The Nomination Is In: The G1 Stephen Foster Handicap at Churchill Downs under the lights

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Welcome Friends to the Turk and the Little Turk Blog.  The Turk has taken a handicappers holiday for most of 2018 while he was finishing up a Master's Degree in Finance.  The course work has mostly been used to analyze my poor betting capital allocations, but I'm back, and happily this first blog post back is for The Thorofan and the Handicapper's Corner.  Good People, Good Organization and hopefully good returns on investment.

The Turk has been a horse racing fan since Seattle Slew's Triple Crown run of 1977 when I was eleven years old.  Like many boy's my age, Sports Illustrated and ABC's Wide World of Sports were my windows into the sporting world, and horse racing was still a high profile major sport.  It's been great to see the excitement Justify and American Pharoah have brought to the sport, a sport that desperately needs more good marketing.  Churchill Downs night time racing is something I enjoy very much and while I know this 51 year old isn't exactly a demographic priority, I appreciate Saturday night racing and wagering and wish there was more quality nights like this in the summer.  

Let's get after this!

The weather on Friday and Saturday looks pretty dry, so let's assume a fast dry track.

Backyard Heaven, a lightly raced 4 YO Tizway colt, trained by Chad Brown, looked awfully impressive in dispatching Always Dreaming and a good field in the Grade 2 Alysheba here at CD on Kentucky Derby Day.  He's got excellent tactical speed and I'm singling him, keying all my thoughts on his continued brilliance.  You have to wonder what this win would mean and how Trainer Brown would point him afterwards, with the Breeders' Cup looming at Churchill Downs in five months. 

He is facing a deep and talented field: Churchill local Honorable Duty breaks from the 1 gate and will need his early speed to gain position.  The 6 YO gelded son of Distorted Humor is 6 of 8 in the money at CD and 9 of 11 in the money over fast dirt.  Trainer Brendan Walsh and rider Lanerie are clipping along at a 30% win rate with 46 mounts this year.   Place in last years edition of this race.

Irish War Cry, 4 YO Curlin, comes in off a driving win in the Pimlico Special in the slop where he has a 421 Tomlinson. It was his first win six starts after his Wood Memorial.   I'm not sold.  

Pavel, the 4 YO enigmatic Creative Cause, campaigned by the Reddam Team of Doug O'Neill with Gutierrez up, is too talented to overlook.  A well beaten fourth in Dubai in March followed by a well beaten fourth in the Gold Cup G1 at Santa Anita three weeks ago, breaking at the top of the stretch under the pressure of fast fractions.  The distance and class cutback won't hurt but I need to see more consistency before considering him to win races.  

Looking at Lee, who's arguable best performance was a lagging Place to Always Dreaming in last year's Kentucky Derby, comes in off his first win, a 62K OC N2X class drop.  I grouped him with a couple of 8 YO geldings, Hawaakom and Matrooh.  They are both hard knocking veterans who can easily be in the money, especially Hawaakom with his very late speed.  

Pletcher's uncoupled Uncle Mojo and fan favorite Patch round out the field and I've tossed them both from contention at my own risk.  

So what to do with this?  As I said, I see Backyard Heaven as a heavy favorite and I'm singling him on all my tickets.

Exacta:  $2 Bet 6 OVER 1-3-5  for $6.   I'd expect the 1-3-5 will all be >6-1 and should easily return my opportunity cost.  

Trifecta:  $2 Bet  6 OVER 1-3-8-9 OVER 1-3-5-7-8-9 for $40.  Dropping the 7 altogether takes the bet to $32.

Good news:  The handicapping holiday refreshed both me and my love of the game.  The bad news:  I'm a bit rusty, so no betting the mortgage on my ramblings.

Good luck, Turk out!

The Nomination Is In: The All Grade 1 Pick 3 (race 9-10-11) at Belmont Park

Spectacular, Spectacular!  Welcome friends to The Turk and the Little Turk Blog, now in our 9th year.  We specialize in old school handicapping based on a derivative of the style Tom Ainsile, Brad Free and Steve Davidowitz.  Old School: Class, Pace, Conditions, Tactical Speed.

I love the big days.  I get excited at seeing the best in the sport race on the same day, and in our declining sport, these days are fewer and fewer and less and less spectacular.  This isn't the blog that analyzes ways to improve the sport.  If you unfortunately wandered into this blog all you can expect is no BS, no bravado, free opinions that will reward you  the opportunity to turn big piles of cash into slightly smaller piles of cash more often then not.  That's the game, its stacked mostly against players.  Be diligent, be smart, bet and handicap with consistency and with time, skill and luck, you'll scratch out a break even or positive ROI, return on investment.  It's very cool if you just like to drop a few bets every year with friends.  In that case, ignore me, and my picks are in the chart below.  If you're a horse player more than a few times a year, work at your craft, study the losses as much as you study the wins, bet responsibly and have fun.

The Belmont isn't a race I particularly like to handicap, with it's extra quarter mile and long straight, it's been a bit of a graveyard for me.  When I stepped back after handicapping, I thought I'd share my all Grade 1 Pick 3 (Race 9-10-11) with you instead of trying to read the tea leaves on a race 11 exotic.

Multi Race betting is a great way to think about the card horizontally , with less of a focus on single race vertical slotting.  As an exotic player, I can typically roll through a card pretty quickly if I'm just identifying exacta possibilities, and that's how I approach multi race horizontal bets, just as a series of exacta's.  How many you cover, taking a strong view and singling,  and how much value you can find, is always the key.

Let's get after this!

Race 9-10-11;  First Post 4:41 ET






In Race 9 we have the Grade 1 Met Mile.  I'm still not sure I'm happy the race moved from Memorial Day, but again, this isn't the sort of blog that has much credibility with such topics, you can find all sorts of haughty, elitist opinions if you try harder.

