Press the Pace

A Situation of the Apocalypse

2010-10-12T10:52:00.000-07:00

I'm having difficulty even typing out this post due to a combination of non-stop laughter and utter shock at the degradation of our society.

(Deep breaths. In. Out. In. Out.)

My friends, there is a "situation" taking place at Amazon.com. What kind of "situation", you might ask? This "situation".

I'm not sure what I find more fascinating about this "situation". Is it that a reality-TV star has "written" his own book? That can't be it because this isn't the first and it certainly won't be the last.

Is is that "The Situation" himself has "written" his own book? Nah, it's hard not to see this coming a mile away.

Perhaps it's the fact that "The Situation's" book is, and I'm going to quote this in order to get it right, "[a] guide to Creeping on Chicks, Avoiding Grenades, and Getting in Your GTL on the Jersey Shore". (Good thing I copied that word-for-word cause I'm not sure I could have brought myself to actually type such a ridiculous sentence.)

*Some of you may be wondering what the hell GTL means (and if you don't watch Jersey Shore, you would have no reason to ever know). GTL, as defined by the Urban Dictionary, stands for "Gym, Tan, Laundry". So "The Situation" has "written" a guide instructing people how to workout, sit in a tanning both and to make clothes oh-so soft and fluffy. I wonder, do the laundry instructions include a discussion about ironing cause that's a skill that's worth it's weight in gold!

As much as the fact that "The Situation" has "written" a book...sorry, GUIDE...as much as the mere existence of the book itself is fascinating it really isn't that shocking. Of course, that fact that it isn't shocking is, in and of itself, really sad. No, the really fascinating part is that people will buy this book. How many, I can't be sure. But I'd wager every dime I have that the sales numbers will be in at least the hundreds, probably the thousands. No, it won't be a bestseller, but somebody (many somebodies) will actually plop $10.12 on Amazon to get "The Situation's" book...guide...whatever.

I have to give this guy some major credit for marketing himself like few reality TV stars have ever done. I don't know whether this whole thing is an act or what, but the deadpan way in which he plays this character is beyond anything we've seen in the genre in a long, long time. Think about some of the more curious realty characters we've had over the past couple of decades. There was Puck from The Real World: San Francisco, who I like to think of as the original realty TV freak. He's really the first one that tried to make the whole show about him.

After Puck, word got out that getting on TV and acting like an ass would win you two tickets to paradise. That led to a whole plethora of reality freaks, such as New York on Flavor of Love (and then Flavor of Love 2, I Love New York, I Love New York 2, New York Goes to Work, New York Reads a Book, and the final, and surprisingly unsuccessful, New York Sits on Her Couch and Watches Re-Runs of I Love New York).

We also got The Hills super-couple of Heidi and Spencer. Heidi's claim to fame and stardom was that she was A) on TV (the only required element in all of this), and that B) she loves plastic surgery. Spencer's claim to fame is that he's crazy (not required for "freak" status, but it certainly helps).

Those "stars", and all the others that space, time and sanity prevent me from listing, helped to take "celebrity" status to the heights we see today. "The Situation", however, has apparently re-invented the rules. He threw out the playbook and started over with a concept and a delivery that will be imitated for decades to come. I only wish it was still the 80s cause then we'd have the pleasure of seeing "The Situation" hawking a VHS workout tape.

It would be nice if ESPN had an ounce of class.

2010-09-17T13:46:00.000-07:00

Check out the following link to ESPN (The Greatest Thunder Team of All-Time).

Last time I checked, Shawn Kemp never played for the Thunder. Nor did Gary Payton. Or Slick Watts. Or Jack Sikma. Or Lenny Wilkens...wow, that takes some balls. ESPN actually included Lenny Wilkens as a choice as all-time greatest Thunder? You know Lenny Wilkens, the head coach of the 1979 NBA Champion Seattle SuperSonics and one of the most respected men in the Seattle community. Unbelievable.

I wonder how all of those great SEATTLE SUPERSONICS feel about ESPN identifying them as part of the Thunder's history?

Regardless of what a piece of paper might say, the history of the Seattle SuperSonics belongs to Seattle, not Oklahoma City.

Nike: Destroying sports one fabric at a time

2010-09-02T12:01:00.000-07:00

The Portland hype machine released their 2010 college football Pro Combat uniforms the other day to much fanfare and critical acclaim...or something like that. Stroll on over to ESPN.com's Uni Watch to check out the images (link: Uni Watch: Nike Uniform Updates)

Since Nike firmly lives by the mottos that any publicity is good publicity and that it's better that people are talking bad about you than not talking about you at all, I offer my take on these uniforms:

Alabama's uniforms are the only ones that don't make you want to immediately reach for the vomit bag. Of course, Nike didn't have a lot of leeway with the Crimson Tide...I mean, can you image the caravan to Portland of outraged Bama fans if Nike conjured up something as grotesque at Boise State's uniforms for their beloved team? No chance in hell Nike tries to stir that pot. I'll give Nike this, they know which schools will put up with uniforms that look like they were designed for use in a circus and which won't. Alabama won't.
When I was 10 years old my best friend and I used to play old school video football games and we'd create several teams that each one of us controlled. For each team we'd design helmets, colors, logos, and uniforms, the whole nine yards. The designs we came up with when we were ten were better than the Boise State monstrosity. Just wearing that helmet onto the field should be grounds for an immediate 15-yard personal foul penalty.
Florida's uniforms, like Alabama, are fairly ho-hum by Nike standards. They take their football seriously down in SEC country and no uni-freaks from Oregon are going to come in and make them look like the laughing stock of college football.
The technical name for the color of Miami's uniforms is "Prison Suit Orange". Too easy?
Ohio State...good lord, I thought you guys had a little more respect for yourselves. A traditional power like the Buckeyes doesn't deserve anything so grotesque.
As everybody knows, Nike is the baby of Oregon alum and sugar-daddy Phil Knight. When you look at the designs for Oregon State, the hated in-state rival of the Ducks, don't you think this is one big joke on the Beavers?

If you go to a store like Toys 'R Us you can buy full football uniforms for little kids - they come with the whole sha-bang: helmet, jersey, pants, socks...you name it, the kid can have it all. The sets almost always look incredibly cheesy and toy-like, especially the plastic helmet. When I looked at the Oregon State uniforms I immediately thought of those kid sets. It must be the ultra-wide stripes all over the place.
Pittsburgh. See Oregon State without the Nike desire to make Oregon's rival look foolish. That's actually a bit more pathetic since it looks like Nike sought to make the Panthers look bad just for the fun of it. At least with Oregon State you can understand the motivation but why punish poor Pittsburgh?
It looks like more conference shake-ups are coming because TCU's uniforms make it clear as day that the university is going to attempt to leave their conference and join the Arena Football League.
Nike apparently designed two sets of uniforms for Oregon State and after they decided on which set to go with they realized they hadn't designed a thing for Virginia Tech. Scrambling for a solution, they slapped a couple of "VT" logos on the reject OSU uniform and sent it to Tech.
Mountaineer fans have got to be shouting from the rooftops with their designs as they are clearly not the worst of the bunch.

There is something about English football

2010-08-07T22:27:00.000-07:00

Big Brother 12: Brigade getting ass kicked by Vegas cocktail waitress

2010-07-30T17:27:00.000-07:00

A quick take on this week's action:

-It's amazing how a four-vote alliance (actually, five, if you count Kristen), like The Brigade, is getting destroyed by a Las Vegas cocktail waitress.

So far, through four weeks of Big Brother 12 insanity, Rachel has won two of the four HoH competitions (with The Brigade winning the other two); the two HoH's that she didn't win have seen Brendon win the Power of Veto.

-Hayden put it best in a recent episode: Matt, you're supposed to be the brains of the operation. Don't call yourself a "diabolical genius" when you can't even do a simple thing like nominate Brendan and Rachel when you win HoH.

Week three, when Matt lost his mind and didn't nominate Brendon and Rachel for eviction, might be the week that sealed The Brigade's fate.

-Andrew may be the worst Big Brother player of all-time...the absolute worst. Now, we've seen some bad players in the past twelve seasons, but this guy was simply brutal. From his freakout when Rachel won HoH, to his 'I'm coming after you Brendon and Rachel, now save me from the chopping block' plea during the Power of Veto meeting, to the classic melt-down speech this last Thursday...I don't know that I've ever seen a player single-handedly cause his own eviction the way that Andrew did. Well done, Andrew. You went from a nobody in the house to evicted in the third week.

I gotta question for everybody: how in the hell did Andrew even make it through the screening process? Did CBS come up with a requirement that one of the house-mates had to be a complete lunatic this season?

-I'll be shocked if Rachel doesn't nominate Kristen and Hayden for eviction this week. If that happens, The Brigade needs to finally win a Power of Veto. Given their performance so far, that seems unlikely. Remember, they have a solid voting block; if they would just get their heads out of their asses and start thinking they could be dominating right now. Of course, the operative words in that last sentence are "start thinking".

Big Brother 12: The idiots are running the asylum

2010-07-28T14:26:00.000-07:00

The new season of Big Brother (and the 12th overall) began a few weeks ago, much to my ignorance. For whatever reason I seem to always miss the start of a new season, perhaps it's due to it being summer and I'm just not thinking about new TV. Anyway, I recorded the first few episodes on the DVR and finally got through all of them last night in an excruciating multiple-hour viewing session. I say excruciating because, for some reason, this season appears to have a higher than normal amount of idiots.

Let's cut to the chase and talk about the main elements of season 12. First up, the four-pack guy alliance, "The Brigade".

In order for an alliance to be effective the people within it have to be either a) smart, or b) really good at winning competitions. That's the basic premise of a good Big Brother alliance: people who can win competitions and implement excellent strategy. An alliance of a bunch of morons is not an alliance, it's a self-help group. An alliance with a bunch of diabolical geniuses is a force to be reckoned with. Chill Town was an alliance (and the best alliance in Big Brother history). Evil Dr. Will couldn't win a competition if he tried but he was a brilliant and manipulative strategist. Mike Boogie wasn't as diabolical and brilliant as Dr. Will, but he could win a competition when he needed to. Chill Town was featured in two seasons of Big Brother and they won both.

Okay, so now that we know what a kick ass alliance is, let's talk about The Brigade.

The Brigade is the alliance formed by Hayden, Matt, Enzo, and Lane. Let's first focus on what The Brigade has done well in the first three weeks. So far, the Brigade seems like they are going to be decent at winning competitions, after all, they've won two of the first three Head of Household's. What they seem to be lacking, however, is a clear, well-organized strategy that will get them to the end.

The strongest current players in the house are Brenden and Rachel...well, Brenden's the strongest and Rachel is essentially tagging along...and the longer they are allowed to remain, the greater the chance that they are going to take down The Brigade and take control of the entire game. As such, Matt should have put those two up for nominations this week and ensured that one of them was going home. If one were to have gone on and won the power of Veto, then all he had to do was nominate someone that the house would likely not vote out this week (like Brittney) and watched as either Brenden or Rachel went down. Instead, Matt is trying to outsmart Brenden, which is a move that has a low chance of success.

By not putting Braden or Rachel on the chopping block this week, Matt is apparently trying to buy their loyalty for the future. The problem with that is he (and The Brigade) don't need their loyalty; they can take them out all on their own. When they need is control, and the way to get control is to eliminate the strongest competition.

The advantage that The Brigade has right now is their four-vote block...well, five if you count Kristen, Hayden's Showmance, who is the de-facto fifth member of The Brigade. They have to keep their block together and the way to do that is to get rid of the players that post the greatest threat to them. Andrew and Kathy do not pose the greatest threat. Brenden and Rachel do.

Dr. Will would have put Brenden and Rachel on the block in the blink of an eye. Actually, he wouldn't have put them up because he never won a HoH competition, but he would have manipulated someone else into doing it for him. He was the master puppeteer with a plan that was even more masterful. The Brigade, however, is willing to let their biggest threat off the hook.

After this week it's likely that Andrew or Kathy goes home (my guess is Andrew), neither of which poses any serious threat to The Brigade. After that, they better hope that Hayden, Lane, or Enzo can win HoH, or else Brenden and Rachel could start to hammer away at their block. Matt, in particular, better start watching his back because there are pleanty of house members who are starting to see through his B.S.. The Brigade has the numbers, but if they can't be smart enough to come up with a better strategy than nominating Andrew and Kathy when Brenden and Rachel are sitting ducks...well, they won't get near Chill Town.

Great Performances of Anthony Kiedis

2010-07-26T16:16:00.000-07:00

Caught an airing of Point Break this afternoon; I tuned in right when Special Agent Johnny Utah was getting roughed up by a bunch of outlaw surfers until Bodhi (P-Swayze) jumps in to save him.

The above fight scene from Point Break brought a question to my mind: what is the best movie that Anthony Kiedis (aka, the lead singer from The Red Hot Chili Peppers), has appeared in? (Kiedis was one of the renegade surfers pounding on Agent Utah.) Here are your options:

Point Break - Kiedis plays Tone, a renegade surfer that fails to appreciate the spiritual side of the ocean...at least that's what Bodhi tells us.
The Chase - Keidis plays Dale, driver of the monster truck who, along with his side-kick Will (played by Chili Peppers base player, Flea), attempts to run Charlie Sheen and Kristi Swanson off the road.

Keidis' role in The Chase was much more comedic-based, while he put his dramatic hat on in order to play Tone in Point Break.

Random Point Break fun fact: Did you know that Point Break was originally going to star Matthew Broderick and Charlie Sheen? According to the DVD liner notes, that is in fact what was supposed to happen.

