Saratoga's feature yesterday was the Alabama, the race Johnny M. and I were at last year when the heavens opened up and the people from the picnic area rolled into the Fourstardave seating area with their mobile home coolers and overfed themselves gloriously.
It was also the Saturday that a dead heat was declared in the 9th race, the race before the featured Alabama. After many minutes of review, the placing judges tried to see who might have had a microscopic advantage in the dark. There are no lights at the Saratoga finish lines, and the coming storm turned the day sky into pitch darkness. With no reliable way to declare the winner, the stewards just finally gave up and declared a dead heat.
Saratoga has that lovely span of As, three of them, like Canada and four like Alabama. Every time I see the word Canada I think of the peppermints and wintergreen chalky mints that came in pink and green boxes in the '50s that were so great to eat. They were small hockey pucks, and I'm sure as a kid they were responsible for my cavities.
Before Saturday's card there was of course Friday's card, and while I didn't download the pps for Friday, I did pay attention to the telecast. AMAZINGLY, the 6th race on Friday, a $20,000 straight claimer, saw all eight horses claimed by different outfits.
I don't know if there are stats on such things, but to see all entered horses get claimed has to be a one-off. And there had to be "shakes" when multiple claims were put in for the same horse, with the eventual new owner decided by numbered cubes, or "pills" shaken from a tumbler.
What a boon to New York State sales tax! Unless things have changed, sales tax is collected on horse purchases. With eight horse changing hands from the same race, Governor Cuomo should pay a visit to the grounds and celebrate the windfall. Come on down.
It was way back in the late '60s or early '70s when Buddy Jacobson and his assistant Bobby Frankel lead a horseman's strike at the Aqueduct meet. A horseman's strike? Yes, the collective association of horsemen refused to enter any horses due to a dispute with NYRA. They effectively shut the track down and lead to several days of cancelled racing.
In that era, everyone in New York went on strike, and now even the trainers were walking around with signs. I remember reading that the ripple effect was that with no racing, no horses were being claimed and therefore sales tax was taking a hit. Who knew?
The other notable news from Friday's card was the $615,668 late Pick-5 payoff. The staggering amount of this payoff was driven by a $105.00 horse finishing first in the 9th race, impressively setting a course record for the 13/16 mile turfer, 1:512/5, going the mile split in a rapid 1:333/5.
A Tweet from DRF reporter David Grenning revealed that there was a single ticket that hit that Pick-5, and it belonged to a betting syndicate, Player Management Group (PMG) that wagered $2,940 on numerous permutations. They took the entire pool of $724,354 after NYRA kept its 15%. What their sequence of numbers and how many unique people were in on the wager is not disclosed, but I'm sure an ALL button crawled in there somewhere. And more than once. These heavy hitters are the so-called syndicates in racing.
Player Management Group (PMG) will cater to bettors who wager more than $1 million a year. XpressBet President Ron Luniewski said the players who currently bet with offshore sites and will attract them with lower takeout percentages and […]
These whales are undoubtedly responsible for the noticeable drop in odds after the gates open and there is a clear front runner who has a possibility of winning the race. It's been commented on before, and it happened again on Saturday when in the 4th race Farragut seemed to close at 4-1 odds. I had Farragut, and was rewarded at the wire after a gutsy ride that saw Farragut retake the lead in the stretch under Jose Lezcano and pay $6.90. I guess I paid the "whale surcharge."
When a horse wins and pays $105.00 it's called a "bomb." And oddly enough, there was another bomb closing out Saturday's card when Freedom and Whisky won by a head over the favorite Bricco, a horse I had. The only angle you could hope for in Whisky and Freedom was that the 5-year-old gelding, in a state bred $40,000 maiden claiming race, racing only for the fourth time, was in a new barn, previously trained by Henry Neville, but now under Chad Summers care.The prior three efforts, all at NYRA tracks, and all this year, were double digit beaten lengths that were 52, 14½ and 14½, all in state-bred Maiden Special Weight races. Saturday's race at a claiming level of $40,000 for state-bred maidens is pretty much the bottom of the ability in talent. And for a 5-year-old gelding to be racing for the first time ever in 2020 does not entice a bettor to take a chance. A morning line of 30-1 was not unwarranted.
Chad Summers is a low percentage trainer, and the jockey, Benjamin Hernandez Jr. is someone who was only getting their first win at the meet, and only their ninth win of the year. These journeymen jocks usually earn their living being exercise riders, only very rarely getting a mount in a race.
Freedom and Whisky paid $74.00 at 36-1 odds. Handicapping doesn't give you this horse, But the ALL button does. So of course the late Pick-5 was hit, but "only" for $17,584 for 50¢.
And while calling a long shot a bomb is acceptable language for a big payoff, there is a horse entered in today's Saratoga Oaks named Enola Gay, whose favoritism is headlined in the DRF as "Enola Gay Poised to Drop the Big One in Saratoga Oaks." Or at least was headlined that way until they changed it to just "Enola Gay Poised to Run Big in Saratoga Oaks."
Enola Gay is of course the name the pilot gave his plane that dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. It was his mother's name. There is nothing in the sire or dame's names that would seem to produce the name Enola Gay. The horse is a filly though. The coincidence of running near the 75th anniversary of the bombing is not lost on some who've Tweeted about it.
Saturday's card produced two outstanding performance, the first was Calibrate's win in the 6th race, a Maiden Special Weight race that he won with ease in his first start, paying a very generous $6.00 for a horse that was probably touted all over the place as the next coming.
The Steve Asmussen entry for Winchell Thoroughbreds was impressive in just pulling away from the field in the stretch after being heavily challenged as the front runner. Ricardo Santana Jr. just aimed the Distorted Humor/ Glamour and Style, Dynaformer mare at the finish line and prevailed easily, (kicked away smartly) winning by 4½ lengths.
The trainer Tom Amoss, who doubles on the telecasts as an analyst, was in the paddock for his own entrant, Unitedandresolute, and commented on the air that he was going to ask to see Calibrate's driver's license, because he was a well-turned out 2-year-old who had all the appearance of a more developed 3-year-old. The horses in that 6th Race may go on to much better things. A key race.
Then there was the feature, the Alabama, a premier race for 3-year-old fillies at the classic 10 furlong distance of 1¼ miles. This was a "win-and-you're-in" the Breeders Cup race, that Swiss Skydiver was heavily expected to win.
And win she did, with ease, basically embarrassing the rest of the field with a 3½ length victory that was a canter in from the 16th pole home. The $4.30 payoff was a gift for a horse that spent most of the time on the board at 3/5.
Swiss Skydiver is more traveled than a vaudeville trunk, having raced at now seven different tracks in her seven 2020 starts. She'll be favored in the Kentucky Oaks, the day before the Derby in September, and, if hype turns way up, may even go in the Derby against the colts, something she's already done on the Blue Grass, finishing second to Art Collector, a likely Derby co-favorite. Wait and see.
But even a losing, virtual day at the races is better than no day at the races.
http://www.onofframp.blogpsot.com
No comments:
Post a Comment