The Turk Blog, established in September 2008, has a narrow purpose: We analyze Turf Horse Races and Form Exacta Bets. Little Turk has retired from the blog and is now a Chiropractor.
Welcome friends to The Turk and the Little Turk horse racing and handicapping blog. I am the Turk, and my almost 23 year old son is the Little Turk. Little Turk is preoccupied with life these days, as he is studying to be a chiropractor. I miss the days with him at the track, going down to the paddock, coming up with our bets, and then standing along the rail rooting them home. You always think there will be more time, more outings, but life moves at its own pace. I miss Little Turk, but he's a young man now, with his own life. Like many of our young horse players, he's an absolute fantasy football junkie, and the lessons he's learned in horse betting I see him applying well in other things. It's good to know a little degenerate horse player could impart the lessons of the track on the youth!
Anyways, Gulfstream Park. The turf track went through significant improvement to make it a premier grass field, and the early reviews are positive. My favorite turf track in the world, Arlington Park, being no more, I hope to see more tracks install lush and thick turf courses to lure the top Europeans over. I can dream.
I'm just getting my handicapping memory muscles working again, but this time of the year your turf selections are limited. While that changes in January, beggars can't be choosers and today's nomination, mostly by default, is The Via Borghese, a $100K for Fillies and Mares 3 and Up.
Let's get after it!
You can find the updated Track Info and Tote at the Gulfstream Park website and this link will take you to it directly. The weather appears to be mostly dry until it gets closer to post time. I handicapped assuming Fast Turf.
As I like to tell people, my best advice for handicappers is to handicap without morning lines or reading any news reports about the race before the handicap. Leave bias at the door is my philosophy. I look at the Morning Line after I'm done handicapping to help me identify any over or underlays and gage my view of the race against a track insider. It's a small sample size, but it gives me a sanity check. Quite frankly, this race seems to be handicapped by me and the track pretty similarly.
Pletcher's Beside Herself gets top look at the win spot. Blinkers off is my only concern. Training well, 3 Turf Wins in 10 starts, 2 of 3 in the money at GP. Class, Connections, all good.
I like Flying Fortress and Viburnum for the best looks at Place. Flying Fortress has 3 turf wins in 6 starts and drops in class and distance thus time out. First time back since claim. Veteran Viburnum goes in 20th start today. Training well since September, a good late turn of foot, 3 of 4 in the money at GP, 3 wins in 18 Turf starts but 8 Place/Shows.
I prefer Starship Mallomar more than Lisheen, but it's not a strong opinion either way. Clearly Lisheen is in the better barn and wins a class battle, but on track little separates these two.
My base handicap will be to a $2 Exacta, betting against Beside Herself for the win: 4-7-5 OVER 4-7-5-1 $2 Bet for $18. It may be too expensive to carry 4 horses in the place spot so I'll think that through a bit more.
Welcome Friends to the Turk and the Little Turk blog.
COVID, and the aftermath of the COVID lockdowns, zapped my interest in horse racing in 2020, and it's taken me sometime to reevaluate my continued interest in the sport. God knows the sport itself does little to captivate new players, yet alone make any attempt to prevent long time fans from leaving, but I love the game and the athletes involved, aka the thoroughbreds, are my kinda athletes: stoic, quiet and all heart.
Work is the other factor in my blogging. While I've always had a busy job as I've handicapped over the years, nothing like the past two years. I love my job, I love my ability to not only serve a company's needs but also my privilege to but make a good work environment for the staff. Without getting all hokey, we take care of our people and in return they do great and amazing things for us. But, it's time consuming and energy zapping. I think it's taken me the better part of 18 months to adapt to the sort of pacing I have to move at to allow time to blog the horses. My other blog, Satori, and the underlying hobby beneath it of car restoration, suffers equally from a lack of time, but luckily, I place no artificial time constraints on my personal activities. Rome wasn't built in one day and neither with my Romanesque 1973 Alfa Romeo.
What can you expect from the Turk and the Little Turk going forward? My intention is to handicap 2-3 Turf only races in 2023 per month, to resume my bet tracker to show a full year ROI (spoiler alert: keep your day job) and to use my love of Turf and older horses as a mental unwinder. I couldn't care less about the Triple Crown (as a fan yes, handicapper no), I don't care about hype, or tear jerker stories about the connections (ok I'm a sucker for it but it skews my handicapping), I'm only interested in unlocking the riddle of these large field routes over grass.
