Friday, April 15, 2022

The Nomination Is In: The Grade 1 Jenny Wiley at KEE

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!