The 4th race of Wednesday August 14th was a state bred first level allowance race on the turf at a mike and sixteenth. First level allowance state bred races are pretty competitive, with horses that have been racing for several years. There is a solid base of past performance information available.
Leo O'Brien, a trainer, is now surely an octogenarian who doesn't put many horses out on the track. He is famous for training Fourstardave, the Sultan of Saratoga and for having once been a steeplechase rider himself. I remember in my early days at the races seeing his name as a steeplechase rider. Believe it or not, steeplechase races were run at Aqueduct for a while.
My favorite steeplechase race is one I never saw but read about. Anyone who knows anything about these races knows that there are jockeys who specialize in steeplechase riding. Your Angel Corderos and Jerry Baileys did not ride these mounts. The weights carried reflect these larger riders, most of whom are riding at 140 pounds and up.
When a horse carries weight there are lead inserts placed in the saddle to make up the difference between what the rider weighs, and what the racing secretary has assigned in the race's conditions.
Thus, if the steeplechase rider is naturally weighing in at (with tack) at say 142 pounds, and the assigned weight is 155 pounds, then 13 pounds of lead are inserted into pockets in the saddle.
Nowadays a flat race can be declared official before the jockeys weigh out. I'm not sure if steeplechase racing requires a weigh-out before becoming official, but I can imagine it still should be.
One steeplechase race at Aqueduct resulted in weights falling out of the saddle. Thus, when the rider finished winning the race they weren't carrying their assigned weight. Oh-oh. Bad news on the scale. Disqualified.
Leo these days does not win many races. They are few and far between. You can easily see how few and far between these are by immediately spotting the trainer stats in the Daily Racing Form. The stats are two-fold: one set for the current meet; one set for the year. Leo usually doesn't win anywhere near five races a year these days.
When handicapping, Leo's entrant is automatically not considered by most players. His numbers are weak. Richie writes a big X when he sees a Leo O'Brien-trained horse. I usually find myself not considering the entrant, but only after "doing my numbers" and assigning my proprietary analysis figure. (Don't get too excited. It's only slightly good.)
If you take handicapping seriously, you realize that each race is like a different hole in golf. The conditions vary greatly on who is entered. The distances are all over the place; the surface is dirt or turf; the turf course can by inner or outer (always something to consider).
So when the chances for Whiskey Sour were considered, Leo's entrant, it was surprising to see that the analysis gave the horse a competitive number, despite Leo's poor stats, which at the time were showing 6 starts at the meet, with one third; 36 starts on the year, with 2 firsts, for a 6% win ratio. Hardly numbers to make you confident that this 7-year gelding with now 45 starts and one win, is going to do anything.
But you go on recent form, and Whiskey Sour's showed promise. The last race was a 3rd place finish in a similar race, three-quarter lengths behind the winner. The race was within six weeks of today's race, at Saratoga, and represent Leo's third place stat.
Another sign of life was the jockey. Lately. a seven pound bug boy was riding, Benjamin Hernandez. The bug boy status indicates an apprentice, first-year jockey, who receives weight concessions because they are just starting out.
But Wednesday's 4th race was made even more interesting because Leo's horse looked live. There was a jockey change from the apprentice Hernandez to John Velazquez, a thoroughly established award-inning jockey. John Velazquez is also Leo's son-in-law, John having married Leo's daughter Leona quite a while ago.
My note to self was to watch the board. In every race in the pps save the oldest race, the odds were double digits, boxcar odds indicating a real long shot. The odds were as high as 15-1 to 150-1. The oldest listed race, a state bred maiden turf outing at today's distance, on September 15, 2017, saw Jose Ortiz riding at favoritism of a generous 3-1 and winning. And Jose Ortiz is of course right now a national leading jockey. Jockeys count in handicapping.
Jockeys are placed on their mounts by their agents. The agents extract what seems like an unfair 25% of a jockey's purse cut. The agent's job is to talk up the trainers who they think have a live horse in a certain race. The agent's instincts count. The better a jockey does, the more money an agent makes. The race track is full of ways someone takes a cut.
Some trainers will always try and use their favorite jockey, their-go-to guy. But the dealings are with the agent, who arranges the ride. Jockeys are basically short-term, self-employed contractors for trainers.
My note to myself after posting my number for Whiskey Sour was tho watch the board. Will there be action on his chances?
There was. Whiskey Sour was nearly a constant 5-1. I didn't think they were going to win, but I took a win bet flyer on her anyway.
The race was run and the favorite, Gosilently won. Favorites have been doing extremely well at Saratoga this meet. That's only my own feeling from the results. It used to be you could find a percentage of winning favorite number for a meet in the program. No more, for some reason. Historically, the percentage of winning favorites usually sits at 33%. For this meet, it must be higher so far.
The race is run and the favorite wins at 1.45-1.00, paying $4.90 to win.. Whiskey Sour doesn't do badly at all, being guided to a 2nd place finish by the son-in-law, finishing a neck in front of the 3rd place finisher, and only three-quarters of a length behind the winner. Whiskey Sour's final odds drifted up to $8.60-1, combining with the favorite to pay a very nice $2 exacta of $58. Any exacta that high paired with a favorite is a good exacta. I didn't have it.
After the 5th race I sought out Richie at his box. You need to be in the clubhouse to get to the boxes, and Wednesday was going to be our only day in the clubhouse, opting for the grandstand's Fourstardave sports bar setting for the next three days.