What do I look for when I handicap? My primary considerations are Class, Current Form, Success (both win and in the money) at the distance, the track and the surface, late or early speed, the Trainer/Jock Combo and "experience" which I loosely define as how the horse has performed at the distance, from various posts, over various turf, and how the horse has performed relative to the competition. There are other factors, but those are the main ones. I try to avoid news articles about the race and money lines and morning lines. Those lines represent another's bias about the race and I don't want any of that to affect my handicap. The tote board is the final factor and the one that is hard for me to blog about because I'm blogging hours and sometimes days before the horses go to post. I'm trying to win a return on my money, not be a horse, trainer or jock fanboy. If the betting public creates underlays or overlays relative to my fair odds, I may address my bet construction slightly different to take advantage of a market condition. IF I deviate from the bet construction I propose in my blog, and I declare victory, I post the wager receipt. That's just good form and etiquette.
Anyways, Let's get after this. I always start with the handicap. I show the horses with the DRF Morning Line, which again I did not look at until I already assigned my letter grades too.
The handicap shows my favorite kind of race: no clear favorite, parity, in short, an opportunity to be contrarian and make some money. That's actually another subject for another day, but making money is pretty relative. My long time readers, at least the ones that are still alive, hopefully recall this to be a blog that was in the money regularly. I'm a better handicapper than a bettor, and they are two very different things. I can tell you pretty well which horses have the best chance at Win Place Show and Exotics, I can sometimes tell you precisely who will win and who has a chance at Place for the exacta, but as I've gotten older I've become a worse bettor. I'm a better bettor when my handicaps are theoretical $2 bets. Anecdotally I believe it's because my bets are more fearless without real money at stake. I have no skin in the game and I'm much more likely to boldly risk failure 7 out of 10 races in order to make my return on investment in the remaining three. When I do risk capital, I'm more risk adverse. I wasn't always like that, but here we are.
I have Cabo Spirit in the Win Spot, but at 9-2 that's hardly iron pipe lock territory. Gelded in June, 3 of 4 at DMR in the money, 7 of 8 lifetime in the money over turf, late speed but also shown tactical speed. I like his local base, his affinity for the turf and his late October Twilight Derby G2 win at this distance at Del Mar.
I won't get into all my likes and dislikes in this handicap blog. What I will say is I think 6 of the 11 horses could Win this race. That's huge. Script, 6th on my tote board, seems poised for a coming out party. Look at his surge in the Let it Ride , 1 mile on this course, on 11 November. New jock, but watch the tote on this modestly bred son of Algorithms. Pletcher shipped Wit here for this, you always have to wonder why a trainer seeks a spot in the conditions book. Prat is up. Lots of Class and Lots of Speed. Late turn of foot? Only three turf starts, one win. Worth watching the tote on him as well.
What am I going to do? My base bet is 1, 3, 2, 9 OVER 1,3,2,9, 8, 10 a $2 bet for $40. This is clearly too much for an exacta for my liking. Most likely I will noodle on this one as the race approaches post time and the betting public show their biases, but most likely I'll evolve to my standard exacta of a singled win and a series of Place horses, something like this: 3 OVER 1,2,9,8,10 a $2 bet for $10.
I think Celestial City will be bet hard so I'd like to see some value in the PLACE spot which means I could take more risk and toss the really heavy bet horses and even get a bit riskier at $10 by adding Evan Harlan or Spycatcher to the mix. My handicap has it's integrity in place, my bet structure is all about possibilities and ROI. Value. Risk.
This is not a race or a track I would generally handicap. It's not that I'm biased, I just find the variables too many and the motivations of the connections too varied regarding the starting of turf runners in a northern climate track in late November. You have the tight inner track, the weather, the horses who are building towards next year, the horses who are looking for one last kick at the can, the grizzled vets who are on their way to amassing 50 starts in their careers. You get it all post Breeders' Cup, late season racing. All that said, what these types of races are good for to me is isolation: Almost all the runners are outside of the hype and BS marketing that can skew a horse players opinion of a race, and very few of them I have played this year. It allows me in the isolation of just my red gel pen annotated DRF Formulator PPs (an unpaid endorsement) to study the data and bet purely on what I see on paper and a bit of video.
The NYRA website is one of the more friendly horse player track sites in my opinion. You'll find scratches and changes and track condition here. The weather Friday/Saturday is rainy and windy early Friday but then drying up. I'm going to handicap like the turf is good. I can't imagine it getting much better or worse but I'll take note of track conditions at end of today. This is an inner turf race which was unveiled in late 2018 replacing the "all weather" inner track. The turns are tight and the field is big. Can't say that helps the trips that can be expected. The race does not start in the chute.