Somehow I can't picture Charlie Sheen pulling off Bodhi...or Matthew Broderick as Johnny Utah.

Want more great Point Break useless information? How about the track listing from the official soundtrack?

Ratt – Nobody Rides For Free
Concrete Blonde – I Want You
Jimi Hendrix – If 6 Was 9
School of Fish – Rose Colored Glasses
Public Image Ltd. – Criminal
Shark Island – My City
Love – 7 and 7 Is
Loudhouse – Smoke on the Water
Westworld – So Long Cowboy
Little Caesar – Down to the Wire
L.A. Guns – Over the Edge
Liquid Jesus – 7 and 7 Is
Wire Train – I Will Not Fall
Ice-T – Original Gangster
Mark Isham – Foot Chase

Any soundtrack that can combine Ratt, Jimi Hendrix and Ice-T deserves some props.

Lindsay Lohan: Legal Eagle

2010-07-14T19:53:00.000-07:00

From the Wall Street Journal Law Blog:

Lindsay Lohan's Twitter: Your Source of Legal Scholarship

Two Tickets to Taradise

2010-07-13T17:25:00.000-07:00

I made a glarring, inexcuseable error in my Bottom Five All-Time Reality TV Show list the other day, as for some reason I failed to include the short-lived E! program Taradise (or as some might remember it: Wild on Tara!).

For those that don't have a clue as to what Taradise was (and, truthfully, if you blinked you could easily have missed it), here's a brief synopsis of this ground-breaking program:

Tara Reid gets drunk in Europe.

There's a key problem with trying to write about Taradise that centers around the fact that it's a good bet that no one will ever see an episode of this show again. Ever. E! doesn't show re-runs of it and, amazingly, you'll find next to nothing on the internet. (This pathetic clip from YouTube is all I could gather.) For the 99.9999% of our society that never got the chance to watch Taradise, they have only us us unlucky few to rely on to for insight into this awful, awful show.

If you're wondering what a typical episode of Taradise episode entailed, you're in luck because I'm about to tell you:

Tara would go to some European country. She'd spend a minute or two of air time shopping and/or getting her photo taken. She'd then take us on an exclusive tour of the place she was visiting ("That's the Eiffel Tower over there. It's really tall."). While pointing out sights she would also point out trendy bars and/or clubs that she would be visiting later on to get plastered. Later on in the show, we get to see Tara at said trendy bar and/or club getting plastered. The next day, Tara would describe to the E! cameras how much fun she had at said bar and/or club getting plastered.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

If you click over to TV Guide's webpage you'll notice that there are no scheduled airings of Taradise within the next 14 days. That seems a little unfair, doesn't it? Seinfeld, King of Queens, and The Office are on for what seems to be hours on end each and every week but we can't get one episode of Taradise? Unforgivable.

So here's to Taradise, easily one of the Top 5 Worst Reality TV shows of all-time. In fact, I'd venture to say that on my personal list the only thing that could out do Taradise was Bonds on Bonds. The fact that I'd ranked Taradise three spots higher than Growing Up Gotti tells you how bad Taradise truly was. The fact that I'd still rank Bonds on Bonds higher than Taradise tells you that no matter how bad a reality show might be, there is always a TV executive somewhere that can come up with one that's worse.

In case you missed it, here's a list of every single episode of Taradise:

1. Greek Isles
2. Mykonos
3. Cyprux
4. Pamplona
5. Monaco
6. Athens
7. Mykonos &; Athens
8. St. Tropez
9. Sardinia
10. Croatia
11. Paris
12. The U.K.
13. Biarritz
14. Marbella & Valencia
15. Paris & England (cause visiting the U.K. wasn't enough.)

Norby Williamson of ESPN thinks you're stupid

2010-07-12T11:37:00.000-07:00

One last shot at ESPN for last Thursday's LeBore Decision and then I have to revise by reality TV best and worst shows as I forgot a key stinker in the bottom five.

Prior to Thursday's special episode of Blossom...er, I mean "The Decision", ESPN executive Norby Williamson claimed that LeBron would announce his free agency decision within the first 15 minutes of the hour-long broadcast. That, of course, didn't happen as it took 22 minutes for the talking heads in the studio to toss it to Jim Gray for another five minutes of softball questions. Twenty-seven minutes into the program "The Chosen One" announced his earth-shattering decision.

Following the broadcast, Williamson provided this explanation as to the timing discrepancy:

"Our plan was to go to the announcement within the first 15 minutes," said Williamson. "It turned out the LeBron interview began 22 minutes into the live show. The larger point I was trying to make is that the news would be presented within the first part of the program, to allow for analysis and perspective on the front and back end of the announcement. I think we accomplished that despite the fact that my prediction was a little off."

I realize very few other people will write this so let me clarify Williamson's statement: he's full of shit.

I have a small amount of experience with live television programming; I'm no expert or long-time professional, but I've seen enough to know a little bit about how programs are produced and I can say without a shred of doubt that a live program such as ESPN's "The Decision" is timed down to the second. To the second. Produces sit in control rooms with stop-watches in order to time out exactly how long until they transition from one segment to the next, or to a commercial. If a talking head runs long, they get cut off. Nothing is left to chance, even on live TV.

So when Williamson says that "our plan was to go to the announcement within the first 15 minutes" and it actually was 27 minutes where they finally got to it, that is not "a little off" and has nothing to do with the volatility of his prediction. It's a flat out lie. ESPN's plan all along was to build up suspense and drama by prolonging the announcement.

A friend of mine that is intimately involved in the television industry stated to me that ratings spike at their highest point 22-minutes into a program. ESPN kicked the program to the Jim Gray-LeBron inverview 22-minutes into the show. Coincidence? Not in a million years.

ESPN scripted "The Decision" to garner the highest ratings possible and I have no problem with that. What I have a problem with is their executives flat out lying about their motives.

Norby Williamson thinks we're all stupid. Maybe he's right and maybe he's wrong but one thing is for sure, he's full of B.S.

ESPN: Making a farce out of journalism on a grand scale

2010-07-09T10:24:00.000-07:00

Last night I missed the live showing of ESPN's new reality series, The Decision, but I was unfortunate enough to catch a clip of the Jim Grey-LeBore interview this morning and I'm not sure if I've ever witnessed a more stiff, dull, and all-around uninteresting top-level sports figure. Watching LeSnooze answer softball questions was about as exciting as throwing away a dirty napkin.

Michael Jordan had personality. Magic. Bird. Dr. J. When those guys were interviewed it was at least somewhat entertaining (even if Ahmad Rashad was continually kissing Jordan's ass in a Jim Grey-like manner).

If you are going to go on TV and make a spectacle of yourself, at least be entertaining or, at a minimum, likable. LeBore was neither.

Oh, and a thought to Jim Grey: you singlehandedly helped to lower the profession of journalism one more notch. Congratulations.

If the Founding Fathers of our country could see what a travesty the press has turned into in the 222 years since the ratification of this nation's Constitution, I have no doubt that the protections for a free press in the First Amendment would never have made it into the final draft. The press was once viewed as a check on our institutions, an entity that would hold us to higher standards and to expose frivolities, scandals, underhandedness, and any other blights that could stain our Union. Instead, it has become farce, a public relations vehicle for ego-driven figures from all walks of life.

The job of the press is not to make the news, it's to report it.

ESPN didn't just "Jump the Shark" last night, they added another puddle of spit on the First Amendment.

Best and Worst Reality TV Shows

2010-07-07T17:38:00.000-07:00

Here are my Top 5 best and worst Reality TV shows. I'm going to include game shows in the definition of Reality TV (even though I just wrote a post where I discuss how I think they are actually separate from that genre).

Best

The Amazing Race: Any season but that awful "Family" one.
Big Brother: The second season and the All-Stars season were particularly good due to Chill Town.
Survivor: I've really only watched the first season but this one has such staying power that you can't deny their rightful place at the top.
Hells Kitchen: My new guilty pleasure; is there anything better than watching Chef Ramsay bitch out a bunch of frazzled chefs?
Rock of Love, seasons 1 and 2: Bret wasn't looking for his "Rock of Lust" or his "Rock of Like". He was looking for his "Rock of Love". (cue Every Rose Has Its Thorn.)

Worst

Bonds on Bonds: This show was so bad that you almost felt sorry for Barry Bonds. Almost.
The Hills: It's so bad, it's good. The first couple of seasons were decent and then it fell into the absurd. It really doesn't belong in the Reality TV category, but there isn't a Fake Reality TV category.
Laguna Beach: Where to start? I'm not sure there's anything more annoying than watching spoiled high school kids do, well, anything. This show also falls under the title of pseudo-Reality TV since nothing on it was real.
I Love New York: This show was the equivalent of a thirty-five car train wreck that also included a plane crash and an exploding school bus full of children. In other words, it was such a horrific disaster that you couldn't look away.
Growing up Gotti: I saw something like two episodes of this "show" and it was beyond awful. In one of the episodes I saw, the boys spend inordinate amounts of time in the bathroom meticulously styling and gelling their hair. That was like half the episode. And it was the good half.

You know your show is bad when your Wiki page looks like this. Notice how nobody cares enough to provide an episode list. I wanted to find out if the episode I saw was titled "Boys Comb Hair", "I Gotti Have Gel" or something like that.

Confirmation

2010-07-07T16:37:00.000-07:00

Apparently, ESPN was able to get confirmation from ESPN that ESPN will be broadcasting the ESPN LeBron James free agency selection special.

ESPN should really get a Pulitzer for Breaking News Reporting because they've been that good.

ESPN has jumped the shark

2010-07-07T10:53:00.000-07:00

Last night, on the "never-to-be-turned-off-at-the-bottom-of-the-screen-ESPN-ticker", the "Worldwide Leader in Sports" proclaimed that sources had indicated that LeBron James would announce his free agency decision on said network ~~tonight~~ Thursday at 9pm EDT. The ticker also said that ESPN wouldn't confirm this, but "sources" within ESPN indicated that a program was in the works.

Does anyone else see the insanity of this?

ESPN reported that sources at ESPN (their own freaking network) said the program was going to happen, but ESPN was denying that anything was in the works. Huh?

Apparently, ESPN is the worst news organization in the world since they can't even verify a story about their own god damn network.

Open letter to ESPN:

You are taking yourselves way too seriously.

Lighten up.

By the way, I won't be watching the LeBron free agency announcement special because I could care less where LeBron James plays basketball. Actually, I don't know that I could "care less" because I don't care at all.

NBA continues to stab the hearts of Sonics fans

2010-07-05T18:04:00.000-07:00

I really don't need to add any additional commentary because I think the words of the guys from Sonicsgate are plenty enough. Check out a recent status update on their Facebook page:

The NBA didn't lift a finger to help keep the team in Seattle but they are more than willing to try and continue to make money off of Sonics fans. For some reason, the words "morally bankrupt" keep coming to mind.

Burn in hell, NBA. Burn in hell.

By the way, if you haven't seen Sonicsgate, you should. And then you should get other people to watch it.

Twitter Overload

2010-07-02T10:19:00.000-07:00

Twitter has been down intermittently for the past hour, apparently the result of everyone in the Netherlands tweeting "Goal!", or the Dutch equivalent.

Do we really need everyone tweeting "goal" when their favorite World Cup team scores? Just wondering.

Ben & Jerry's Peanut Brittle Ice Cream

2010-07-01T11:23:00.000-07:00

I started eating Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream many, many years ago. Before it became "cool" to eat it and well before they introduced eight million additional flavors. While I wouldn't go so far as to say I started the Ben & Jerry's trend...well, okay, yes I will, I started the trend along with my friend Tim. During summers in high school, in between playing games of whiffle ball in his back yard, we would walk to the local mini-mart in order to buy pints of chocolate chip cookie dough. So I feel comfortable in declaring that we were the trend-setters.

My fiancée and I recently had a coupon where Safeway was offering Ben & Jerry's for $1.99 a pint, so long as you bought at least four pints. We bought eight. Among the eight were a couple of new flavors: Boston Cream Pie and Peanut Brittle. Both were solid flavors but one definitely won out over the other.

Boston Cream Pie, while good, didn't really taste all that different than some of their other pie-based flavors where you have some batter thrown in with some rich ice cream. It was good, no doubt about it. But it didn't blow you away. Peanut Brittle, however, was fantastic.

If you're going to like Peanut Brittle ice cream you obviously need to start off with a fondness for peanut brittle itself. The Ben & Jerry's version of this flavor was remarkably simple: vanilla ice cream with chunks of peanut brittle and some caramel swirls. Since I'm a big peanut brittle fan I thought it was fantastic.

Reality TV vs. Game Show TV

2010-06-29T17:05:00.000-07:00

I watch a decent amount of what is generally described as "reality TV"; Hells Kitchen, The Next Food Network Star, The Amazing Race, and Pawn Stars are some of my current favorites. I think, however, that many of these shows have been mislabeled in recent years, as they aren't so much reality TV as much as they are game shows. And while one could make the argument that game shows are reality TV, I think there is a distinct separation in today's entertainment world.

When I think of reality TV, I think of The Real World, Road Rules, The Hills, Keeping Up with the Kardashians, John & Kate plus Eight; essentially any program where a bunch of people do very little to warrant a camera following them around on a day-to-day basis except for the fact they have some kind of personality quirk, are stinking rich and spoiled, or are freaks.

The undisputed "Mother of all Reality TV" is MTV's The Real World, which (ironically) looks nothing like the actual real world. MTV's cash-cow reality program started out innocently enough with seven strangers shoved into a Manhattan loft where they had a camera stuck in their face at every interval. The cast (or real people) were a "diverse" collection that included three musicians, a male model, an aspiring dancer, a poet/writer, and a painter.

