactly the stuff of legends.

The 10th race was a fan race for me. I've been teased by Tiago so many times since he won the SA Derby and last year's Goodwood. Still, I've lost more ticket cash on him then I'd like and I just wanted to watch. The little Turk liked Tiago today and he had a Well Armed-Tiago exacta, which we agreed we would have boxed. I was hoping to see Spirit One run better. Ahhhhh. Horses.