I don't consider myself a coward, but this field scares me as a handicapper. When I was a high volume handicapper, I would have spent very little time on this race and just handicapped the tote board, putting prices on the 3rd or 4th horses on the board the public liked, longer than 6-1. As a turf race handicapper, there are a few variables here I'd rather not deal with: Trainer motivations for this race at this track, current condition of the runners, the track itself. As far as motivation, its a $300K G2, so I get it, but these are not the stars of the barn, these are horses that were possibly considered from Breeders' Cup, didn't perform as expected in their final tune-ups, as well as grizzled veterans, and horses that tried dirt with limited success and this is next stop. Variables. Variables are what put the betting capital more and more at risk.
So if you are going to invest time handicapping a race like this, bet construction has to weigh on your mind pretty early. Right off the bat I see two Chad Brown horses entered. I've seen this movie too many times and I know how it ends is my first thought, but upon close inspection, neither a iron pipe locks. Highest Honor from the 1 post has one turf win, has fared poorly in big field/outside post positions last few out. Balthus is hard to tell at the end of 4 YO campaign where his career is headed. These two will get bet, deservedly so, but I'm thinking my bet construction is against them. Can I find a foil? Soldier Rising isn't exactly a dark horse, but I like him to win enough to single him, anchor my bets to a single and then look for value in my exacta and Tri plays. Conditioner Clement cuts back just slightly from last time out, a 4th place finish here in G1 Turf Classic. 5-6 in the money in 2022.12 of 14 in the money lifetime turf, 4 wins in 14 turf starts. Ortiz is up.
If I can anchor to Soldier Rising, what do I want in exacta? Of the two Brown horses I'd rather see neither finish in Place, but I might hedge with Balthus if I'm hedging and tote board odds favor the payout, otherwise I like a group of Astronaut, Temple, Mooney Love and Reigning Spirit, tossing Highest Honor.
Astronaut is a 5 YO Quality Road, workmanlike. 6 of 13 lifetime starts Place or Show. Conditioner Albertrani 0 for 32 Graded Stakes on rolling one year basis. Temple ran past 23-1 odds into Place last time out in the G3 marathon Sycamore at KEE. 4 of 6 starts in the money in 2022 for the gelded son of Temple City. Mooney Love is intriguing. Mott's been looking for the right spot for the 4 YO with one North American win, a $115K N1X at SAR last time out in late July. Finally Albert Stall's Reigning Spirit won last start and is training well and could provide some late deep close sizzle.
I'm guilty of grinding these types of affairs into dust with the handicapping effort I expend, but I'm going to keep this one simple: I'm really betting against Chad Brown, tossing 4 of the 12, and building an exacta hinged around a singled Win for Soldier Rising.
$2 Exacta 9 OVER 4-8-6-3 is $8. Have fun friends, Turk Out!
Welcome friends to The Turk and the Little Turk, now in our 15th year of providing racing handicaps and warm hearted banter to people who never asked for it and most definitely didn't pay for it. I'd like to thank the good people at The Thorofan for indulging me.
Belmont at the Big A. That's the silliest thing I've heard in a long time. Today's race is at Aqueduct, I'm not sure why they just couldn't say that. I'm not sure why Belmont construction couldn't avoid the fall racing season, but that's over my pay grade. The Woodward. When I first got into horse racing as an adult this race was at Belmont, but it wasn't until the move to Saratoga did I form lifelong memories of this race. Usually on the Saturday before Labor Day, it was a perfect opportunity to spend a last bit of summer at Saratoga, away from the stress of the day job: Rachel Alexandra, Curlin, Mine That Bird (a shadow of himself) and Harve de Grace. The race hasn't been so good at the end of Saratoga meet and I'm glad it came back to Belmont where it can be positioned as a Breeders' Cup prep, but this edition? Life is Good and four also rans. This isn't horse racings='s finest to offer.
What do do with something like this race? Don't play it. You're either a horseplayer or you are a fan. If you are purely fan, do what you like, enjoy the most dominant colt in training currently. If you're a horse player, box the other four in an exacta or put the four in the win and the field in the place box and hope for something whacky.