The seven strangers spent much of that first season doing little to nothing (with an occasional shouting match sprinkled around the living space). In fact, you could argue that not much happened in the first two seasons of The Real World, at least when compared to the seasons that would follow. The number one reason for the multitude of boredom was likely due to poor editing. In today's reality TV world, a good editor can make two guys sitting on the couch drinking beer and watching NOVA into an entertaining event. In 1992 and 1993, The Real World editors hadn't hit their stride and as a result, most of us slept through entire episodes.

Everything changed for The Real World during the third season that took place in San Francisco. As anybody who was in college during that time can remember (as I raise my hand), this was the season that the house mates kicked-out the over-the-top annoying "Puck" (aka David Rainey). Puck was actually the second cast member to be booted from The Real World but since nobody was watching season two we only remember Puck.

The San Francisco season was incredibly popular precisely due to the conflict that Puck created within the house which, of course, led MTV to conclude that the way to make The Real World a runaway hit is to make sure that the cast is comprised with people who will act like nothing any of the viewers see in the "real" real world. And so we were blessed with twenty years of casting 18-24 year olds that are willing to do or say anything once the light on the camera goes red.

Once The Real World took off with it's over-the-top format, other producers and networks were quickly following in their wake. The logic of the formula was simple: if you can produce a show that gets huge ratings and you don't have to pay the cast a single red cent...well, you got a gold mine.

At the same time that The Real World was beginning to make it's mark, a different type of reality program was starting to make a comeback: the game show. However, this wasn't your momma's game show but instead games shows organized around the basic reality TV mantra of "freak city"!

Games shows are the original reality program. Whether you're talking about the $10,000 Pyramid, The Price is Right, The $64,000 Question, or Press Your Luck ("No Whammy, No Whammy! STOP!!"), game shows were once the only way for us to watch normal people participate in strange contests on television. Shows like Survivor or The Amazing Race are really just 70s games shows on crack with bigger budgets.

Game shows of today have learned from the popularity of The Real World and parlayed it into something even bigger. Instead of watching a bunch of nobodies do nothing we can watch a bunch of nobodies compete for "something", whether it's cash, cars, love (thank you, VH-1), or whatever TV execs can come up with. These competitions, featuring models, former lovers, professional athletes, or cast members of other games shows and reality TV, have become the new standard. Sure, we can watch The Hills and see a bunch of fake, spoiled girls get drunk every night at Les Deux. Or we can watch Hells Kitchen and watch a bunch of aspiring chefs and cooks get verbally assaulted by Chef Ramsay while they try to cook risotto and complete dinner service.

The competition aspect of the game show is what makes it so compelling. Take the VH-1 show I Love New York, which aired for two different seasons (it took that long for somebody to actually love New York, aka Tiffany Pollard). The show was a perverted 21st century version of The Dating Game and, truthfully, a lot more interesting. But once the dating game part of the idea was over (i.e. - they couldn't milk a third season of I Love New York), the shows creators decided to follow-up with New York Goes to Hollywood, a show in which the lovelorn Tiffany attempts to go to Hollywood to make it big. No competition or game show, just you're plain old Real World-style reality programing.

New York Goes to Hollywood bombed because nobody gave a damn as to whether New York could get a bit part on All My Children. What we did give a damn about is whether she would pick Chance or Tango in the final elimination. And that is the essence of the new age of game show TV; we love the spectacle of competition, the drama of winners and losers.

Does anybody know what a non-stick pan is? Ask Chef Ramsay.

2010-06-28T09:04:00.000-07:00

Strasburg eBay Auction: Big Scam or Big Hype? (UPDATED 2x)

2010-06-25T13:39:00.000-07:00

There is currently an eBay auction that is quickly turning into either the biggest scam in eBay history or the big hype.

An auction for an autographed rookie card of Stephen Strasburg, the young pitching phenomenon of the Washington Nationals, is currently sitting at $999,900.00.

The key to investing in anything is to buy low and sell high. The bidder for this card is either a) full of shit, or b) thinks this card be one of the most valuable in baseball history in the future.

One of the rarest and most valuable baseball cards of all-time is the T206 Honus Wagner, a card that has generally sold for around $2.6 million. It took decades for that card to reach that level of value. The Strasburg card features a player that has been pitching in the Major Leagues for about three weeks.

I feel comfortable in writing that whomever is bidding $1 million for a baseball card of a pitcher that has thrown four games is an idiot. Seriously, Strasburg could blow out his shoulder or elbow next year and the winning bidder would be left with an autographed piece of cardboard of the 2010 equivalent of J.R. Richard.

While we can question the bidder in this auction, the seller is an absolute genius if he actually gets $1 million for this card - THAT would be buying low and selling high. I'm guessing he'll be silently mumbling the word "sucker" under his breath as he collects his cash.

UPDATED: Looks like that $1 million bidder was full of shit since his/her bids have been deleted and the top bid is now $500,000. I have a hunch that the $500,000 bidder is probably full of it too as it simply doesn't make any sense to see this type of bidding on this card.

UPDATE #2: Looks like many of the "big bidders" on this item were full of shit as now we can't even view it (the listing is for pre-approved buyers only). Sadly, the seller won't be getting a million dollars off this card...or $500,000...or much of anything except some decent publicity.

Go blow a horn!

2010-06-15T09:52:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure what has been worse this World Cup: the unimaginative and sterile play on the pitch, or the ridiculous horns. I gotta lean towards the horns.

Bad Day for Baseball: Ken Griffey, Jr. retires and umpire blows a chance for a perfect game.

2010-06-02T20:20:00.000-07:00

While it's sad to see Griffey's career come to a close, anyone that had watched any of his at-bats this season knew that it was over. He's certainly my favorite player of all-time and I am thankful that I got the chance to watch him in his prime.

The blown call in the Tigers/Indians game was beyond abysmal. I'd say that I'm not sure how a Major League umpire can miss a call like that, but I remember Game 6 of the 1985 World Series when the St. Louis Cardinals were denied ~~the series clinching~~ a critical out by a clueless umpire. Some things never change.

I have no desire to discover the Discover Card

2010-06-01T13:29:00.000-07:00

Here's a friendly piece of advice for the people in the marketing department of Discover Card: You've been sending me card offers for the better part of twelve years. I have yet to ever respond to any of them. I'm not going to respond to any of them. I don't want your ridiculous credit card. Stop sending me your shitty junk mail. Thank you.

I get an offer for a Discover Card about once every week to two weeks. Without exception. And I've been receiving these offers since the late 90s; that's no exaggeration. Every week to two weeks I get a letter from Discover telling me about all the great benefits of their card and asking me to sign-up ("You're pre-approved for up to $50,000 credit!"...yeah, sure I am.) I never sign-up, yet they never stop sending this crap to my house. At this point, even if Discover was the greatest credit card in the known universe I wouldn't sign up with them because I am sick to death of their junk mail.

"Remember that 2-man patrol in Cambodia?"

2010-05-31T19:24:00.000-07:00

The A-Team movie hits the silver screen in a matter of days (June 11th) and with it come the hopes and expectations that it won't suck, like so many of the recent TV-series-remade-into-a-feature films have in the last decade.

The new A-Team movie has a couple of good things going for it already (based solely on the trailers). First, the theme music...it's in the movie. That's huge. If you are going to re-make a classic TV show (and one with a easily identifiable theme song), you don't screw it up by not including that music in the movie (I'm looking at you, Miami Vice movie...seriously, no Jan Hammer? Ridiculous.). So the producers of The A-Team successfully crossed the first hurdle.

The second thing that was a must for this movie is the inclusion of the distinctive A-Team van. If you're going to make an A-Team movie you have to include the van. There just isn't any way to get around this - if the van's not in the movie, you are done. It's over. One of the positives of the Starsky & Hutch re-make was that they kept the same damn car in the movie, they didn't try and fuck it up by modernizing the whole damn thing. (Yes, I'm once again looking at you, Miami Vice. No theme music. No Ferrari. Seriously, you guys had two things to do right and you blew it on both. That's why Miami Vice sucked ass.) The A-Team put the van in the movie, and while that seems like a no-brainer, if we've learned anything from Hollywood over the years it's that there are a lot of people making decisions that don't have much of a brain.

We've got the music and we've got the van, so already the A-Team is way ahead of most re-makes. I haven't seen anything outside of a three-minute trailer and I still think this might not suck. (My expectations for re-makes start out very, very low.) However, to pull the whole thing off there are still a few more things that absolutely have to happen in this movie. First, they must weld something, preferably some kind of vehicle that will be used as a pseudo-tank. A staple of every single A-Team episode in existence has B.A. firing up the blow torch to turn a pile of old rims into a makeshift Humvee. They must weld.

If we get the music, the van, and welding, The A-Team movie will be 99.9% of the way to Academy Award status. In order to take this movie from something good to great (or from A Few Good Men to Road House) we need one simple, small event to take place: Hannibal must appear as the Aquamanic.

Favorite TV Theme Songs

1. Miami Vice
2. Hawai'i 5-0
3. Knight Rider
4. The A-Team
5. The Dukes of Hazard
6. Welcome Back, Kotter
7. Magnum, P.I.
8. WKRP in Cincinnati
9. Battlestar Galactica (original...not this new crap.)
10. Love Boat

Redecorating

2010-05-31T14:20:00.000-07:00

I need an outlet in order to write (and complain) about various things that occur in the world (whther it be TV, politics, or the failure of the mail man to properly put letters and magazines into my mailbox). I recently moved all of my horse racing related activity over to SB Nation at And Down The Stretch They Come, but that community isn't appropriate for me to vent about things like the morons that won this season of The Amazing Race. With that in mind, I've decided to re-start Press the Pace as an place to channel my inner rage.

Caution: Movers

2010-01-18T15:49:00.000-08:00

After a couple of years here at Blogger.com it's come time to move to a new location. As of tomorrow morning, Press the Pace becomes And Down The Stretch They Come and can from this day forward be found at SB Nation.

Come on over to the new location and don't get shut out at the window.

Early Triple Crown Nominees

2010-01-18T10:49:00.000-08:00

The deadline to nominate a three year old for the 2010 Triple Crown races was last Saturday. A list of the early nominees should be available soon.

Maiden Claiming Monday

2010-01-18T06:00:00.000-08:00

Turf Paradise

Race 2

6 1/2 Furlongs

$5,000 Maiden Claiming

Three year old fillies

PP	Horse	ML
1	Summer Soprano	5/1
2	Angular Momentum	10/1
3	Strawberry Sun Fun	4/1
4	Yasmin’s Song	12/1
5	She’ll Just Park	7/2
6	Brighty	3/1
7	Speed the Light	6/1
8	Kinda Cute	5/1

This week's Maiden Claiming Monday takes us out to Arizona and the TuP, Turf Paradise, for a $5K event. This field has a little bit of everything: a first time starter, a couple of fillies that have done a fair amount of losing, a dropper that just missed last time out, and some fillies that are used to finishing well back of the winners. Let's dive right in.

Unlike a the tracks in California, the TuP still feature a traditional hard and fast dirt surface which lends itself to domination by early speed. As such, my first tasks are to determine which fillies are going to get the lead out of the gate and what the pace scenario will look like.

Early Pace

3-Strawberry Sun Fun has run two career races at the TuP and has been on the lead in both of those efforts only to lose the lead in the stretch. She ran at a mile last time out which may help her stamina wise when they roll into the lane. She fits in terms of class and should find herself up front early.

6-Brighty has only two lifetime starts under her belt but she did show some early foot in her last effort which, coincidentally, was the same race as Strawberry Sun Fun's last. She finished ahead of her competitor in that race after stalking her around the track. Unfortunately, she was nosed out at the wire and finds herself looking to break her maiden in her third try.

For me, the crux of the race comes down primarily to these two fillies as there just isn't a lot of other speed in this race. I think Strawberry Sun Fun has the edge over Brighty in this spot due to the cutback in distance which should, theoretically, help her to hold off her challengers in deep stretch.

Other Contenders

The wild card in this race is the outside filly and first time starter, 8-Kinda Cute. Kinda Cute is by Action This Day out of a Storm Cat mare and trained by Keith Bennett. Bennett is hitting at 14% overall with firsters (8-for-58) over the last five years and 16% at the TuP (8-for-31). Not a bad record but certainly nothing that screams big time trainers with first time starters. What does scream "big time" with this filly is the jockey/trainer combination: Bennett and Dieguez are hitting at an astonishing 45% in 2009-2010 (40-for-89). Those are just sick numbers and as a result I think this filly will probably run a solid race and be a contender at first asking.

The rest of the field

1-Summer Soprano ran behind Strawberry Sun Fun and Brighty last time out in that mile event and has really been flat in her last three efforts. Nothing in her profile suggests that she's about to run a winning race.

2-Angular Momentum has performed worse in each of her last four races (3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th) and doesn't seem to have the speed necessary to threaten the two front runners without burning herself out. However, if she is able to get out on the lead she could be the cheap speed to soften up Strawberry Sun Fun but I think it's more likely that she never makes the lead out of the gate.

4-Yasmin's Song is coming in off of a barn switch and hasn't sniffed the front of a race since early September. Her best efforts were at Santa Rosa and Sacramento...the TuP might be too big of a step up for her.

5-She'll Just Park ran a nice race in her debut, briefly threatening the lead before fading to third. That race could provide a nice base to make a run at the wire today but I'm concerned about her closing style in a race that will likely not have an insane pace scenario. She's also 7/2 on the ML which isn't the value I'd like to see for a closer in a TuP sprint. If she drifts to 5/1 I could be enticed to take a flyer.