I have 5 horses in my Exacta possibles, with two covers for the Pick 3.  I don't think I'm really offering value as I suspect both Sharp Azteca and Mor Spirit will both be bet hard.  Rally Cry, a Pletcher/Velazquez Up  combo, is 3 of 3 in the money at the distance and BEL and the 4 YO Uncle Mo colt will be 3rd or 4th on the Tote Board.  Economic Model/7 goes Blinkers off, something Trainer Chad Brown has mixed sucess with at 17%, but its his second effort off a long layoff and Brown is 28% on that angle and he's a hot 30% on dirt.  Mark Casse's Awesome Slew will also be 4-6 on the tote board and has a fantastic late burst, on display in his last two races at 7f.

In Race 10, we have one of the premier turf races of the year, The G1 Manhattan. I also am covering horses here that should be bet heavily.  Beach Patrol, winner of G1 Secretariat on Arlington Million Day 2016, is a front runner less of a late turn of footer and I typically prefer the latter to the former over a route of grass.  Time Test (GB) has monster numbers and Chad Brown's Juddmonte invader may be setting up for a big summer.  This may be the race he steps forward and joins his barn's plans.  Leparoux's choice of mounts, World Approval, a beauty of a 5 YO Northern Afleet, must be respected.  Three horses I think represent opportunity and value: Potemkin (Ger), on Lasix for first time, and Divisidero, both have great late moves.  I'm not covering and may regret it, Sadler's Joy from the 9 spot.

In Race 11, The G1 Belmont Stakes, The Turk looks at Tapwrit and can't help but think, why not? He came late in the Kentucky Derby, Late in the Blue Grass, Late in Tampa Bay Derby and SF Davis.  He'll have a long straight and targets to aim for.  Pletcher's Graded Stakes over past year down to 17%.  Looking at Lee and Irish War Cry are obvious choices but not very wiseguy of me.  Solid is still solid, don't buy into that feeling you have have to be wiseguy-ish.  This is the sort of race where there are a lot of similar runners so don't be shocked by the winner, no matter what the price.

So what to do?  Have fun with it.  Find some value on the toteboard with what I suggested here or with your own handicapping.  I'm not sure what I'll do:  I may try to single one of these races  and cover a few more Belmont Stakes runners.  I'll pay a few exactas working off my base handicap and the toteboard, not getting sentimental about the names or the human connections but thinking of value propositions only.  I'd rather gamble $20 with a 10% chance of winning >$100 then gamble $36 with a 45% chance of winning $50.  The numbers may be skewed but you get the idea.

Turk out!

The Nomination Is In: The 142nd Preakness Stakes

Welcome friends to the Turk and the Little Turk Blog. While most of my hardcore, degenerate readers know my story, I'll quickly tell you about me and this blog for the 3 times per year readers on the Triple Crown Days.  I'm a 50 something numbers geek, with limited social skills, no friends and I live with three cats, a big dog, a Korean (AKA Little Turk) and my wife of 25 years. I fixate on two very distinct things:  Who can win (the Base Handicap) and Value Betting.  I like exotics and Multi Race Pick 3-4-5's.  That's all you really need to know!

This edition of The Preakness is the sort of race that makes me work both sides of the coin very hard.  I have a base handicap that tells me Always Dreaming and Classic Empire are clearly better than the other horses by most measures: Class, top speed, off track speed, fast dirt track win percentage.  That said, ehh, I'm not that excited to bet a 4-5 Boxed Exacta.  It just doesn't do it for me and my desire to find value.  Let's take a look instead at the base handicap and see if we can construct a bet strategy that is reasonably priced and offers real value if the ticket scores.  Let's get after it!







I've tossed from consideration three horses.  It's important to understand that I'm not saying these horses will finish last.  I'm saying you can't cover every runner, or I should say you can, but the tickets would be very pricey.  For example, a 7 horse tri-box will cost $420 for a 42 bet.  That's just  a very bad bet.  Alternatively, a $2 Tri with a single horse on top and 3 horses covered in Place and Show  will set you back $12.  I'm not your mother, but betting irresponsibly isn't going to increase your chances of winning.  There is nothing cool about the magic trick of turning a $350 bet into $190 of winnings.  

I'm generally of the opinion that Always Dreaming will win this race.   I think the fun thing is who finishes 2-5.  I've been handicapping the better part of 30 years and I'll tell you honestly and with no shame: I dunno!  This is a pretty even field of even quality and quite a few one run horses that if they get loose could either nip the wire or just be going forward while others are dropping. Looking at Lee, Gunnevera, Hence, Senior Investment, Cloud Computing and Multiplier will most likely make one big run at the top of the stretch.  Conquest Mo Money, Always Dreaming and Classic Empire should be on the pace.

So, I tossed three horses like I started to say before I rambled off into a tangent.  Multiplier is the one I'm concerned about, but again, you can't cover everyone.  I intend to build a series of exotic bets, mostly centered (but not all) around Always Dreaming singled with the rest of this six horses in some combination of finish.  Sorry to disappoint, but I have no "wiseguy" insights to offer with this group.  My strong suggestion is to watch the track today and see how the speed is carrying.  More likely than not Always Dreaming will have no problem carrying speed if his trip is fairly clean.  I sorta like an Always Dreaming OVER 6 OVER 6 for $60 but that isn't very value so I have to get to a 1 X 3 X 3 and it's just going to be some combination, and if forced to choose:  Always Dreaming 4 OVER 3-9-6 OVER 3-9-6 (Hence, Looking at Lee, Gunnevera).  

I'm most likely not settling on my bets until the post parade.  Whatever you do, have fun and don't bet the mortgage or the kid's school tuition.

Turk Out!