I wish I had more to offer you, but I can't make gold from straw. If you really want some action, don't bet Life is Good at all. Perhaps he has a bad step or doesn't seem right, I'm sure the Jockey instructions will be clear to protect the horse regardless of today's race. Now you got some value. The reality is longshots most likely Place, not Win. There isn't much to be gained except an Exacta with Life is Good to Win and Informative or Thomas Shelby to Place, the two horses I think most likely to be lowest odds on the board. If you must be right, regardless of the betting philosophies against this, single Life Is Good Over Keepmeinmind and/or Law Professor.
Welcome friends to
The Turk and the Little Turk Blog, now in our 14th year of providing good handicaps and terrible blogging to
people who never asked for it, and Happy July 4th Weekend. I'd like to thank the
good people at The Thorofan for inviting
me to handicap my annual start to summer racing, The
Stephen Foster Handicap G2.
Poor Stephen Foster. He wrote some of the
most memorable songs in Americana, including Camptown Races, Old Susanna and My
Old Kentucky home, yet he died penniless at age 37 after smashing his head into
a chamber pot as he passed out from a high fever. We remember him each year for
this race, and his songs are forever ingrained into people of my generation and
before me, you know, when kids use to play outside and frolicked in the summer
before electronics and social media.
It's a seven horse field,
the weather looks to be wet, and the track conditions at least on Friday were Fast
but check here Saturday. Lets get one thing straight: I'm unhappy with Churchill Downs Inc, how they
have sabotaged Illinois racing, and their forcing the sale of Arlington
International Racetrack. I loved Arlington, I will always love Arlington and I
will never forgive the suits at CDI for putting their own interests ahead of
everything else. Arlington was a beautiful and modern facility, in a sport that
doesn't really have beautiful and modern facilities. Its turf course was the
best in North America. I'm done gripping, but this is exhibit A why horse racing
is failing and will continue to fail, a lack of a cohesive strategy to grow the
sport and track owners placing their interests over the heath of the sport.
While I said I don't like seven horse fields, at least this field has some
consistency and potentially could make for an interesting outcome. Let's get
after it!
Haskell Stakes G1: 1 1/8 Miles Fast Dirt. I don't generally look at video
more than 3 months old, but the quality of Mandaloun really shines.
Alysheba Stakes G2: 1 1/16 Miles Fast Dirt. Watch Mott's VERY Game runner.
Blame Stakes $198K: 1 1/8 Miles Fast Dirt. Americanrevolution a
heavily bet 4th and just looked empty in the stretch.
Oaklawn Handicap G2: 1 1/8 Miles Fast Dirt. Dallas Stewart Trained
Last Samuri , D.Wayne Lukas is his new conditioner.
I think it's a bettors race. My instincts tell me that Mandaloun deserves
the 2-1 ML. 6 of 10 Lifetime wins, 2 wins at distance, 5 wins in 9 fast dirt
starts, 2 of 2 in the money at CD and Brad Cox Trainer, 28% off the layoff, 28%
dirt winner and 26% graded stakes wins. I don't like first time returning horses
from overseas, but he has been training at increasing distances at CD since
late May.
One play is to single him and play a few value horses in the exacta,
something like a 6 - (1, and 7), with Caddo River and
Last Samuri providing some sizzle.
Alternatively, toss
Mandaloun and play Olympiad to win with those value runners on the
exacta. Mott's the master at bringing horses into good spots, and
Olympiad is 4 wins in 4 starts in 2022, 6 wins in 9 Fast Dirt Starts, and
a last start win in the Alysheba G2 here at 1 1/16 miles.
Olympiad will press the pace. 3 (1,7) exacta.
Finally, you could play
6-3- (2-1-7) a $2 Trifecta for $6. You could play with some combinations of
Place and Show, you get the idea. These are fun races to bet. Be patient, focus
on the toteboard odds, don't be emotional about the horses themselves. Slot
them, Value them, Bet Them, pray they all finish safe. Have fun friends, Turk
Out.
Hello Friends and Welcome to The Turk and The Little Turk blog, a blog focused primarily on horse racing handicapping since 2008. The Jenny Wiley. Are the the sort of horse player that cares enough about the names of these races to figure out why they are named, or no? I assume if you don't care about the names of the races, you probobly don't care alot about the the names of the horses, refering to them by thier post postions. There is nothing wrong with either approach. I've tried for many years to be a horse racing fan. The sort of fan that cares about the names, the horse's, thier pedigrees, their connections, interesting backstories and strorylines. It hasn't gotten me very far except worried that the downward spiral of this sport may not be arrested. In the 1970's I was a fan of the offbeat: Boxing, Formula 1 and Horse Racing. Why? Sports Illustrated and ABC Wide World of Sports. I'm fascinated at the resurgence of F1, driven by the accessability of the drivers and the circuit through television shows. It helps there is a governing body that cares about the sport holistically. Horse racing, with their small thinkers and fifedoms and refusal to take the erradication of performance enhancing drugs seriously enough, the blind eye to excesssive on track deaths, can't/won't get out of thier own way. All of this, at a fan website, The Thorofan, mind you, was a long winded way to say there has to be a metaphor somewhere in the name of the Jenny Wiley.