7-Speed the Light has run five times previous to today, four of those races on the synthetic surface at Golden Gate. Her first dirt try at the TuP was lackluster effort at five furlongs. The extra panel and a half could give her a better shot at the prize but she, like others, just doesn't look like a filly that's ready to win.

The Pick

3-Strawberry Sun Fun, and her 4/1 ML odds, is my pick for the win. An exacta box with her and the first time starter, 8-Kinda Cute, might offer some decent value, as well.

Return of the Queen

2010-01-17T10:37:00.000-08:00

The news that Zenyatta is going to run as a six year old mare in 2010 was a sweet sound to many horse racing fans in North America and around the world. Most of us are used to hearing about early retirements of our favorite horses to be rushed off to the breeding shed in order to bring bring their owners millions of dollars. We're not used to a horse with the stature of a Zenyatta returning to the track, it just doesn't happen very often (although we've been blessed the last couple of years with Curlin, Rachel Alexandra, and Zenyatta all racing longer than most other top horses).

I caught an interview with Zenyatta's owner, Jerry Moss, on HRTV right after the announcement yesterday and it was a pleasure to hear his reasons for bringing back this super mare. Moss noted that Zenyatta still had that racing look to her, she was still eager to be at the track and she was still eager to run and compete. I think that is an important note for this reason: the thoroughbred was designed specifically to run, that is their purpose in life - it's what they are bred to do. A thoroughbred that is stuck in a barn or even a pasture some place where it doesn't get a chance to do what it was designed to do is a tragic thing for that horse. And perhaps that's what gets to me the most when we talk about horses retiring early to head to the breeding shed - the denial of a great horse doing what it was created to do.

If we look at some of the other recent notable retirements we come across a bunch of lightly raced horses that the owners couldn't wait to stick into breeding shed. One horse that immediately comes to mind is the 2008 winner of the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe: Zarkava. Immediately following that race Zarkava's owner, HH Aga Kahn IV, retired the filly and sent her off to the breeding shed sporting a perfect 7-for-7 lifetime record.

Seven starts. That's all the world got to see of this wonderful filly.

Was Zarkava retired due to injury? By all accounts, no. She was retired so that her owners could try and produce another great race horse (which would likely be retired early if it was a winner). And while that's their right as owners you got to wonder: is that the best thing for the horse, assuming that the animal is sound? Why are they in such a hurry to produce another great horse when you already have one? It can't be just about the money as these owners are already rich. And to the point I was making earlier: this thoroughbred was retired at the peak of her career. Doesn't that seem cruel? We breed these animals to be great runners and then, if we've been ultra successful and produced a truly great runner, we deny them the ability to do the thing that we created them to do: race. That just doesn't make sense to me.

By bringing Zenyatta back to the races in 2010, the Moss' are allowing this great mare to continue to do what she loves. Eventually, Zenyatta will lose interest in racing, as all thoroughbreds do at some point. And when that moment arrives it will certainly be time for her to enjoy her post-racing life. But if she still wants to run (and is sound physically) then the news of her un-retirement is not only great for the fans but it's great for the horse, as well.

Zenyatta to Return in 2010

2010-01-16T13:22:00.001-08:00

Great news from owners Jerry and Ann Moss regarding champion Zenyatta's racing future. According to the Daily Racing Form, Zenyatta will race in 2010.

This is great news for every fan of the game and I'm sure I speak for everyone when I say I can't wait for the Zenyatta / Rachel Alexandra showdown.

Gulfstream Recap

2010-01-15T14:36:00.000-08:00

Okay, so here's a quick recap of how my angle on the Gulfstream card played out today. It wasn't pretty.

Race 2: 10-Lion Thunder went off at 11/1 odds, broke slow and didn't contend for the lead and then was hustled towards the front on the backstretch only to be placed on the rail behind a wall of horses with little chance of making a run. A poor ride by Coa, in my opinion. Lion Thunder finished a weak 8th.

Race 4: I landed on 8-Have On More (8/1) in this spot and he responded by racing wide and beating only one horse in a field of nine.

Race 5: In this race I at least was able to identify the winner, although it wasn't the horse that I selected to win. In a race without a lick of pace, 2-Ultimate Class was able to absolutely steal this one on the front end. 1-Vee, the betting favorite and my selection, ran much closer to the lead than in her previous race but in the end, Ultimate Class ran away from the field in the stretch after having it all her own way early on.

Race 6: I continued to fire at price horses and went after 6-Sky N Mighty, a horse that went off at 13/1. And like my other price horses today, Sky N Mighty ran a flat race, never threatened the leaders, and finished a poor 9th. At this point, I was on a roll.

Race 7: A dim light at the end of the tunnel appeared in the form of 2-Exiled Princess, a 13/1 shot that I believed was ready to run a big race after cutting back from two turns. I was proved right when she did run a big race but, unfortunately for me, 8-Christine Daae ran an even bigger race and crushed this field by 8 1/4 lengths. Still, at least I was able to identify at least one live long shot. Exiled Princess paid $9.80 to Place and $4.40 to Show.

Race 8: My first winner of the day? Why my chalk play, of course. I hate to play chalk but at least this one finished first, unfortunately 3-Qualia went off at 9/10 odds. The retirement fund won't grow too much with those odds.

Race 9: And now we come to the final race where I made my selection out of pure sentiment: a horse with a similar name to one I recently co-owned. (My horse was Eligius, today's horse was 4-Saint Eligius). Guess what happens? Yep, Saint Eligius breaks his Maiden on the turf at odds of 7/2.

Opening Day at Oaklawn...with Thoughts on Gulfstream's Card

2010-01-15T08:33:00.001-08:00

The start of the spring racing season feels just a little bit closer this morning as Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs, Arkansas, opens up for their 2010 meet. Oaklawn, with the rising popularity of it's Kentucky Derby prep races, has blossomed into one of the top tracks in the country and this year will boast Grade 1 status for it's signature race, the $1,000,000 Arkansas Derby.

Other notes and observations from today's card at Gulfstream:

Another day and another large and imposing card to decipher with huge fields proliferating the four scheduled turf races.

In Race 2, a one mile $30K Maiden Claimer with a full field of twelve, I like the looks of the 10-Lion Thunder, a three year old son of Lion Heart. He's run a couple of flat races on the dirt the last couple of times out but he's going back to the lawn and stretching out, a couple of factors that should put him on the lead in a race with little to no early speed. 8/1 on the ML makes for a nice value play in a difficult race.

In the 4th Race, the 8-Have One More, appears to be dropping into a fairly decent spot to notch he 2nd win. He scored in a $50K Maiden Claimer here last year but hasn't been heard from in a long time (a lay-off of almost a year). Normally I can't stand lay-offs like that, and I might get away from this horse if the odds don't suit me, but I like the fact that he's been successful over this track previously.

The 5th Race is one of those Maiden Special Weight races on the grass that I love to play. Lots of first time starters, although nothing that seems particularly exciting. With the rail at 84 feet I found myself looking for speed on the inside, unfortunately there wasn't any to be found. In fact, it's hard to find the controlling speed in a race that is screaming out to be stolen on the lead. The 2-Ultimate Class showed speed in the slop at Philly Park several months ago, but this will be his first try over the lawn and I'm a little concerned about how he fits in terms of class. Ultimately I ended up on the 1-Vee, a closer coming off a strong 3rd in his first and only start on the Aqueduct grass in late November.

Race 6 is an extremely tricky $15K open company Claimer with a big, full field of twelve horses for six furlongs on the dirt. I found this to be a race about class more than anything else with many in this field coming out of Optional Claimer, Conditioned Claimers, and Starter Allowance company. There appears to be plenty of pace in this one which caused me to look for a mare that could sit off the pace and that has the back class to compete with these. The 6-Sky N Mighty has run in back-to-back off-the-turf sprints at Hawthorne where the track came up Good and Sloppy. She sits at 10/1 on the ML and looks to be in the best form of her career. A quick pace and a return to a dry racetrack could make all the difference. This is certainly a long shot play, but one that I think is worth taking.

Another Maiden Special Weight on the card for Race 7, this one for three year old fillies going seven furlongs on the dirt. Seven furlongs can be a tricky distance to win at, especially for horses that have only run at six furlongs or less. That's one reason why I landed on the 6-Exiled Princess, a third time starter by Purge that is cutting back from 1 1/16 miles on the grass last time out at Aqueduct. There's also another angle for this filly, she ran behind Vee in that last race at the Big A. Should Vee turn in a solid performance in Race 5, I will feel awfully good about Exiled Princess in this spot.

The 8th Race of the day is a N1X Allowance at six furlongs for older fillies and mares and it showcases one of the stronger favorites of the day, 3-Qualia (9/5 ML). Qualia broke her maiden at first asking over a sloppy track at Belmont and followed that up by missing an N1X score by a neck at Aqueduct. The 90 BSF she notched in her last effort gives her a decided speed edge. I'd like to find some value elsewhere but Qualia looks like the best bet on the card today.

The final race of the day at Gulfstream? Oh, just a full field of twelve in a 1 1/16 mile Maiden Special Weight on the grass. For nostalgia sake I 'll go with the 4-Saint Eligius. Why? Cause I once was the owner of a horse that was named Eligius (and, actually, Saint Eligius was that name I wanted to use but the other owners shortened it down). Anyway, perhaps Saint Eligius will have a little more luck than our colt.

Derby Preps to NBC

2010-01-12T08:01:00.000-08:00

I really like this move for increasing the coverage during the run-up to the Kentucky Derby. NBC will televise this year's runnings of the G2-Louisiana Derby, G2-Lane's End Stakes, G1-Santa Anita Derby, G1-Wood Memorial, G1-Blue Grass, and the G1-Arkansas Derby. The first show will be on USA while the other two will air on NBC.

My frustration with ESPN's horse racing broadcasts has been reaching an all-time high recently (inconsistent display of fractions and running order, and almost universally bad camera angles), so a move to NBC might just be the competiton to spur some improvements in the telecasts. Furthermore, NBC won't be displaying that horrid "news ticker" during each race like on ESPN...that alone will reduce my blood pressure by a factor of five.

Sunday Morning Quick Hits

2010-01-10T08:11:00.001-08:00

-So Gulfstream gets a ton of rain and goes Yielding and Sloppy/Sealed. Nice. I hate handicapping an entire card and then it rains and ruins all my plans. I guess it's just part of the game but it can frustrating when your best laid plans go to waste.

Gulfstream Results - 1/9/2010

-My value play at Fair Grounds turned into a "not-so-value" play when Big Polka Dot was bet down to a non-tasty 3/1 by post time. I was hoping for something like 4/1 or 5/1, but when you are playing a six horse field you tend to not get the value that you want. It was all moot in the end since Sea Gaze proved to be the worthy chalk by scoring a 4 1/2 length victory over the field. Big Polka Dot finished a well beaten 3rd.

Fair Grounds Result - 1/9/2010, Race 6

-Over at Tampa Bay Downs, the Name Play of the Day, Who We Gunna Call, finished fourth in his debut. Perhaps he crossed the streams, or pissed off Mr. Stay Puft...

Tampa Bay Downs Result - 1/9/2010, Race 9

Saturday Morning Quick Hits

2010-01-09T08:08:00.001-08:00

The holidays are over and it's time to get back to the track...or maybe just the couch and the laptop.

A big day of racing at Gulfstream today with several graded sprint stakes. Some quick thoughts on today's action:

-Gulfstream kicks off the day with a 5 furlong, MdSpWt, turf sprint featuring a bunch of horses that have never tried the lawn. The outside horse, Assorted Colors, has been running well on the lawn and at the distance and represents decent value at 4/1 on the ML.

-The fourth at Gulfstream doesn't have a lick of early speed in the entries which could lead to a somewhat chaotic result; if you can't figure out the pace it's difficult to pinpoint the winner. The interesting entry in this race is the 4 - Kerouac, a first time starter out of Rock Hard Ten. I'm not sure this colt will have the early speed required to steal this race and I'm even less certain if he's really ready to win now (I feel like I want to give Rock Hard Ten offspring a little time to develop, just like the sire). On the plus side, this is a one mile race which should benefit Kerouac.

-I love Westover Wildcat in the 5th race, especially if he goes off anywhere near his 6/1 morning line. This colt hasn't really run a bad race in his entire career and his only "disappointing" race was a 5th in the G1-Hopeful at Saratoga this summer. That was at 7f while he'll be back at what looks to be a more suited 6f affair today. He'll also get a little bit of class relief as compared to the Hopeful.

-The Gulfstream Turf Sprint looks to be a typical bust-your-ass-all-the-way-to-the-wire turf sprint with a crowded field of 10 horses. The 8 - Hockeythehayman is your likely post time favorite with his sparkling 4-4 lifetime record with wins at Keeneland and Del Mar in his record, however, I'm a little leery of this colt due to layoff and class questions. Instead I will probably go with a pretty big price and look towards the 3 - Big Push, who sits at 10-1 on the ML. He draws inside and has displayed good tactical speed in his previous efforts. If he can break well and avoid getting squeezed I think he'll have a good chance at finding the line first.

-Want to talk about a wide-open field? Just take a look at the G3-Old Hat, the 9th race at Gulfstream today. Eleven three year old fillies going six furlongs and almost every single one of them wants the lead. Just another day trying to handicap a graded sprint stake, right? I landed on the New York bred, Cuff Me (#5), but I'm going to keep and eye on the filly just to her outside, 6-Dances With Ashley. The 6 might be in a little better spot than the 5 given her ability to sit right off the pace. Plus the 6 should offer more value on the board. Initially I was looking at the 1 - My Jen but I have reservations about post position and the less than stellar speed figures as compared to the rest of the field.

