Pre-numbers Breeders' Cup Thoughts

One thing I learned my lesson on after last year's Breeders' Cup -- seriously, I swear I learned my lesson this time -- is that you don't have to hunt for a price in the Breeders' Cup. If you think you have the winner pegged, go with it, and you're likely to get plenty of price for your trouble. I passed on betting TRINNIBERG and MIZDIRECTION because I thought they were underlays at the price they were bet down to. Well, those two winning would have paid for the rest of my missteps, so I'm keeping that as my No. 1 rule for myself this year: Don't try to get too cute.

I have some knee-jerk thoughts to each race that I'll share here before I delve more fully into my handicapping process later this week:

Marathon: Based mostly on pedigree, I think OLD TIME HOCKEY deserves a shot here at what's likely to be a price. He has only run once on dirt, but he should love the extra distance and should really be just as good on dirt as he has been on turf ... which isn't great, but he doesn't need to be great. WORLDLY would be my second choice, but I just think OLD TIME HOCKEY will like the distance more. POOL PLAY is pseudo-interesting as the clear class of the field, but he hasn't won in more than a year.

Juvenile Turf: Too indiscernible/too many Euros to comment on without a further look. I will say, however, that BON ACCORD looks interesting at what is likely to be a price.

Dirt Mile: GOLDENCENTS seems to be the "wise guy" pick and I think there's a good chance he goes off as favored, but I just feel like this race is tailor made for VERRAZANO. He has been nothing short of brilliant in the majority of his races, and his only two losses have come at 1.25 miles. PANTS ON FIRE could not be coming in looking any better. I could make an argument for a lot of horses in here, so I plan on just keeping it simple and rolling with VERRAZANO. I do think, however, that this race may stack up extremely well for HYMN BOOK. He's the only true closer in this race and it may set up very well for him.

Juvenile Fillies Turf: I need to look at this one, too, but I will say for sure that I am looking to play against MY CONQUESTADORY. She was somehow hailed as a potential great after her last and I just didn't see it at all. It looked OK but was absolutely not jaw-dropping by any means.

Distaff: Well, it's pretty impossible to make a case for STREET GIRL, and AUTHENTICITY has been beaten fairly convincingly by ROYAL DELTA and BEHOLDER in her last two, but I find the other four fairly inseparable. BEHOLDER would be my fourth choice because *most* of her wins have been after establishing relatively easy leads, and I don't think ROYAL DELTA will let her get that. PRINCESS OF SYLMAR would be my third choice -- yes, she has beaten both ROYAL DELTA and BEHOLDER, but BEHOLDER had to run very fast early in the Oaks and still almost held on (this was her best race in my opinion), and ROYAL DELTA was well below her established best in their last-out for whatever reason. ROYAL DELTA is my second choice because we don't really know why she ran so poorly last-out. The odds are that she wasn't cranked fully and will bounce back in a big way, but it's a question mark. My pick, at this moment, is CLOSE HATCHES. She beat PRINCESS OF SYLMAR in the Gazelle before stepping up in class and failing in the Oaks, beaten 10 lengths. She had a rough trip in the Acorn before bouncing back to trounce a tough field in the Mother Goose, took a break, and came back with a nice effort in winning the Cotillion. My general concern would be that she's not at her best at 1 1/8 miles, but she took the Gazelle wire to wire at the distance, so as the fourth or even fifth choice here, I like her to move forward in the second race off the layoff for Bill Mott.

Saturday:

Juvenile Fillies: I need to look more closely, but SECRET COMPASS and UNTAPABLE seem like horses who can win from slightly off the pace, so they're my knee-jerk picks.

Filly & Mare Turf: DANK looked awesome in winning the Beverly D, but I think this will be a slow-paced race that won't set up as well for her. The stars might just be aligned for LAUGHING as she could walk on the lead once more and win this thing, but ALTERITE, ROMANTICA and TIZ FLIRTATIOUS all seem dangerous to me. TIZ FLIRTATIOUS was particularly impressive mowing down horses in her last despite a slowly paced race. I am not a MARKETING MIX believer at this point -- she had no excuse for not holding off TIZ FLIRTATIOUS in the last and just got overwhelmed.

Filly & Mare Sprint: For a sprint race, there's a surprising lack of speed. And I didn't really realize how underwhelming this race is overall. I actually think I have to go back to GROUPIE DOLL getting back on dirt at a sprint distance -- she hasn't run something fitting that description since her tour de force last fall in the Breeders' Cup, and I think she'll be close enough to take advantage of a slow-ish pace. SWEET LULU seems like the other big threat to me -- I don't think TEDDY'S PROMISE has the class here.