Ms. Wiley was captured in 1789 right from her home by Native Americans, three of her childen and her uncle murdered, a fourth child died in the harsh conditions, sold from one tribe to another, finally escaping after having a vision in a dream of what to do. Perhaps their is an escape and revival story for horse racing somewhere. Luckily, today's race is at one of the shrines of horse racing, Keeneland, to the north and west of Ms. Wiley's ordeal. It isn't tracks like KEE that are a problem, but then again, you can't have boutique meets like KEE, SAR, and my favorite, Kentucky Downs, without the year round back track support, ownership, and the fans. The Thorofan is doing thier part.
Enough old man rambling, let's get after this!
How is it good for horse racing to have two Trainer Chad Brown runners making up 85% of the morning line odds. A six horse field, with Scarabea also entered in Race 5and why wouldn't she go somewhere better than his bloodbath? Anyways, lets take a look at a few races to give these runners some context.
The Queen Elizabeth II Cup G1: 1 1/8 Miles on Yielding Turf KEE 16 Oct 2021
The Pucker Up Stakes G3: 1 1/8 Miles Good Turf at Ap 14 August 2021.
Yielding, Firm, Good. Shantisara is the real deal.
Pegasus World Cup Filly and Mare Turf G3; 1 1/16 Firm Turf GP 29 January 2022
The First Lady G1; 1 Mile Good Turf KEE 9 Oct 2021
So what to do with this? The two favorites will be bet hard, with what I would expect Shantisara being the post time tote board leader. I'm going to take an $2 Place bet for $8 on all the non Chad Brown runners and hope for the Place upset. 8/5/2/1
The turf should be somewhere between Good and Firm and no rain is in current forcast. You can find up to date track conditions here.
Have fun friends. Turk out!
Welcome Friends to The Turk and the Little Turk Blog. For those of you who do not know me, I've been writing horse racing handicaps, primarily Turf Racing, since 2008. I'd like to thank the good people at The Thorofan for allowing me to share my thoughts with you today.
What a challenge: A14 horse field, few if any dominant contenders. I generally like to handicap four year old and Up Turf runners for the reason that three year old turf seasons can be so erratic. Seldom are the horses brought onto the turf first, they generally fail on dirt first before the surface is introduced to them. This race does have some turf bred runners, some potential, and not a lot else. It creates a real handicapping challenge and the reality is that I have a 4 in 5 chance of my favorite not winning and a 1 in 5 chance of my chalk, Public Sector, winning.
Part of my dilemma is Public Sector will be the public betting pool chalk as well, almost undoubtedly at the top of the tote board when they break from the gate. While I always handicap the race without a bias, the bet construction is almost always pure bias. The fundamental question: Do I ignore my opinion that Public Sector is the most accomplished and favorite here when I develop the bet construction or not? Leaving him in the win spot, perhaps even singling him, can be a good bet as there will be confusion in the field and value can fill out the exacta spot. I should have mentioned that also, I'm almost exclusively an exacta player. Can I find value singling Public Sector and building a case for value in the Place spot? Possibly, with such a big field I think it's unlikely Public Sector will be bet down below his morning line odds of 5-2, perhaps 2-1 is the ceiling. If I want to win at my opportunity cost return on investment of 40% I need to not overcover and be decisive. Let's take a look at the base handicap and some video and then think about the bet construction a bit more.
Let's get after it!
The Twilight Derby G2 10/31/21; 1 1/8 Miles Firm Turf SA
The Hill Prince Stakes G2 10/23/21; 1 1/8 Miles Firm Turf BEL
The Del Mar Derby G2 9/4/2021; 1 1/8 Miles Firm Turf DMR
The Hall of Fame G2 8/6/21; 1 Mile Firm Turf SAR
What to make of all this? When you are at the track, or even at home streaming the video, you don't have the time it takes to deep dive 14-15 horses between races. The effort I put into handicapping for a blog entry is more than double the time I would spend studying if I was just playing the card. The time difference can be described as not following the 80-20 rule. You have to be able to do 80 of the work in 20 percent of the time. I do 100% of the work for a Blog because I never know when I'm looking at a really interesting scenario and, people are reading this, they deserve maximum effort.