I hit the winner of the 5th race, My Bronx Tail that paid $6.70 to win, as the second choice. That's how it's been at the meet. Favorites, and low second choices—almost favorites—winning.
So, finding Richie in his box he was satisfied that he too, had hit with My Bronx Tail. He told me if I had stopped by earlier he could have told me that the information he was getting from his sources was that had a throat procure done that would improve their breathing. Richie told me the name of the procedure, but I forgot it. It sounded like Lulu something, but it didn't matter. The point was there was reliable information that it was expected the horse could easily improve on their second place second place finish, getting beaten by a next-out winner.
My Bronx Tail was in a maiden special weight race and had the look of a career maiden. At 7 starts, they had more than anyone else in the field, but their recent form looked promising against a bunch of first-time starters, or others with few races.
A horse that looks like the winner from the past performances and is going off at a close second choice doesn't seem like the tip is very valuable. But to the point, there can be information regarding recovery from injuries or throat procedures that can be a clear indication they are ready to bust out and win.
One of Rickie's horses years go, Mighty Tuff was gelded after their last start. At the time, being gelded was not public information. The fact that they were a gelding was noted in the program and Form, but unless you knew that prior to the day's race you didn't know they were not a gelding prior to today's race. Their just being gelded was not widely shared information.
The day Mighty Tuff ran, on paper, he looked like something you'd throw out. But he hadn't had many races, was in with no world beaters, and because of knowing Richie it was known that his horse had just been gelded. Gelding is done for several reasons, making a tempermental horse easier to handle and train. And with better response to training, their chances improve. And the day Mighty Tuff did run as a first time gelding he did very well, won at 33-1 and made quite a day for us who backed him.
First time gelding in the last few years has been added to the notation in the program and the Racing Form. It is an angle. Knowledge of throat procedures is not publicly known, however.
It was shared with Richie that I had My Bronx Tail anyway, without any knowledge of their throat procedure.
I mentioned to Richie that I missed the prior race betting Leo O' Brien's horse. You might have thought I had just said 'Niagara Falls' in an Abbot and Costello routine. "How could you play a 7 year-old gelding with 45 starts and one win trained by Leo O'Brien who's got his son-in-law on his back, probably because he feels sorry for Leo. Next time you want to bet an O'Brien horse come to me, I'll take your money at better odds than what's on the board." The anti-O'Brien sentiment was palpable.
I defended myself by saying I only took a flyer on the horse, he wasn't my main bet, and it turns out he was live on the board and live on the turf and combined with the winner for a nice exacta. No matter the result, betting an O'Brien horse was heresy. It was a Bill Gallo cartoon: 'Two guys Talking Sports.'
The conversation drifted onto My Bronx Tail and how Richie had played the horse in his prior race with an exacta with La Chancia. Richie was complaining that Velazquez fell asleep in the stretch and gave up a 2½ length lead to La Chancia and got beat by ½ length. He was still mad at Velazquez. Horseplayers hold grudges longer than countries.
Over time, the notations in the trouble line, the short comments all the way to the right of the past performance line have changed. I have to think that obviously, whoever was doing this when I started out is probably by now no longer with us, or at least not doing it for the Racing Form.
Trouble lines are just that. They make note of a bump, a stumble, a bad start. But they also used to give you a sense of how the horse performed without going to the chart and reading the full description of the race.
You used to see comments like Driving, Tired, No factor, Ridden Out, which pretty much gave you a mental picture of how the horse did and finished up. There used to be a comment that was Gamely,which indicated a horse getting past in the stretch by a superior effort from the winner; thus the horse getting a Gamely notation was given credit for trying their best, but was no match for the winner that sailed past them. Years ago, My Bronx Tail's second place effort would not be described as "Inside, ask near 1/8" but would be "Gamely."
The one new indication the Form has been able to me, miraculously computer program, is the italicizing of the name of a horse indicated in the top three finishers section of the pp line, just to the left of the trouble line, that denotes that the finisher won their next time out. This indicates that there is a possibility that the horse you're interested might have been in a field of some very good company, because there were those in that prior race's field that went on to do even better. It is a helpful piece of information.
My Bronx Tail's pp line showed being beaten by La Chancia, and that through the italization of La Chancia's name, was beaten by horse that went on to win their next race, thus probably losing to someone that's was better than them in that race. Don't feel bad about losing, sort of thing.
As Richie pointed to the results of My Bronx Tail's last race we was telling me played the exacta. I said, "Well you had the exacta right, they finished one-two. You boxed it. right?"
I've heard the response before from other horseplayers, "No, I don't box." (Play the two horses to finish in either order, in effect making two bets.) Now it was my turn to express astonishment. "How can you not box?"
Richie showed me some of the day's tickets, showing a horse keyed on top, with others beneath. The complete opposite of a box. The keyed horse has to win for there to be any chance of cashing the ticket; a straight bet, or picking an exacta cold, despite throwing others under the keyed horse.
"How can you not play a box?" I again asked. "I play to win money." "Well okay, a boxed exacta is a bet against yourself, but keying on top with multiples underneath is also playing against yourself. The whole ticket cannot possibly win." Two guys talking sports.
There are always more than two roads that diverge in the woods. And horseplayrs eventually take all of them.
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Very well written my friend!
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