JC / Railbird

Handicapping Archive

Help Hurricane Survivors — Play the Ponies

Evangeline Downs is donating all of its revenues — including simulcasting proceeds — from Sunday night’s card to Hurricane Katrina relief. Hoping to encourage participation, Alan of Left at the Gate had the great idea of getting racing bloggers to each analyze one of the day’s races. Alan’s done the second, Patrick of Pulling Hair and Betting Horses has the fourth, and Ruben of Your Average Horseplayer takes on the seventh. I’m doing the fifth, an open claiming $4000, six furlong event with a $13,000 purse.
The field of six entered in this race has one standout — Denton County. The horse won his last, a six furlong, claiming $5000 race, by four lengths after running second in a similar race just a couple of weeks before, while earning a 75 Beyer figure for the former and a 73 for the latter. The minor class drop only gives rise to one question — by how many lengths will he win this one?
That Denton County is such a sure thing (or, as sure as any horse can ever be in any race) means that his odds will be low. The morning line puts him at 6-5. I wouldn’t be surprised to see even lower. For a little value, I’d box him with Eastwood’s Song, on the morning line at 6-1. Trained by Bubba Cascio, Eastwood’s Song is making his first start since running in June 24 claiming $10,000 miler where he finished sixth and was never close to the pace. Cascio, who’s 30% with returnees, has used the freshening-class drop combo with some success on Eastwood’s Song in the past. He figures to give Denton Country a little competition here.
Results: More than $60,000 was raised for hurricane relief by Evangeline Downs, with Louisiana horsemen committing their earnings from the night’s card to the cause as well (Thoroughbred Times). Congrats to Alan, who hit the second with Paris Pride and a trifecta that paid $180. I was right about Eastwood’s Song finishing right behind Denton County in the fifth — unfortunately, the two finished third and fourth, not first and second.

Posted in Handicapping on September 3, 2005

NTRA Contest Suffered Glitches

Said NTRA spokesman Eric Wing, explaining to Matt Hegarty that “computer malfunctions caused wrong results to be posted during the day on the site’s leader board, and that the NTRA took the board down in order to fix the problems.” As for allegations of past-posting — “That absolutely did not happen” (Daily Racing Form). So, all is well now and the Claiming Crown Contest was not compromised in any way. This guy isn’t buying that.

Posted in Handicapping on July 20, 2005

NTRA Contest Results …

Are up, after “going through the normal 48-hour audit.” There still seem to be some gremlins in the tabulations. These are the results given on the front page as of Monday evening:

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And these are the results as posted on the leaderboard:

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“Entry 1” actually appears no less than six times in the first 50 on the leaderboard, which suggests it’s not a contestant’s name, but a database field or ID or some such thing, so “Entry 1” could well be the same as “pantelisthegreat.” The frequent appearance of “Entry 1” though suggests a database or software problem, as does the discrepancy between “Roe’s Runners” and “saratogasummer,” a name that doesn’t even appear in the top 50.
This is all very curious …

Posted in Handicapping on July 18, 2005

Hope Remains a Stablemate

The first weekend of December each year, Bob Roberts plays Keeneland’s handicapping contest. This year, he decided to play at Turfway too. How did he do? “I’ve got a shiny green souvenir coffee mug from Keeneland and a $25 betting voucher door prize from Turfway, and that’s it. Actually, that’s not true. I bet and lost $15 of the voucher, then misplaced it, thus forfeiting the $10 balance to the cleaning crew or some eagle-eyed punter who gleefully found what I foolishly left behind.” Too bad, but at least he still has hope: “I’ve got $304.90 left in the kitty of my ‘Post Time’ feature, so hope remains a stablemate.” (Cleveland Plain Dealer)

Posted in Handicapping on December 9, 2004