Turf Sprint: I need to look at this more closely, but I feel like the maxim that horses who have run well on the Santa Anita course do well again is so well-known that there HAS to be value in going against that. I'd rather play UNBRIDLED'S NOTE than MIZDIRECTION despite her 6-for-6 record, but I kind of like CAPO BASTONE ... I don't think Pletcher would bother running him here as his first time on turf if he didn't have a pretty good feeling about it.

Juvenile: BOND HOLDER, CLEBURNE and TAP IT RICH are the knee-jerk reactions because they will be COOKING up front. The rest of these horses (with the exception of WE MISS ARTIE, who I think should be in the juvenile turf to have a shot) haven't won without the lead at the second call, so to ask them to do it today seems insane to me.

Turf: This is a fantastic race. That's my first thought. THE FUGUE and POINT OF ENTRY are obviously the favorites, but LITTLE MIKE again appears to have a tactical speed advantage. I also think INDY POINT has plenty more to show us, and MAGICIAN is intriguing as a 3-year-old import. I literally have no idea on this one at this point.

Sprint: It sucks that POINTSOFFTHEBENCH had to be euthanized last weekend -- I thought he was a very deserving favorite. As it is, this group is just going to murder each other on the front end. BAHAMIAN SQUALL seems potentially OK. JUSTIN PHILLIP is the obvious off-the-pace choice, but he's more of an exotics player to me -- he always seems to just not quite get there. Someone closer up always seems to run a bit bigger. SECRET CIRCLE is intriguing, but you have to wonder if that first effort back off the layoff just two weeks ago took too much out of him. A bullet work last week would indicate not, but I don't know. I don't think TRINNIBERG is a smart play this year.

Mile: The Euros don't impress me much here. SILVER MAX ran huge last-out to beat WISE DAN, but he'll have to contend with OBVIOUSLY on the front end, and frankly, he just hasn't been a great turf miler. WISE DAN will be heavily favored, but deservedly so.

Classic: I have extensive thoughts on basically every horse here, but I'll save that for the full preview. As for now, I think GAME ON DUDE is a very deserving favorite, but FORT LARNED's presence inside of him means he'll want the lead and that's scary. GAME ON DUDE has been more consistent, but FORT LARNED has been more brilliantly fast, and who knows what happens with those two if they hook up ... and, hey, MORENO is in there as well. Scary stuff on the front end. And the way PAYNTER was worked yesterday made me also wonder what his strategy will be (he was sent in front of a workmate ... kind of bizarre in my eyes, actually). I have two initial thoughts: MUCHO MACHO MAN and DECLARATION OF WAR. I've been a MUCHO MACHO MAN detractor ever since the 2011 Triple Crown, but I finally bet on him in his last race and he delivered his first Grade 1 win. He was so close last year and I don't think he could be doing much better right now as far as I can tell. I think DECLARATION OF WAR is extremely dangerous. He's an American bred horse and while I do think he's likely better on turf, he should love the distance and he has won 3-of-3 starts on all-weather surfaces. I don't want to violate my own "just pick the winner" rule, but I can't overlook him in any exotics for sure.

Initial 2013 Breeders' Cup Thoughts

​I'm a little bit ... disconcerted, I think is the best word ... with this year's Breeders' Cup.

Friday just looks kind of generally boring. People were clamoring for the Juvenile Sprint to go away after last year's five-horse race, and alas, it is now gone, but I kind of liked that race -- most juveniles at least have more substantial sprint form to look at. Most of those in the remai​​ning juvenile races -- the juvenile and the juvenile turf, and the juvenile fillies and the juvenile fillies turf -- have no form at the distance or on the surface, and it's a complete guessing game. So the Juvenile Turf and the Juvenile Fillies Turf are generally just boring to me. Yeah, I'll bet them and try to handicap them, but they'll be small bets, and the way they're split up on the card means I likely won't make any horizontal wagers on Friday ... which is annoying, because obviously I would like to take a shot.

The Marathon is the Marathon, so ... meh. It's too bad CALIDOSCOPIO isn't running again -- if he were, it would have a lot of appeal. As it is ... meh. So that makes three of the five BC races on Friday barely more appealing than a Sunday night race at Mountaineer, for example. Not good, Breeders' Cup.

