The Nomination Is In: The Grade 2 San Pasqual at Santa Anita

The Turk and the Little Turk are back in 2012 and we are proud to lead off the Handicappers Corner this year for the good people of The Thorofan.

The Turk loves the handicap division. It's pretty simple really too, I love numbers. I see elegance and beauty when I study a Past Performance. To people who know me the best, and who allow me to bore them the most, they know that I went years working a night shift where I handicapped whole cards, never once watching the physical race, just working the red gel pen only to repeat the process night in and out. It was my crossword puzzle, my Sudoku. It was the Internet that brought me back to racing after a lull in my interest, the Internet and horse racing on satellite television. This time of year, the older horses are either on the farm or they are just coming back to training and quality of the fields can be a bit so-so. This Grade 2 San Pasqual might not pass for an OC $40K N1X at another time in the year, but here we have it. I led off by saying I loved the handicap division because I like to deal with long racing histories and lots of running lines, but this group caught my eye in a bad way: 135 career starts, 4 fast dirt wins. Can you say ugh!

I do love Past Performances but I also love Race Charts. I have all eight days races in the current meet at Santa Anita printed and I'm starting my review of them this weekend. I'll break down the winning post positions, the basic race forms and pacing, and how the tote board rankings compared to the final outcome. I'm not so much interested in races like the San Pasqual as I am about gleaning knowledge about how the races might unfold in February and March and April, and I keep my own statistic. I prefer to gather my own stats because when you just look at the numbers you can sometimes miss the economy of word descriptions of how the race unfolded and the "story behind the story". It's too early to really hang too much on what I'm seeing but chalks are winning 38% of the time in my early review of the first six days of racing. I'm not interested in chalk today, let's see if we can beat em'.

Race 8 SA: The Grade 2 San Pasqual; 1 1/16 miles on Dirt



I'll assemble a reasonably priced $1 Superfecta built around my base handicap. I'll pay attention to the tote board as well as the scratches/changes and I'll either slip back to a Trifecta or pass altogether if there is a key (non-Toss Out) scratch.

I look forward to another great year meeting like minded horse racing fans. The Thorofan's Handicappers Corner has assembled a deep and eclectic collection of writers and handicappers, the best of the best in the blogosphere, providing keen analysis and insight from now until Breeders' Cup. Don't be bashful if you are new to the game, there isn't a blogger or writer who doesn't love to meet his readers, and you are in the right place, The Thorofan is all about the racing fan community.

Have fun, Turk Out!

The Nomination Is In: January 15, 2011: The Sham and San Fernando at Santa Anita Park

The Turk is back in snow filled Buffalo after a long work week in California.

I've not felt very sharp with my handicapping since shutting myself down for a break after the Breeders' Cup. Any horseplayer knows what I'm talking about: You have stretches of time when you feel unbeatable and then others where you can't seem to find clarity when starring at the PP's. I've been handicapping long enough to know the best way to start to get your groove on is to just keep handicapping, analyzing the race charts afterwards, and focus in on something you're good at in order to build confidence.

I don't preach one thing here and do something completely different. I've been increasing the number of handicaps I work on each week, decreasing my actual betting, and gaining confidence as I count my virtual winnings and ROI.

I also find it helpful that I can ignore playing synthetic tracks if I want to. That wasn't an anti plastic rant as I was growing indifferent to the surface, but it is very nice to be handicapping this wickedly fast Santa Anita Dirt Track and not think about if I need to apply my turf racing angles when on plastic, or even worse, having to think about what version of plastic the track happens to have. Tedious, and I feel free of that.

The Turk is again involved this year with a project by Steve over at Wireplayers.com to identify the best three years old on their march to the Kentucky Derby. The panel of voters is impressive and deep and I'm humbled to be counted among them. We had ALOT of fun with this last year and we will be back this coming Wednesday, and will be out with a new polling every three weeks after that until the day of the Derby post draw. I hope you tune in and have some fun with us.

The Turk's Blog is subtitled "Horses, Handicapping and Hijinks". I'm going to add in 2011 a monthly Hijinks post where I will give advice and tips on gifts and gear for horseplayers and men of certain age with discriminating taste as well as travel stories and fun times at the track. As much as I enjoy the horses, the conversations I've had with strangers at the track are some of my favorite moments.

Anyway, that's about how deep my new year resolutions go towards my horse racing passion, more of the same would sum it up! Let's get after two graded stakes at Santa Anita today.


Santa Anita Race 3 and Race 8



The long travel week left me just wanting to do some handicapping and inner-race betting. These two races seemed like interesting targets. In the Grade 3 Sham Stakes a five horse field will go 1 1/16 miles on the dirt. Tapizar makes his forth start for Steve Asmussen who puts Gomez up today. First start for the son of Tapit, and coming off a layoff since Thanksgiving Day. The colt has been training nicely at Santa Anita with a 6f in 1:12 2/5ths and 4f in :47 1/5 and I will expect him to be a heavy chalk but I'm looking at Clubhouse Ride to give him a tussle. Making his 11th start already, he comes in with three straight show efforts and a blazing 4f in :45 3/5ths this week. 7 of 10 in the money and a 422 Tomlinson at the distance, Valenzeula is up for Trainer Craig Lewis, owner of 9 Grade Stakes starts and no wins. Baffert's wildcard Uncle Sam makes just his second start and I need to see a bit more today before getting to caught up, but Bejarano is up and he has one win on this dirt track already.

In the Grade 2 San Fernando, a scratch by Sidney's Candy while he gets healthy leaves a wide open race. I'm looking at the speed of Tweebster to be a serious challenge for the others. Indian Firewater will run with him, but the colt has 6 places in 13 starts and seems content being close but not winning. A switch to Mike Smith today may prompt a better finish but previous jocks were no slouches either. Thisskyhasnolimits has been very consistent for the past 4 races and will fire off a good effort and I expect he'll find the ticket. Hamish Hy is an interesting entrant, with no dirt or distance efforts but a Grade I turf horse can't be ignored. Trainer Art Sherman has won 3 of 6 turf/dirt switches.

I haven't had time to blog out my post race analysis from last week, but below is the Pick three from Gulfstream and missed by 1 1/4 length when Detirminato edged out Leave of Absence. I was happy to identify the winners of both other races. An OK effort I reckon, but you either win money or you lose money, no moral victories. The pick three paid $320 on a $1 dollar bet, fueled by Detirminato's win, but in the easy mark category, I had The Hal's Hope pegged with what seemed to me a very simple superfecta win. I boxed but still walked away with nearly $135 bucks, offsetting my $30 loss on Pick Three and $10 on a Spectacular Bid exacta bet gone slightly off target.



Have fun, Turk Out!