The Nomination Is In: The Via Borghese $100K at Gulfstream Park

                                                                                                    

Gulfstream Park first turn

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.

Have fun friends, Turk Out!