-It's only a six horse field but I think the 6th at Fair Grounds offers a potentially nice value play. The 4 - Sea Gaze will be the likely favorite but it's the 6 - Big Polk a Dot at 9/2 on the ML that I think has the best chance to win. It's a small field without a lot of pace and if the 6 can get free and clear early (which I think he can), he should be able to control the race all the way around the track.

-The 9th at Tampa Bay presents on of the best names of the day along with an peculiar entry. The race is a six furlong MdSpWt for three year olds with a full field of twelve that includes a Ghostzapper first time starter by the name of Who We Gunna Call (#6). Now, besides the lovely name play off of the movie Ghostbusters, the 6 has only one published work and is trained by a relatively obscure trainer that is hitting at 80% when combined with today's jockey (4-for-5). This colt was pegged at 5/1 on the ML.

And speaking of names, here are some possible alternative names for Who We Gunna Call?

Backoffmanimascientist
Ecto 1
Venkman
Slimer
The Key Master

Happy Wagering!

Ramble On

2009-12-27T22:29:00.000-08:00

A couple of quick thoughts on recent stakes action:

Lookin At Lucky might have had a horrible trip at the Breeders' Cup but he got the perfect set-up in the G1-CashCall Futurity at Hollywood last weekend, and in the process clinched the title of two year old champion. Noble's Promise was a solid second after a going wide into the first turn but he was, in my opinion, clearly second best.
The G1-Starlet was won in impressive fashion by Blind Luck; she wasn't just the best, she was the best by a mile. Blind Luck instantly shoots to the top of the contenders for the Kentucky Oaks after dominating a solid field after going five wide on the final turn.
Some decent stakes action this week but the first big weekend of the 2010 occurs on January 9th when Gulfstream and Santa Anita get things rolling in pretty much every division. Oaklawn will kick things off shortly thereafter.

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-24T11:35:00.000-08:00

Santa Anita and Gulfstream prepare to open...is there a better Christmas present for the horseplayer? Well, maybe Del Mar and Saratoga.

G1-CashCall Futurity Day at Hollywood Park

2009-12-18T17:11:00.001-08:00

I'm going to separate the races on this card into three categories: "Straightforward", "Fairly Clear", and "A Mess".

Race 1 – Straightforward

Six horses are entered for this 1 1/16^th mile OC/N1X event. Take note of the conditions of the race:

For fillies and mares three years old and upward which have never won $10,000 other than maiden, claiming, or starter, or which have never won two races, or claiming price $40,000.

I bolded the last part of the condition because I believe that is the key to deciphering this race. Horses in this race that are not entered for a tag have done very little winning, and the winning that they have done is generally against low-level competition (thus the "never won $10,000" requirement). However, a multi-winning horse could be entered in this race even though they don't meet the winning conditions if the connections are willing to run the horse at a $40,000 claiming tag. Dave's Revenge is exactly that type of entry. The three year old filly ran in a N2X event last time out and certainly didn't embarrass herself in any way at all. Two races back she scored a win against N1X company at Oak Tree after competing against open claimers at Del Mar. She appears to have a class edge on this field.

Lovehi is the other filly to keep an eye on as she graduated from the N1X ranks back in February at Santa Anita. That race was restricted to Cal-breds which, I assume, is why she's able to enter this race without a tag (unless the Form is incorrect, which it could very well be).

Race 2 – Fairly ClearA Maiden Special Weight for two year old colts going six furlongs with a field of eight (including three first time starters). I don't see anything special with the firsters (although you never know with that bunch), but in terms of the second timers the standout is clearly the outside horse, Quiet Invader. This Bob Baffert trainee just missed last time out over this same surface/distance and by drawing outside his contenders should be able to sit in the garden spot all race long.

I actually think this race is more "Straightforward" than "Fairly Clear", but the inclusion of 3 first time starters always adds an element of unpredictability.

Race 3 – Straightforward

As I was going through the card the last couple of days I really felt the first few races made a whole lot of sense on paper, with the third being the race most clear to me. A small field of six horses will go 1 ¼ miles over the turf course in an OC80K/N2X event. Just like the first race, it is important to note the horses that are in for a tag since they will likely have won at higher levels and/or more frequently than some of these.

Dewey's Special is the speed horse in here but I think all he's going to end up doing is setting this race up perfectly for Obrigado (FR), a horse that has spent his summer running in graded turf events all across California and is being dropped in for a tag. Obrigado is a versatile colt that has shown an ability to sit well back early only to make a solid middle move to put himself into contention heading into the final turn. He fits nicely in this spot.

If you're looking for a little bit of an upset play (and, aren't we all?) then No Dream might warrant a play. This colt hasn't won a race since winning back-to-back events at Chantilly and Maisons-Laffitte in France over two years ago but he might be eligible for some serious improvement with the stretch-out to today's 1 ¼ mile distance. This gelding possesses a very solid closing kick and he should be much closer to the lead than in his last effort. Finally, this will be No Dream's first start since being claimed by Vladimir Cerin last time out and I get the feeling that the trainer was anxious to stretch this gelding's legs with some extra ground. No Dream, like Obrigado, is also entered for the $80,000 claiming tag.

Race 4 – Fairly Clear

This minor stakes event is essentially a glorified N1X or N2X for two year old colts, or in other words, two year olds not good enough for the CashCall Futurity.

Race 4 is a six horse field that essentially breaks down like this:

Three last time out Maiden winners, two of which want to go to the lead (Camp Victory and Tiz Chrome);
A closer that tried the Hollywood Prevue last time out where he finished last of eight (Purse Luva);
A presser with excellent stalking speed coming off a win against $40,000 claimers (Cardiff Giant); and
A shipper from Golden Gate coming off a win in the Golden Nugget, a similar stakes race to this one (Shudacudawudya).

I think this race boils down to the two outside horses: Cardiff Giant and Shudacudawudya due to their stalking styles and their relative success outside the maiden ranks. Of the two, I think that Cardiff Giant makes the most sense on paper but I could easily be swayed towards Shudacudawudya based on the action of the tote board.

Race 5 – A Mess

A $32,000 Claimer for two year olds at six furlongs, race 5 has the potential to get very, very messy. Two year olds are unpredictable enough on their own but throw ten of them together, including several speed horses, and you have the potential for a wide-open affair.

A side note about two year old racing in SoCal: there appears to be some serious running going on down in Cali during the two year old season as there are three horses in this field making at least their eighth start of the year. There are lots of debates about the durability of the racehorse today, but it seems that there are a good deal of juveniles that are able to run a long campaign at age two. And while there certainly could be concerns going forward following a full juvenile campaign, the fact that horses tend to top out at varying ages means that trainers and owners are going to run them when they are ready to handle the rigors of racing. Many of these two year olds will probably fade away by the end of their three year old season, but that likely is more due to their individual development cycle rather than the result of too much racing. Certainly we can debate it both ways.

Okay, back to race 5; with all the speed in this race I found myself looking for a grinder – a horse that will keep coming to the line regardless if the pace situation melts down (which I think it might in this spot). With that in mind I found myself leaning towards Swiss Arrogant, a last time out winner in a $25K Claimer. The jump up in class isn't really a huge concern against this ground and with a possible quick pace he might be able to sit back and clean up the mess.

Race 6 – A Mess

A mile and a sixteenth on the grass for claimers at $25K and a big, fat field of twelve colts three and up means we could see a big price. Icemancometh (IRE) is certainly worth a long, hard look in this spot with wins in three of his last four races. His last effort (the lone loss) saw him rank early and unable to grab the lead as he had done in all of his previous wins this season. The problem I have with Iceman is the pace - there are two other horses that absolutely want the lead: the rail horse, One Shot (ARG) and Uffizi. One Shot is going to have to go hard for the lead in order not to get crushed by the other eleven horses moving over on the clubhouse turn. As a result, what are the chances that the Iceman is on the lead heading into the backstretch? That is essentially the question you have to answer in order to try and come up with a winner in this spot. If you think he can grab the lead, then his win chances improve significantly. If he can't…well, it could be wide open.

I love the check cashing that Headace (FR) has been doing this year (10-3-2-2) and with his stalking style he's looks like an attractive option if you think the pace will be ripe for the taking. This horse is dropping to his lowest level in a long, long time which when combined with the front wraps that were put on three races back mean it's best to get a price. Morning line says 9/2 and that seems reasonable given this field - I wouldn't want to take too much less, though.

If you don't like either the Iceman or Headace, don't worry, there are ten other horses in here that all have a shot to take the prize. This race looks like a good spot to go deep if you're playing the multirace exotics, or it could be a great chance to single a horse and bag a huge separator.

Race 7 – A Messy Mess

I'll keep this analysis short: nine two year old colts going six furlongs, seven of which are first time starters. I'll stay away from Dontsellmetofeleons (Thunder Gulch) on the rail…don't like debuts on the rail in a sprint and I don't like Thunder Gulch offspring going short at first asking. That's just me.

Street Cry (IRE) is an awfully hot sire right now and with Darley's Street Haven entered here you kind of think he could be ready to fire. Harty doesn't kill with firsters but the colt is 12/1 on the ML…those are odds that you got to like. Watch the early tote action on this colt.

Just spinin' the Wheel of Fortune on this one.

Race 8 – Fairly Clear but could be A Mess

Do you love the complete unpredictability of turf sprint for Cal-breds? Then look no further, Race 8 is here!

Twelve colts and geldings (with two AEs) are entered in an OC $25K/N1X…ah, another OC/N1X event. Like the other two similar races on the card it's important to identify the horses that are entered for a tag, of which we have four: Raingear, Trail Mix, Major Smoke (AE), and He Made It Happen (AE).

With turf sprints I used to look for closers and off-the-pace types since it seemed that every single race had more speed horses than I knew what to do with. Now, I just try to find one or two of the best speed horses and point my cash in that direction; it greatly reduces the handicapping work and I am certainly not any less successful at picking the winner.

Trail Mix is the type of horse could fit perfectly in this spot, although you have to overlook his 9-0-5-2 record over the Hollywood Park turf course. He appears to be the clear speed and will take plenty of action from Joe Public…if you can stomach 5/2 on an eight year old gelding making his 46^th career start he should be a solid win candidate. If you want to cast you eyes elsewhere I think Itssultryinthecap is worthy of a closer look. This Peter Eurton trainee is a lightly raced three year old gelding (3-1-1-1) that graduated last time out at this distance over this course. Throw in a sharp move in the workout line and we could be looking at a candidate for back-to-back scores. He came it at 6/1 on the ML.

Race 9 – Straightforward

I think this is another race that doesn't need a whole lot of commentary. Lookin At Lucky and Nobel's Promise are the best two colts in the field (and two of the better juveniles in the country) and the only way they lose is if somebody is able to steal this one on the frontend. Given his awful trip last time out, Lookin At Lucky should be the strong favorite.

Race 10 – A Mess

Oh, Hollywood Park, why do you do the voodoo you do so well?

So you're playing the Pick 4 or the Pick 6 and you've fought through a card with plenty of twists and turns where you've found singles and coverage in all shapes and sizes. You're budget is starting to stretch thin and you turn the pace to the nightcap, Race 10. And what do you find? Oh, not much, just a fourteen horse, $25K Maiden Claimer going six furlongs.

I've looked at this race plenty of times and just can't make sense of any of it. The morning line favorite is the outside horse, Renzo Sean (3/1), and all he did to deserve favorite status was to lose by 9 ¾ lengths last time out. And while he did run a 73 Beyer two back that was against state-bred company, something he doesn't have the luxury of today.

If you have the bankroll this is the race to spread or even buy cause it looks very unpredictable.

I think there is a very strong possibility that the Pick Six goes unhit on Saturday.

Why Reading The Form Isn’t Enough

2009-12-17T11:06:00.001-08:00

Saturday's Grade 1 CashCall Futurity presents an excellent case study on the need to supplement reading of the Racing Form with watching race replays and/or reading full results charts.

If you hadn't watched the Breeders' Cup Juvenile where Lookin At Lucky finished 2^nd to Vale of York, and were trying to assess his performance simply from the data presented in your Racing Form, you would have missed out on vital information that, I believe, drastically changes the perception of the race. Below is the running line for Lookin At Lucky from the Juvenile along with the DRF trip note from the Formulator Past Performance:

13 - 7 (7^1/2) - 10 (8^1/4) – 9 (4) – 5 (2^1/2) – 2 (hd), Bumped late, rallied

Now read the trip comments from the result chart:

LOOKIN AT LUCKY checked slightly while forced out on the first turn, raced in midpack along the backstretch, tipped out midway on the turn, circled five wide into the stretch, made a run to reach contention in midstretch, brushed with the winner while gaining steadily in deep stretch and just missed in the final strides. (Emphasis added)

The first trip note certainly indicates that Lookin At Lucky had some trouble in the Juvenile but the severity of that trouble is not readily apparent. The chart comment, however, clearly demonstrates that Lookin At Lucky had a horrible trip almost the entire duration of the race and yet he still finished only a head behind the winner, Vale of York. You could also have gleaned that information by watching a replay of the race and compiling your own trip notes. Whatever the method, the lesson is still the same: past performances provide valuable information but a player has to be willing to go beyond that information in order to accurately assess the strength of a horse's race record.

Ramble On

2009-12-15T10:33:00.001-08:00

-With Tampa Bay Downs open I've been keeping my eye out for their famous two-turn maiden races on the turf (they seem to have at least one every single day). And they don't disappoint as we get one each on Thursday and Friday. I'm hoping we see a Saturday or Sunday card with a couple thrown in on the same day.