Fortunately, I like the Dirt Mile a lot more than most people seem to, and I'm looking forward to seeing VERRAZANO and GOLDENCENTS run against some elders. And the Distaff looks fantastic once again -- I'm glad that the connections of PRINCESS OF SYLMAR to run her. The fact that Mike Watchmaker thinks it's a questionable decision because it might cost her an Eclipse Award is incredibly dumb -- pretty sure that an award that's voted on should be a very low concern for the owners. If they were going to skip it due to wanting her back in top form next year, or because her style might not suit Santa Anita, that would be one thing. But trying to hold on to an Eclipse Award by not running in the biggest race of the year for her? Ridiculous.

Anyway, those two races notwithstanding, I'm just not that excited about Friday as I have been in the past. I'd have to look back, but I thought they typically put one other "big" race on Friday -- for a while, I think it was "Ladies" day, and I thought that concept worked. Oh well.​

That said, the lack of excitement is made up for on Saturday. Every race on Saturday appears AWESOME. I'm not all that pumped up about the Juvenile Fillies, but there are some potentially great horses in there, so what the heck!

I do, however, have a rant about horse racing in general to get out of the way:

I'm not a huge fan of how late they're running these races. 7:30 Central is fine for me personally, but if you're trying to attract more fans to the sport, 8:30 on the East Coast on a Saturday night is unequivocally not where you want to be. Horse racing struggles due to a lot of things, but primarily I think it fails to cater to new potential fans. Just look at the races on any given day -- they're primarily run DURING THE WORK DAY. This is stupid. I know the horsemen and what not are you up at 5 a.m. with the horses and probably hate night racing for the most part, but when you're putting your best product out there at times nobody but retired folks and those who don't work at all because they're either just that rich or just that poor can see it, you're not going to gain new fans. People are constantly talking about how racing needs to embrace younger fans, and while running at night wouldn't suddenly make horse racing as popular as football, if you get a few good tracks to run night cards regularly, I think people in the industry would be surprised at how a simple change like that would get people interested again. Granted, some tracks don't have lights nor have the funds to install them, but I don't see why tracks that do have lights wouldn't run ALL night cards? The Downs After Dark thing has been immensely popular because, gosh, people aren't working and can get to the track! WHAT A NOVEL CONCEPT. Nobody's going to Churchill on a Wednesday afternoon, anyway, right? So why not run all nights for an entire meet and see what happens?

Anyway, all of that said, a Saturday night is probably *the worst* night to run on because it's the opposite of how the work week operates -- people are usually out and about on a Saturday night. People are looking for in-home entertainment during the week, but the industry chooses to run its biggest event on a Saturday, when they have to take on college football and people going out on the town. Other major sports have the sense to play their biggest games on these "at-home" nights -- the NCAA plays all of its championships on Monday night, the Super Bowl is on Sunday night, the NBA Finals would skip a Saturday for a Sunday night, etc. 

One final thought on this: A lot of the purists are excited about the switch back to "Distaff" from "Ladies' Classic." And, OK, if you like tradition you like "Distaff." There's just one problem -- NO LAYMAN KNOWS WHAT THE HELL DISTAFF MEANS. Again, this is just remarkably poor marketing for what you would hope is your second biggest event.

Anyway, back to the task at hand. Here are some other interesting bets that I may take part in this coming weekend:

* The first five races each day are part of a 50-cent Pick 5. I don't see doing this on Friday with a couple allowance races sprinkled in there, but the Saturday sequence is interesting with two stakes, a Grade 3 and then the Juvenile Fillies and the F&M Turf. It would become REALLY sexy if it carries over from Friday because it's a mandatory payout on Saturday. I'll only cap those three races and get involved on Saturday if it does indeed carry over.

* There are rolling 50-cent Pick 3s each day, as well as a late Pick 4 guarantee of $1.5 million on Friday and two Pick 4's on Saturday -- $1 million guarantee in races 4-7 and $3 million guarantee on races 8-11. There's a good chance that I'll play both of the Saturday Pick 4's and skip the Friday guy due to my concerns about the racing quality above.

* There's a 50-cent Super Hi 5 bet on both the Juvenile Fillies Turf and the Classic. I won't be the Juvenile Fillies Turf Hi 5 as that is just completely indiscernible, but the best part is that it will carry to the Classic if it's not hit and is a mandatory payout. So that's another carryover-dependent bet I'll keep my eyes on.