With the 80-20 rule I take no more than 10 mins flowing through the field and breaking into four piles: the Toss Pile, and then Win- Win Place- Show-Exotic. I represent those four colors in my base handicap with BLUE- YELLOW-PURPLE and RED. I waste no time agonizing over the Toss pile. there is no time for that. Can those horses beat you? Absolutely, but no time for that now.
As I'm focused on Exacta, I have three general archetypes: A singled runner and a few horses in Place; a boxed grouping of potential Win-Place candidates; a small group of potential Winners over a group of potential Place. I've been doing this for a very long time, and I see patterns in these fields and races that fit into the archetypes and I see no reason to reinvent my wheel. As I said earlier, I plan on following the rarest of my archetypes, a singled Win candidate. I say its rare because I want chaos, I want the favorite to lose and typically I bet the favorite to fall right out of the top 2 to create the highest value exacta possible. With a field this size, with the traffic that will be in place, so much luck goes into the ride that a horse needs everything to fall into place perfectly. Not to go off tangent, but that was the brilliance of Zenyatta, who was so talented could overcome a bad break or bad trip. Few horses ever come close to matching Zenyatta in talent. Very very few.
Public Sector/6 will be singled. Chad Brown is so dominant: 23% turf winners with 986 starts, 19% graded stakes in 340 starts, 27% 2nd off 45 -180 day layoff in 195 starts. Three straight graded stakes turf wins. A Race high 458 Tomlinson number, 8 of 9 lifetime on Turf in the money.
So who makes the cut for consideration into the Place Spot? I have eight potentials:
Subconscious/12
Shifting Sands/8
Flashiest/7
Hudson Ridge/5
Zoffarelli (Ire)/10
and
Beyond Brilliant/2
Cathkin Peak (Ire)/3
Santin/14
I'm not going to do it but to illustrate, a 6 OVER 12-8-7-5-10-2-3-14 $2 exacta bet would cost $16. I'm not saying you can't win with a bet like that, but you won't win enough to cover the times you'll lose a bet like that. Let's get to work chopping that bet down to size. Remember, to find value, something about each of these horses you won't like. It's easy to find reasons not to back a horse, focus on why you should back them.
Subconscious/12 could easily be in my win column. Trainer Mandella has a very sharp gelding on his hands with three straight wins, a nice Grade 2 win in the Twilight Derby, and a Del Mar win in August. Will be bet hard and my best case scenario is Tapit's son finishes no better than Show.
Shifting Sands (GB)/8 is a Chad Brown runner that you have to wonder why he shipped here except to compete. An equally gaudy 424 Tomlinson number to Public Sector's. Very classy. A good summer at Saratoga. First Del Mar outing.
Flashiest/7 ran well taking place in the Del Mar Derby in September. Very late and good speed. The gelding has to navigate traffic and put himself in position for a late break. The Del Mar outing may cause more public support than we'd like.
Hudson Ridge/5 incredible class, hasn't put it together. Baffert puts Mike Smith up. Blinkers off. Very sharp morning works. Lots of potential.
Zoffarelli (Ire)/10 five Places in 9 turf starts. Talented enough, also has yet to put it all together so far.
Beyond Brilliant/2 will bring lots of early speed. 4 of 4 in the money over turf with one win here at Del Mar in September. Stepping up in class from comfort zone of OC N1X, was ok for Show in G2 Twilight Derby.
Cathkin Peak (Ire)/3 has good late speed, last two races gone off at big prices and was Place and Fourth respectively. Winless in 4 starts in 2021, 4 Win-Places in 7 turf starts. Morning Line 6-1, I obviously thought less of the gelded runner.
Finally, Santin/14 is Morning Line 10-1. Lightly raced, just 3rd start, with two wins already. The Godolphin Team shipped for a reason, they are really entering deep end of pool. Late speed.
Many of my betting decisions with a group of potential Place finishers this large would be driven by the Tote Board odds. In the absence of that, I think my initial thoughts are to:
Single Public Sector/6 OVER Shifting Sands (GB)/8, Flashiest/7, Hudson Ridge/5, Zoffarelli (Ire)/10 a $2 Bet for $8.
.jpg)