12/16/2009: 5^th Race – Maiden Special Weight, Two Year Old, Fillies, 1 ^1/16 Miles, Turf
12/17/2009: 8^th Race - $50K Maiden Claiming, Three and Up, Fillies and Mares, 1 Mile, Turf

-Hollywood will also run a Maiden Special Weight on the turf this week; race 5 on Friday (1 ^1/16 miles for three year olds and up), and Calder will run a Maiden Special on Saturday in the 3^rd race (1 mile for two year olds).

-Speaking of Hollywood: what's with the cards down there recently? I realize the weather has been a little dicey in Southern California but the field sizes are just horrendous. On Thursday, Hollywood has races with 6, 5, 6, 7, 13, 10, 5 and 9 horse fields, and that's only if there are no scratches, an unlikely scenario. Friday is a little better but, wow, those are pretty weak cards. Of course, it is mid-to-late December, a notoriously sleepy time in racing.

-Due to the partial cancellation of Louisiana Champions Day at Fair Grounds last Saturday there will be an expanded card at the track this coming Saturday. Thirteen races in all will go to post.

-If you are looking for large field this weekend, look no further than Philadelphia Park; they have a great card on Saturday with fields featuring 8, 9, 12, 12, 12, 12, 11, 9, 10, and 12 runners. The rolling Pick 3s starting with the third race could be very enticing.

Maiden Claiming Monday

2009-12-14T10:00:00.001-08:00

Handicapping isn't just about the best horses running in the big races at the big tracks. It's also about trying to decipher seemingly disorganized scenarios into a clear picture. If you're a Pick 3, Pick 4, or Pick 6 player you know that in order to sweep a sequence you are most likely going to deal with some type of Maiden event, generally a Maiden Claimer featuring several first time starters and/or a collection of horses that have no desire of ever finishing 1^st in a race. These types of races drive us crazy but they can lead to big payouts in the multi-race exotics if you can translate the puzzle and come up with a winner. With that in mind, I present Maiden Claiming Monday, a day to look at a low-level race taking place somewhere in the country.

Today's Race: 4^th at Beulah – 6 furlongs, Maiden Claiming ($4,000), For Fillies and Mares Three Years Old and Up

#	Horse	M/L
1	Lorena's Whip	8/1
2	She'sahappycamper	8/1
3	Bills Event	10/1
4	Legendary Music	12/1
5	Dixie Vale	8/1
6	Elva Mae	10/1
7	Zulema N	5/1
8	Donna Mia	6/1
9	Margret S.	4/1
10	Quarterfinal	9/2

The 4^th a Beulah today is the classic collection of a bunch of horses that have shown very little desire to beat other horses, and as a result you see a morning line that finds every horse between 4/1 and 12/1. That tells me that the odds maker at Beulah really has no idea how the public will bet this race which when you look at this field seems particularly accurate.

There are only three horses in this field that have really ever displayed any kind of speed in a prior race: Bills Event, She'sahappycamper, and Lorena's Whip. Of the three, Bills Event has shown the most consistent recent speed (she's flashed an early foot in his last three efforts at Suffolk), but unfortunately for this filly she's come up with an empty tank in the lane and could only manage a fourth place finish three races back. Lorena's Whip was up on the early pace in her races at Presque Isle during the summer but went back to showing zero speed when she switched to the Beulah dirt surface in her last effort. I'd be leery of a filly that's only managed to show speed on a synthetic track although she may have had an excuse for that last race: she bobbled badly at the start. The final potential speed horse is She'sahappycamper, a filly that started out running at Gulfstream and Arlington for a tag between $10,000 and $45,000 but has recently been dropped to the very bottom of the claiming ladder. She'sahappycamper displayed some early speed in her last two tries at Beulah, both of which were run at two turns. The turn back to six furlongs in today's race may give her a fitness edge.

The Morning Line "favorite" in here is Margret S., a filly that is 0-for-20 lifetime (20-0-3-2) with a 27 ½ length loss at Mountaineer last time out. If you can get by that last effort you'll see a filly that at least is able to grab a piece of the Place and Show purse once and a while - only two other fillies in this field have ever finished 2^nd in a race (Donna Mia and Elva Mae). The attractive attribute of this filly is her ability to generally sit reasonably close to the pace; she's certainly no speed horse but she at least displays some tactical ability. A good word to describe Margret S. is "inconsistent" as she's in a little bit of an every-other-race pattern right now that if it holds true should mean a solid effort today.

The first of those other two fillies that have sniffed 2^nd place in their careers, Elva Mae, had a very rough stretch of results prior to taking a lay-off on September 17^th. In races at Hoosier and Indiana Downs she finished 10, 16 ¼ , and 26 ¼ lengths behind the winners and wasn't a factor at any time. The other filly, Donna Mia, has likewise been finishing well back of the winners but she gets a little bit of a class relief today by dropping in from a $10,000 Maiden event at Hawthorne last time out. She ran a couple of decent races at Hawthorne about a year ago and would be big threat if she can regain that previous form.

Legendary Music takes a big cut in price ($15,000 tag last time out) but has been a truly abysmal horse in all seven of her lifetime starts. Throw in the fact that she's stepping out of Indiana state-bred restrictions to an open company race and she'll have to really come up with a big turnaround to have a chance. Of course, this is a $4,000 Maiden Claimer – does any horse not have a chance?

Zulema N is an interesting filly in this race as she's lightly raced (5-0-0-1) and she's actually coming off a decent 3^rd last time out over this same surface. The 2^nd place horse in that last effort retuned to win a $3,500 Maiden Claimer next time out with a 30 BSF. Zulema N doesn't appear to possess much of an early foot but there should be enough cheap speed in here to soften up the front runners. Dixie Vale is turning back after three efforts at a mile and 70 yards, but she really hasn't run well figure-wise since she tackled the Polytrack at Arlington last summer. Like Lorena's Whip, I'm leery of a filly that has only run well over a synthetic surface. And finally there is Quarterfinal, a filly that had run fairly well in her last two tries at Thistledown only to completely quit in her last at Beulah. This filly has been known to flash a little bit of speed here and there (albeit, very brief speed) but more often than not she's nowhere to be found when it comes time to run. The outside draw should help to track the speed but I wonder if she's got enough in the tank to beat these fillies.

Final Thoughts

Margret S. should be in the mix the entire time and will be a deserved favorite but I'm going to land on Zulema N. for top honors in this spot. She's coming off a strong effort last time out and she's still eligible to improve even though I don't like her outside draw (she's been more effective when she starts inside). That being said, if the pace breaks down (which it tends to do in these low level events) she should have as good of a chance as any to graduate.

Money Burners

2009-12-11T12:19:00.001-08:00

In the 5^th race at Fair Ground today is a filly named Stone Legacy, trained by D. Wayne Lukas and ridden by Robby Albarado. She's hasn't run a bad race in her last ten starts but she also has only run a winning race once. Her class and her speed seem to tower over this field, but despite all that I just can't get behind this filly. Stone Legacy looks like a money burner – a horse that keeps coming close while putting up solid speed figures thereby enticing the betting public to throw cash at her again and again. And even though this is a fairly soft spot (N1X Allowance), I just can't behind a horse that is going to be even money or less at post-time and has only won once in her last fourteen. She's probably the most likely winner but I won't touch her at those odds.

If I'm going for an upset I want to get paid. I like both the 3 – Arrested Silver and the 6 – Toccetup; looks like the 6 will be higher on the board but we'll wait and see.

Friday at the Fair Grounds

2009-12-11T08:57:00.001-08:00

Here's something I've never seen before; below are the conditions for the 1^st race at Fair Grounds. See if you noticed the peculiar nature of the race:

5 ½ furlongs; The 6^th Running of the Kudzu Juvenile; Purse $30,000 for Two Year Old, Registered Alabama Breeds

Really, a stakes race in Louisiana for Alabama bred horses? I guess they have to have somewhere to race. As for the race itself, we are basically faced with a collection of extremely low-level two year olds, half of which are still looking to break their maiden. I think this is a race to watch instead of bet.

Okay, getting away from state-bred stakes races we've got a couple of events on the Friday card that look enticing from a betting perspective. Up first is the 3^rd race featuring a field of seven two year old colts going six furlongs in a $40,000 Maiden Claimer. The #4 horse, Park Rules, looks like he's got the speed edge on most in here but it's the first time starter, 2 – Speedy Solution, that caught my eye. First, the jockey/trainer combination of Merrill Scherer and Robby Albarado is currently hitting at an insane 41% for the meet. Second, while Afleet Alex hasn't set the world on fire with first timers this colt looks to be ready after a long series of consistent works for a barn that knows how to get it done at first asking.

Speedy Solution draws inside the potential speed, which isn't the greatest set-up, but if he can sit and stalk right off of the lead he should have plenty of chances as they come into the lane. Morning line says 9/2 on this colt but we'll see where that drifts to once the pools open. I'd like to see a bunch of money come in early and then have him drift up to the 4/1 to 5/1 range.

The 6^th race is a one mile N3L $30,000 Claiming event for fillies three and up on the lawn. 6 – My Little Dancer is my value play in this spot at 15/1 on the morning line. This filly's speed figures and class are definitely a notch below the rest of the field but she's got a couple of things going for here that I really like in this spot. First, the best race of her career was her only other start on the grass – a win in a $16K Claimer at Ellis Park in late August. Second, she clearly runs her best when she's able to get out on the lead, where she should easily be today as there just aren't any other fillies in this race that consistently go to the lead. Throw in the fact that Lanerie gets back in the irons (he piloted this filly in her grass win), and you've got a lot of factors that suggest she could put up a solid performance at a big price.

UPDATED 10:39 AM: In-card commentary is posted in the Twitter feed on the left sidebar.

Mini P6 Carryover at Hollywood

2009-12-09T14:10:00.001-08:00

Race	Condition	Winner	Price
3	$25K Claiming – 6f	2 – You Can Dream	$6.20
4	$10K Claiming – 8.5f	6 – Recess	$5.00
5	Starter Allowance – 8.5f	6 – Dinner With Nikki C	$7.00
6	MdSpWt – 6f (T)	7 – Quoted	$11.00
7	50K Claiming – 7f	4 – Usurp	$5.40
8	20K Maiden Clm - 8.5f	9 – Marquet Rebel	$6.00

Following the Pick Six carryover at Hollywood today where the final pool came in above $900,000 with the $117,000 from Monday. The opening two legs of the Pick Six saw You Can Dream win at 2-1 odds followed by Recess at 3/2. Both horses were trained by Doug O'Neill and ridden by Rafael Bejarano. Not much of a start if you're hoping for a big carryover into Thursday and looking at the rest of the card there only seems to be a couple of spots where a big price looks likely: race 6 (a nine horse turf sprint) and race 8 (a twelve horse $25K Maiden Claimer at a mile and a sixteenth).

UPDATED 2:40 PM:

Photo finish in the third leg but it came down between the two favorites: 4-Victory Dash and 6-Dinner With Nikki C. The #6 ended up the winner which made it three in a row for Rafael Bejarano and completed a very chalky first three legs of the Pick 6.

If you played an all Bejarano Pick 6 you are now halfway home to glory.

UPDATED 3:14 PM:

Doug O'Neill picks up his third winner of the Pick Six sequence but the Rafael Bejarano win streak is put to an end with Quoted's victory in the sixth race. Quoted went off at 9/2 which will add a little bit of a price to the sequence (and I stress "little") but nothing to suggest that this Pick Six won't be hit this afternoon.

UPDATED 3:25 PM:

A brief thought on this on-going Pick Six sequence at Hollywood and why these multi-race exotics can be challenging even with relatively straight forward races. This Hollywood Pick Six has been exceptionally chalky during the first four legs and, looking over the card, it didn't appear to be a tremendously challenging sequence with one exception, the last race of the day. Unlike the other five races, the final race of the sequence looks very difficult on paper with what will probably be a tepid favorite and several horses that appear to have little chance to win. Some would say that makes the race easy; throw out the longshots and just take the four or five midshots. But this is exactly this type of race that is likely to produce a big price – a race with a degree of chaos due to the weak nature of the field. Throw in the fact that it's the last leg, which means that a lot of players are attacking this race last and trying to cover only as much as their bankroll allows, and the problem becomes clear: how do you get decent coverage?

It sometimes makes sense to build a ticket for a Pick Six or a Pick 4 by looking at the races individually instead of in sequence. It you start with the first leg and move through each in succession there is the possibility that when you get to the final race you'll think "I can't go deep in this race because I've already spread so much in the early legs." Instead, I think it makes more sense to break down each race individually without any consideration to the order and then think of the best way to optimize ticket construction. Heck, start with the last race then got to the 2^nd, 3^rd, 5^th, etc. Whatever method is applied the thinking remains the same: isolate the contenders instead of trying to figure out how many horses you can use and still fit your budget.

UPDATED 3:42 PM:

Bejarano rolls to his fourth win of the sequence and Usurp easily wins the 7^th race at 8/5. The only question left for the day is how much will the Pick Six pay?

UPDATED 3:53 PM:

Pick Six Will Pays

Horse	$2 Payout
1 – Tumbling Dice Man	$110,810.60
2 – Corkynphilys Flyer	$8,539.60
3 – A Pint for Mary	$12,902.80
4 – Del Mar Express	$92.342.20
5 – Daily Suds	$82,738.60
6 – Zohan	$1,651.60
7 – Silverado	$3,269.20
8 – Road to the Throne	$184,684.60
9 – Marquet Rebel	$1,384.60
10 – Fortunate Victory	$4,601.40
11 – Warren's Allstar	$30,780.60
12 – Baracho	$12,060.20

Got to say that I'm surprised at those Will Pays considering how chalky this sequence has been; you're getting $1,300 and $1,600 to the favorites and a good chunk to any of the bombs. I've always been of the opinion that a bomb at the end of the sequence will key a larger payday than a bomb at the beginning due to the mere fact that players will "load up" early in order to just stay alive to the action.

