Derby Afterword

Ugh.

When you bet horses as often as I do, you can often go back after a race and say to yourself, “I should have noticed that,” or even, “You know, I thought about betting that horse!”

There’s a certain usefulness to that sort of exercise — you can learn from your mistakes, or train yourself on what you missed — but that’s also just kind of inherent in the game … you win some, you lose some. You can't win 'em all. And so on.

In the case of the 2014 Kentucky Derby, I learned that I can lose even when I’m right. I was wrong on INTENSE HOLIDAY, of course, but when you read my preview, I almost exactly pegged the finish.

Let’s take a look back at what I said about COMMANDING CURVE:

This is GOLDEN SOUL, the second-place finisher in 2013, all over again … same trainer, same plodding along, picking up the pieces style … he could very well bomb into the exotics like GOLDEN SOUL did and make them pay really nicely, but he’s just not anywhere near special enough. He has one win on his resume — yep, his maiden win. He was third, five lengths back, in the Louisiana Derby. He was bumped at the break and ran wide there, so you could say he's closer to VICAR'S IN TROUBLE and INTENSE HOLIDAY than lengths alone would show, but that was also by far his best speed figure to date. He'd have to take another big jump forward to win here, and I don't see it at all. I actually made the line on this horse 50-1, so if somehow he drifted up (he won't), I might actually consider a win bet despite his being placed in this tier.

OK, not the most ringing endorsement ever, but I went ahead and called him the second-place finisher from 2013 all over again. You have to consider him in any exotics with that thought, right?

Then, the next day, I said this:

17. Commanding Curve, 26-1 -- One guy I respect a lot thinks this one is worth a win bet. I still disagree --  especially at 26-1 -- but again, he's a must-use in exotics.

HE’S A MUST-USE IN EXOTICS!!!

HOW COULD I POSSIBLY WRITE THAT AND THEN NOT USE HIM?!?!?

I even punched in the following trifecta at one point on Saturday:

4/5/16 wt 4/5/9/12/13/14/15/16/17/18/19/20 wt 4/5/9/12/13/14/15/16/17/18/19/20

That would have been a $165 outlay, though, and then I started considering SAMRAAT who I noted had good reports, which would have pushed total cost up to $198 … and then I thought, gosh, a lot can happen, and that’s a lot to lose on one single bet!

So what did I do? I “diversified” and ended up dumping right about that same amount on the variety of other bets that I referenced in the last post.

Of course, the trifecta paid $856 and change, so … there has been a lot of self-loathing going on in the past few days.

I’ve lost more money in the past on various events, but this one just really, really stung. STINGS, actually. Basically a $1,000 swing because I don’t follow my own advice!

My uncle had the tri, I think at least in part due to my thoughts on it, and Peter had the exacta, solely due to my thoughts on it.

The final piece that still gnaws at me is that I made a brief recording of my "stretch call" for the race on Saturday morning. It was a request from Ed, so I obliged … and it wrapped up like this: “Intense Holiday got up for the win, California Chrome ran his heart out but settled for second, Danza rallied for third and a fast-closing Commanding Curve ran fourth.”

It was entirely off the cuff, but I thought, you know, just in case I’m completely right, I’m going to be the superfecta here. So I made a $1 superfecta bet on that exact combination. I wasn't going to box them up in a superfecta because that would have cost $120, but ...

For $12, why didn’t I bother to box those four up in a 50-cent trifecta box? WHY WHY WHY???

The only way I can defend myself against myself is by saying that I bet what I perceived to be the most value with WPS bets and I just turned out be wrong … but I also said I thought the horses in Commanding Curve’s tier were equally as likely to finish in the top four as many of the horses above them, so that’s really a useless defense when I look at the trifectas I actually did bet.

Now I’m all worked up again. This one is going to take me a while to get over.