* There's a $2 Double from the Distaff to the Classic that I'll probably play at least lightly for fun.

* 10-cent superfectas are nice, and I'll likely play a few of those. (Another brief rant: Racing executives are OBSESSED with handle and some folks think that people will either bet or not bet -- they'll either play for $2 if that's the minimum, or they'll play for 10 cents if that's the minimum. So between that and a vague notion of "depressed payouts" if you lower the minimum (newsflash: if you want to make more, bet more), many are very much against these cheaper bets. But I think that is another example of cutting off the industry's proverbial nose to spite its own face. If you get someone new at the track, the name of the game is betting. If they have to play a $2 superfecta box with four horses, that's $48. They're just not going to bet. With a 10-cent super box, they can play five horses for $12. That's more appealing by a longshot. The mistake I think these executives make is that they think "hitting it big" is everyone's goal at the track, so they want to see BIG PRICES, which obviously can simply be a result of higher minimum bets. The reality is that people just want to have a good time and not lose in the process. Risk aversion is a much more powerful motivator than getting rich for the majority of casual fans that go to the track, and yet there are plenty of forces that still argue against commonsense cheaper bets like this one.)

* I don't foresee playing the Pick 6 since it could carry into Sunday and is a $2 bet, anyway. Those $2 Pick 6's get expensive in a hurry.

On any given race that I play, my typical wager amount is $14 -- two $4 win bets and a $6 exacta box. On a per race basis, I don't see myself going too far beyond that -- maybe $20-$30 per race.

For reference, here are the full Friday and Saturday cards with all post times listed in West Coast time. I'll have plenty more to come on the races themselves as the week rolls on:

Friday, November 1

1. Allowance 10:40 am

WPS EX TRI SUPER PICK 3 DD Pick 5

2. 300 North Capital Allowance 11:15 am

WPS EX TRI SUPER PICK 3 DD

3. Golden State Juvenile Fillies Stakes 11:50 pm

WPS EX TRI SUPER PICK 3 DD Pick 4

4. Golden State Juvenile 12:27 pm

WPS EX TRI SUPER PICK 3 DD

5. Twilight Derby (gr. II) 1:02 pm

WPS EX TRI SUPER PICK 3 DD Pick 6

6. $500,000 Breeders’ Cup Marathon (gr. II) 1:45 pm

WPS EX TRI SUPER PICK 3 DD

7. $1 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf (gr. I) 2:25 pm

WPS EX TRI SUPER PICK 3 DD Pick 4

8. $1 million Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile (gr. I) 3:05 pm

WPS EX TRI SUPER PICK 3 DD

9. $1 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf (gr. I) 3:50 pm

WPS EX TRI SUPER PICK 3 DD Super Hi 5

10. $2 million Breeders’ Cup Distaff (gr. I) 4:35 pm

WPS EX TRI SUPER Special DD

11. $150,00 President of the United Arab Emirates Cup (gr. 1) 5:10 pm

WPS EX TRI SUPER

Saturday, November 2

1. Juvenile Turf Sprint 10:15 am

WPS EX TRI SUPER PICK 3 DD PICK 5

2. Damascus Stakes 10:50 am

WPS EX TRI SUPER PICK 3 DD

3. Ken Maddy Stakes (gr. III) 11:25 am

WPS EX TRI SUPER PICK 3 DD

Opening Ceremonies

4. $2 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies (gr. I) 12:05 pm

WPS EX TRI SUPER PICK 3 DD PICK 4

5. $1 million Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Turf (gr. I) 12:43 pm

WPS EX TRI SUPER PICK 3 DD

6. $1 Million Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Sprint (gr. I) 1:21 pm

WPS EX TRI SUPER PICK 3 DD

7. $1 million Geico Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint (gr. I) 2:05 pm

WPS EX TRI SUPER PICK 3 DD PICK 6

8. $1 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile (gr. I) 2:43 pm

WPS EX TRI SUPER PICK 3 DD

9. $3 million Breeders’ Cup Turf (gr. I) 3:22 pm

WPS EX TRI SUPER PICK 3 DD PICK 4

10. $1.5 million Xpressbet Breeders’ Cup Sprint (gr. I) 4:01 pm

WPS EX TRI SUPER PICK 3 DD

11. $2 million Breeders’ Cup Mile (gr. I) 4:40 pm

WPS EX TRI SUPER DD

12. $5 million Breeders’ Cup Classic (gr. I) 5:35 pm

WPS EX TRI SUPER Sup Hi 5