UPDATED 4:05 PM:

Ignore the Will Pay chart since the 4 is a late scratch which renders my whole chart irrelevant. Thanks. We'll see what it pays when it's over.

UPDATED 4:18 PM:

The chalk finished off this sequence keying a $1,364 payout to anyone with six-for-six. A fairly uneventful Pick Six that paid a little more than I expected given the fact that only one horse paid more than $10.

You Know It’s Winter When…

2009-12-08T11:11:00.001-08:00

The only tracks in America running races on a Tuesday are:

Beulah
Mountaineer
Penn National
Philadelphia Park
Turf Paradise
Zia Park

Only three more weeks until Gulfstream Park opens (January 3^rd).

Some thoughts on today's racing:

A two-year old filly, Blasted, won the fourth race at Philadelphia Park in a Maiden Special Weight race at a mile and 40 yards. TVG commentator Rich Perloff noted, and I would tend to agree, that this grey filly might be something to keep an eye on going forward for several reasons. First, she was able to stalk and get to the early speed after some brutally slow early fractions (50.66 for the half and a snail-like 1:16.50 for the three-quarters). Second, she's got an outstanding pedigree – sired by Dynaformer out of a Sky Classic mare. Third, she was stretched out in this her second start, to which she responded by running a very solid race – it's always nice to see horses improve when asked to cover more distance for the first time. And finally, she's conditioned by trainer Graham Motion, a trainer that will know how to place her if she's got any talent whatsoever. You gotta believe that with her pedigree and connections that we'll see Blasted on the turf before too long. Perhaps when the turf course opens back up at Aqueduct?
Live racing was cancelled today at the TuP due to the heavy rainfall in the Phoenix area (sounds like there have been some power outages due to the storms). So...while it's pouring down rain in Phoenix we get a frosty 20 degrees here in Seattle. I'd seriously take some rain right now as the cold sucks.
There will be a decent little $114,724 Pick Six carryover at Hollywood Park on Wednesday. Another day without a winning ticket could set-up a large carryover towards the weekend. The sequence for Wednesday concludes with an always fun $25,000 Maiden Claimer for three-year olds and up with a full field of twelve horses (eight of which are entered for the $22,500 tag). Lovely!

International Pools and the Japan Dirt Cup

2009-12-06T10:03:00.001-08:00

I've had a chance to go through the video replay of the Japan Dirt Cup, as well as to review the result summary as provided by the Japan Racing website (link). Here are a few "day after" thoughts on last night's race:

How differently did the North American pools and the Japanese pools view this race? Tizway was the favorite in the NA pools (or a close second), but only the 11^th choice in Japan. Tizway ended up finishing 12^th. The winner, Espoir City, went off at odds of 4/1 in North America but was the favorite at 3/1 in Japan. There wasn't a huge difference in price for the winner but there certainly was for the only American entry.
Suni did not finish last, he finished 14^th – third from last. This horse's inability to break well and set the pace completely changed the complexion of the race and allowed the winner, Espoir City, to enjoy a relatively easy lead.
I thought TVG provided excellent on-track coverage last night, so this really isn't a complaint about them, but I prefer when they give us the raw English track feed with a graphic of the North American betting odds on the side of the screen. Why? When you get the raw feed the announcers will give you a great rundown of the odds in the local win pool which makes it very easy to compare to those in the North American pools. Absent that it is very difficult to find the current local odds for these international races and with nothing to compare the NA odds against you simply don't know how the American players a evaluating the horses as opposed to the ones in Japan (or wherever the race is being held).

International racing presents unique betting opportunities for the North American player primarily due to the factors that we witnessed last night at Hanshin. For whatever reason, the betting public in North America absolutely pounds our horses in the pools and generally sends them off at odds much lower than their real value, as was the case with Tizway last night.

In 2008 there was an American horse, Notional, entered in the Dubai Duty Free turf race at the Dubai World Cup Festival. Notional was an early top contender for the Kentucky Derby in 2007 but was derailed by nagging injuries and had really not produced a whole heck of a lot prior to shipping to Dubai. The colt was untested on turf after spending most of his career running on dirt and was facing a field that included Vodka (JPN), Darjina (FR), Archipenko, and Literato (FR), as well as a host of competitive milers. In any sane betting situation Notional should have been no better than 15/1 on the board and you could make a strong argument that 20/1 or 30/1 was more appropriate. Hell, I probably would have put him at 50/1 on my line. And while Notional had great connections in Doug O'Neil and Garrett Gomez, he was completely out of his element against this very classy field. But despite Notional's relatively modest chance at success in the Duty Free he was crushed in the North American pools to something like 7/2 odds (I can't remember exactly how low they were but they were LOW). Predictably, Notional finished last of sixteen.

Following the World Cup I kept coming back to Notional and his odds as I just couldn't figure out what would cause seemingly intelligent North American betters to over bet this overmatched horse? (And I call them intelligent because, really, the types of people that get up early in North America to bet on a horse race in Dubai are generally the hardcore "crawl over a guy with a heart attack so they don't get shut out at the window" bettors…they tend to know their racing.) Finally a fellow handicapper clued me in on what had occurred that morning: Ragozin's "The Sheets" had given Notional a very high performance rating off his last start (which if I'm not mistaken was a start in California on the grass). I'm not going to go into the ins and outs of The Sheets because I'm not a sheet player, but suffice to say anyone that knows anything about The Sheets knows that they have an almost cult-like following. Additionally, from what I was told by this player, prior to the 2008 Dubai festival free Sheets were given out to patrons a Santa Anita Park in SoCal. When you combined a wide dispersal of a past performance touting a specific horse (especially one with a hardcore following of players) with the modest dollars bet into the North American pools during an international racing event we got a situation where a group of bettors were able to dramatically skew the odds in a single race.

Okay, so back to Tizway and the Japan Dirt Cup. Did we see something similar to Notional in Dubai last night? Probably not the same in terms of a bunch of Sheets players driving down the odds but I think the underlying reasons for the betting were the same: it's easier for North American players to evaluate the merits of our horses while at the same time difficult to accurately assess foreign thoroughbreds. We've seen our horses race and we can easily obtain their past performance details. The same cannot be said of the foreign runners (just take a look at the past performances provided by the Japan Racing Association prior to the Dirt Cup…they are better than what you see from Europe but still lack a lot of the data the we in North America come to expect). Throw in the fact that many people believe that American dirt racing is far superior to that in other parts of the world (which isn't necessarily untrue) and you get an extremely biased view of the merits of our horses. As a result, it becomes easy for us to bet on the known as opposed to the unknown.

Japan Dirt Cup

2009-12-05T08:33:00.001-08:00

While the defection of Belmont and Travers winner Summer Bird has certainly lessened the American interest in the Japan Dirt Cup there will still be some great betting opportunities tonight at Hanshin. A field of sixteen is set to go to post tonight with a fairly even distribution of horses that want to lead, stalk, and close, which should ensure an exceptionally competitive affair.

Expected Pace Scenario

Early Speed – Makoto Sparviero (JPN), Espoir City (JPN), Suni, Tizway

Stalkers – Wonder Speed (JPN), Vermilion (JPN), Success Brocken (JPN), Golden Ticket (JPN), Admire Subaru (JPN), Wonder Acute (JPN)

Mid-pack/Closers – Bonneville Record (JPN), Daisho Jet (JPN), La Verita, Marbutsu Lead (JPN), Silk Mobius (JPN), Meisho Tokon (JPN)

If the only remaining American horse, Tizway, is to win the Japan Dirt Cup he's going to have to do a lot of dirty work on the front end where he'll likely have company in the form of Suni, Makoto Sparviero and Espoir City. With four potential early speed horses in the field the pace scenario looks to set up perfectly for an off-the-pace runner like Vermillion (2007 Japan Dirt Cup winners), Meisho Tokon (2008 Japan Dirt Cup runner-up), or Success Brocken (2009 February Stakes winners). Suni, a sprinter that is stretching out to a mile and a quarter, should be the early leader.

Vermillion is in excellent from following consecutive wins in the JBC Classic and the Teio Sho, and should be one of the betting favorites but I'm leaning a different direction for this race. Wonder Acute has won three in a row and is an impressive 4-3-0-0 at Hanshin Racecourse including the G3-Sirius Stakes in early October. An in-form "horse for course"? That's an angle I just can't get away from.

I have no idea what the odds on Wonder Acute will be since I can't find a single morning line on any of the Japan racing websites…at least one that I can read. So we'll wait for the pools to open up this evening to determine whether Wonder Acute will be a good play or not. I'd love to see something around 8/1 to 10/1…anything less than that, considering the how big and deep this field is, probably won't interest me.

Superfecta Strategy

Because of the deep and competitive nature of Japanese racing, combined with the relative anonymity of most of the runners to North American horseplayers, there exists great opportunities to cash big bets in the superfecta pools. There is a betting strategy that many North American followers of Japan racing like to use on these days that cuts the cost of a superfecta ticket while still providing adequate coverage.

The essential mechanics of the bet would work like this:

Build a normal trifecta bet in whatever manner you think gives you a good shot at hitting it.
Single the longest price on the board in the fourth position on the ticket.

Here's the thought behind this strategy: Many, many times the superfecta on Japanese races in the North American pools will pay to "ALL" in the fourth position. Why? Because usually there are huge fields and the American bettors really can't sort one longshot from the other. When you combine that with the fact that the pools are relatively small (and every combination is not in play) you get a situation where many times there isn't one player that picked all four runners in the Super. By playing the longest shot on the board in the fourth position, and by singling that horse in that position, you dramatically cut the cost of your superfecta ticket AND you'll get paid if an "ALL" situation arises. If one of the favorites comes in 4^th your ticket will probably end up in the trash. But if any of the longshots get up for that last position you have a chance to cash even though you didn't have that horse on your ticket provided that nobody else had that horse either.

UPDATED 10:25 PM:

Wonder Acute is sitting at 7/1 in the current North American pools...that's right about where I wanted to see him. I'm interested to see if that holds over the next five to ten minutes. Vermillion is holding around 7/2 while Tizway has been pounded to 9/5...eh, I don't know about that.

UPDATED 10:35 PM:

Just want to clarify my comment on the 9/5 odds for Tizway: it's not that I don't think this horse can win, I'm sure he's talented enough, but I just couldn't bet him at 9/5 or 2/1, or anything under 5/1. I think that is terrible value in a field of 16 horses especially when this 9/5 shot has traveled half-way across the world to compete at a track he's never raced over before and he's a horse that likes to be near the lead and the pace should be hot. His odds right now just don't represent anything close to good value and his profile doesn't scream "favorite".

UPDATED 11:02 PM:

Where the heck was Suni in that pace scenario? Good lord...you've got a front running sprinter stretching out, which usually means he'll be up setting the pace, and instead he ends up suffuled far back in the early going. Espoir City, without a contentious pace, just steamrolled the field and easily won the 2009 Japan Dirt Cup. Wonder Acute was hung wide early, made a middle move but never threatened the runaway winner. If I caught the call correctly, Suni finished dead last.

Tizway proved to be an awful bet at the 3/1 odds he went off at finishing well back. After pressing the early fractions, the American colt was done before they even started rolling towards the judge and was no where near the front when it was all said and done.

Decade of the Filly?

2009-12-04T09:22:00.001-08:00

Over at the Blood-Horse website they are asking fans to rank the top fillies and mares from the last decade (link). Here are just a few of the outstanding fillies that have graced the track in the last ten years:

Azeri
Ashado
Rags to Riches
Zarkava (IRE)
Goldikova (IRE)
Ouija Board (GB)
Zenyatta
Rachel Alexandra
Ginger Punch
Proud Spell
Banks Hills (GB)
Intercontinental (GB)

Throw in juvenile star Sweet Catomine, California turf monster Megahertz (GB), turf miler Gorella (FR), and Distaff contenders Society Selection and Storm Flag Flying, and you have an impressive list of fillies and mares.

I've always been a fan of two-time Breeders' Cup champion, Ouija Board, and I'd have to put her at the top of any list of fillies and mares to grace North America in the last ten years. After that it gets pretty muddy - who would win a race between Azeri, Ashado, Rags to Riches, Rachel Alexandra, and Zenyatta? That's a race I would love to see. And even better race: Ouija Board, Banks Hills, Zarkava and Goldikova.

Intercontinental wasn't on the Blood-Horse list but I think she warrants a mention. Not only did this filly take the 2005 BC Filly and Mare Turf (denying Ouija Board a repeat) but she had a fantastic 2005 season, finishing no worse than 3^rd in any race.

Going into that 2005 Breeders' Cup I was of the opinion that Intercontinental was at her best if she was allowed to get out and run on the front end, as opposed to trying to rate her down the backstretch. But her connections had attempted to control her early speed in the races leading up to the Breeders' Cup with the only result being an extremely rank horse that tended to take herself out of the race. To add insult to injury, regular rider Jerry Bailey chose not to ride Intercontinental at the Breeders' Cup and instead climbed aboard Ouija Board. Adding all of those factors together persuaded me to put my money anywhere but on Intercontinental, a horse that I had followed all year long. Of course, what happened that day at Belmont is history: Intercontinental breaks well and is allowed to run clear and free on the lead on her way to winning the Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Turf at odds of 15/1. I missed out on a win bet and a large trifecta (the $2 Tri paid $1,167) by convincing myself that the connections were going to cause Intercontinental to lose, even though I had been on that horse all year long.

Lesson learned.

Return to Action

2009-12-03T14:49:00.001-08:00

Quick, which horse was the favorite at this year's Kentucky Derby? If you said Friesen Fire, congratulations.

Friesen Fire made his return to the track today in the 8^th race at Fair Grounds in Allowance company at a mile and 40 yards. Bet down to 2/5 odds prior to the post, Friesen Fire was coming off a long layoff and was facing older horses for the first time. And even though he was facing a small field of only four horses, he finished a non-threatening third to Good and Lucky.

We'll see if this former Derby contender just needed a race or whether Friesen Fire is simply not going to be a top class horse in the handicap division next year. Today, the horse didn't have anything in the tank when it came time to run.

A Long Time Coming

2009-12-03T14:01:00.001-08:00

The American Graded Stakes Committee announced its designations for the 2010 racing calendar and for the first time ever, the Arkansas Derby will be considered a Grade I event. This has been a long time coming for a race that is year-after-year one of the key Kentucky Derby preps. The race should have received Grade 1 stats after the Smarty Jones/Afleet Alex years, but I suppose it's better late than never.

The rest of the new grades are below.

Race	Track	Old Grade	New Grade
Arkansas Derby	Oaklawn	2	1
Clark Handicap	Churchill Downs	2	1
Vanderbilt	Saratoga	2	1
American Turf Stakes	Churchill Downs	3	2
Pocahontas Stakes	Churchill Downs	3	2
Breeders' Cup Juv. Filly Turf	Various	3	2
Breeders' Cup Turf Sprint	Various	3	2
Risen Star	Fair Grounds	3	2
Sir Beaufort Stakes	Santa Anita	3	2
Sunland Park Derby	Sunland	Ungraded	3
Breeders' Cup Marathon	Various	Ungraded	3
Cougar II Handicap	Del Mar	Ungraded	3
Ft. Lauderdale Stakes	Gulfstream	Ungraded	3
Iowa Derby	Prairie Meadows	Ungraded	3
Monmouth Stakes	Monmouth	Ungraded	3
Citation Handicap	Hollywood	1	2
Frank J. De Francis Memorial	Laurel	1	2
Go for Wand	Saratoga	1	2
John C. Mabee Stakes	Del Mar	1	2
Santa Maria Handicap	Santa Anita	1	2
Bed O'Roses	Aqueduct	2	3
Beverly Hills Handicap	Hollywood	2	3
Sunset Handicap	Hollywood	2	3
Comely Stakes	Aqueduct	2	3
Illinois Derby	Hawthorne	2	3
Jefferson Cup Stakes	Churchill	2	3
LaPrevoyante Handicap	Calder	2	3
Ohio Derby	Thistledown	2	3
Rampart Stakes	Gulfstream	2	3
Tom Fool Handicap	Belmont	2	3
Baldwin Stakes	Santa Anita	3	Ungraded
Barbaro Stakes	Delaware	3	Ungraded
Calder Derby	Calder	3	Ungraded
Cinema Handicap	Hollywood	3	Ungraded
Dallas Turf Cup Stakes	Lone Star	3	Ungraded
Miss Preakness Stakes	Pimlico	3	Ungraded
Next Move Stakes	Aqueduct	3	Ungraded
Stuyvesant Handicap	Aqueduct	3	Ungraded

A couple of other thoughts:

-How in the world is the Breeders' Cup Turf Sprint only a Grade 2? Of all the new Breeders' Cup races the Turf Sprint is, in my opinion, the most worthy of Grade 1 status.

-Churchill Downs looks to have come out the best with these new grades as three of their races were upgraded, highlighted by the Clark Handicap moving to Grade 1.

-Aqueduct (and New York racing, in general) took some hits with the new list as the Big A saw four races downgraded from 2009 to 2010. The only bright spot in New York was the elevation of the Vanderbilt to Grade 1 status.

-Nice to see the Iowa Derby grab graded status for the first time. This is a race that sees big fields year after year at Prairie Meadows.

A Total Eclipse

2009-12-02T13:37:00.001-08:00

With the 2009 racing season winding down it's time to start talking about the Eclipse Awards. Well, sure, everyone has been debating Horse of the Year for weeks now, but what about the other awards. Below are my votes for each Eclipse category, if I were to have a vote.

Two-Year Old Colt	Record	Trainer	Notes
Lookin At Lucky	5-4-1-0	Baffert	Tough luck 2^nd at BC; won G1 Norfolk and Del Mar Futurity
Noble's Promise	5-3-1-1	McPeek	Won G1-Borders Futurity at KEE; 3^rd in BC Juvenile
Buddy's Saint	3-3-0-0	Levine	Won G2-Remsen and G2-Nasha at AQU.

I think it's pretty clear that this vote comes down to Lookin At Lucky and Buddy's Saint, and it also begins our first dirt vs. synthetic debate that will be prevelant again and again during this discussion. Lookin At Lucky was an unlucky second in the Breeders' Cup where he had to make a very wide turn coming for home. A better trip and he'd be lookin' at a perfect five-for-five record and three Grade 1 victories. Buddy's Saint skipped the Breeders' Cup and, instead, took home both the G2-Remsen and the G2-Nashua Stakes at Aqueduct this fall. His Remsen performance was very impressive and he's got the look of a very nice Derby contender come this spring. As for which one I think deserves the title of two-year old champion? I'm going with the Breeders' Cup runner up since I think he's the best two-year old regardless of the surface. Buddy's Saint is the best two-year old on dirt but I think overall, Lookin At Lucky has done more in 2009.

2009 Two-Year Old Colt: Lookin At Lucky

Two-Year Old Filly	Record	Trainer	Notes
She Be Wild	5-4-1-0	Catalano	Won BC Juvenile Fillies, 2^nd in G1-Alicibades at KEE.
Hot Dixie Chick	4-3-1-0	Asmussen	Won G1-Spinaway at Saratoga
Blind Luck	5-3-1-0	Hollendorfer	Won G1-Oak Lead; 3^rd in BC Juvenile Fillies

I suppose we could have a dirt vs. synthetic debate in this division, as well, but on the basis of her entire record She Be Wild would be my pick for two-year old filly champion. Hot Dixie Chick put up some great performances at Saratoga this summer but we've never seen her venture outside of New York for a stakes race, and she hasn't tried anything longer than 7 furlongs. On the other hand, She Be Wild ran at Arlington, Keeneland, and the Breeders' Cup and is only a ½ length defeat to Negligee from a perfect five-for-five on the season. Catalano's filly takes this one easily.

2009 Two-Year Old Filly: She Be Wild

Three-Year Old Colt	Record	Trainer	Notes
Summer Bird	9-4-1-1	Ice	Won G1-Belmont, G1-Travers, and G1-Jockey Club Gold Cup.
Mine that Bird	8-1-2-2	Woolley	Derby winner; 2^nd in the Preakness to Rachel Alexandra.
Zensational	7-5-1-0	Baffert	Sprinter won three Grade 1's during 2009.

I think Quality Road, a horse that I didn't not include in my Top 3, is probably the most talented three-year old in this year's crop but his inconsistency/injuries have prevented him from compiling the body of work necessary to be considered champion three-year old colt. Mine that Bird pulled off a stunning upset in the Derby and ran admirably the rest of the year but he's simply not the best of bunch. Summer Bird is really the only legitimate choice in this category coming off three Grade 1 victories during the year and a fourth place finish in the Breeders' Cup Classic.

2009 Three-Year Old Colt: Summer Bird

Three-Year Old Filly	Record	Trainer	Notes
Rachel Alexandra	8-8-0-0	Asumssen	Won five Grade 1 races, including G1-Ky Oaks & G1-Preakness.

There's no reason to consider any other filly in this category; Rachel Alexandra was head and shoulders above all the competition.

2009 Three-Year Old Filly: Rachel Alexandra

Older Male Horse	Record	Trainer	Notes
Gio Ponti	7-4-2-0	Clement	Four Grade 1 wins on Turf; 2^nd in BC Classic.
Kodiak Kowboy	8-4-2-1	Asmussen	Three G1 wins; 2^nd in the G1-Forego.
Einstein (BRZ)	8-2-1-0	Pitts	Started the year with two G1 wins, form slipped later on.

Possibly the weakest division of 2009 contains a Top 3 that includes a turf horse, a sprinter/miler, and another turf horse. Einstein (BRZ) started the year brilliantly and with the Classic at Santa Anita, he looked to have an inside track on champion older male horse. However, he was unable to hold onto his good form and finished the year a disappointing 3^rd in the Clark Handicap after an abysmal 11^th in the BC Classic. Kodiak Kowboy makes my list due to his general consistency throughout the year (a 7^th place finish in the Churchill Downs Handicap on Derby day is his only poor race). In the end, Gio Ponti clinched this category with his second to Zenyatta in the Breeders' Cup Classic. During the 2009 season, Gio Ponti racked up wins in the G1-Arlington Million, G1-Manhattan, G1-Man O'War, and the G1-Frank Kilroe Handicap. That's an impressive resume for any horse, whether on turf, dirt, or synthetic.

2009 Older Male Horse: Gio Ponti

Older Female Horse	Record	Trainer	Notes
Zenyatta	5-5-0-0	Shirreffs	Five Grade 1 wins; Won G1-Breeder' Cup Classic

Like Rachel Alexandra in the three-year old filly category, Zenyatta is a lock for champion older female horse.

2009 Older Female Horse: Zenyatta

Sprint	Record	Trainer	Notes
Zensational	7-5-1-0	Baffert	Three Grade 1 wins over synthetic tracks.
Fabulous Strike	5-2-3-0	Beattie	Two G2 wins; 2^nd in G1-Vosburg and G1-Carter
Kodiak Kowboy	8-4-2-1	Asmussen	Won G1-Vosburg and G1-Carter
Informed Decision	7-6-0-1	Sheppard	Three G1 wins; twice beat Ventura; won BC F&M Sprint
Ventura	6-3-3-0	Frankel	Won G1-Woodbine Mile and G1-Santa Monica; 2^nd in BC F&M Sprint

There isn't an Eclipse category for Champion Turf Sprinter so I've included those horses in this analysis. Essentially we've got three different types of horses competing for this category. In the first group we have traditional dirt sprinter that are running in races on the east coast. In the second group we've got California horses running in sprints over the synthetic tracks at Keeneland and southern California. And finally we have a bunch of turf sprinters that have been running all over the country. So how do we pick a champion out of this group?

Since the category is for sprinters, and not restricted to any particular surface designation, my belief is the champion should be the most impressive horse regardless of surface. Zensational was sensational over synthetic tracks but couldn't get it done in the Breeders' Cup. Fabulous Strike was a monster on dirt but only came away with two wins in five tries which doesn't scream "champion" to me. Kodiak Kowboy was solid all year long, including his season ending victory in the G1-Cigar. Ventura, had she been able to win at the Breeders' Cup, would probably have been my choice as I think she was the best sprinter, colt or filly, in North America. Unfortunately for Ventura, she met her match during the Breeders' Cup with Informed Decision. While Informed Decision did most of her work on synthetic tracks (although she did win the G1-Humana Distaff on the Derby undercard), she was consistently the best sprinter in the country. And had it not been for a troubled trip in the G1-Balerina at Saratoga she might have gone seven-for-seven.

2009 Sprint Horse: Informed Decision

Female Sprinter	Record	Trainer	Notes
Informed Decision	7-6-0-1	Sheppard	Three G1 wins; twice beat Ventura (GB); won BC F&M Sprint

Since I believe Informed Decision to be worth of the title of Champion Sprinter (male or female), it goes without saying that she's a slam dunk for the title of female sprinter of the year.

2009 Female Sprint Horse: Informed Decision

Male Turf Horse	Record	Trainer	Notes
Gio Ponti	7-4-2-0	Clement	Four Grade 1 wins on Turf; 2^nd in BC Classic.
Conudit (IRE)	5-2-1-1	Stoute	Won G1-Breeders' Cup Turf.

Conduit (IRE) won this award last year solely off his performance in the Breeders' Cup. And while I don't have a problem giving an award to a horse that only races once in North America during the year (see Female Turf below), I think Gio Ponti's body of work gets him the nod in 2009. As highlighted above, Gio Ponti was the dominate male turf horse in North America this past season, along with the runner-up to Zenyatta in the Breeders' Cup Classic. Had Gio Ponti not been so dominate in his turf race I would be more likely to go in Conduit's direction. But I just can't overlook winning the Arlington Million, Manhattan, Man O'War, and Frank Kilroe all in the same year.

2009 Male Turf Horse: Gio Ponti

Female Turf Horse	Record	Trainer	Notes
Goldikova (IRE)	6-4-0-1	Head	Won second consecutive G1-Breeders' Cup Turf Mile
Ventura	6-3-3-0	Frankel	Won G1-Woodbine Mile and G1-Santa Monica; 2^nd in BC F&M Sprint

I suppose I could have thrown Breeders' Cup Filly and Mare Turf winner Midday (GB) into the mix but I really think this whole category is comes down to the two horses above. Ventura had a spectacular year, highlighted by win over the boys in the G1-Woodbine Mile in her prior Breeders' Cup prep race. She was denied repeat glory on the synthetic in the F&M Sprint but finished off her season with a dominating victory in the Matriarch at Hollywood Park last Saturday. However, I just don't think she did enough to be considered champion female turf horse when compared to Goldikova (IRE).

While Goldikova only ran once in North America this year, there is no doubt in my mind that she was the best female turf runner. Her performance in this year's BC Mile was, like last year, simply breathtaking and dominating. Not only do I think that Goldikova is the best female turf horse to run on this continent this year but I think she was the most talented horse overall. That doesn't mean I think she should be Horse of the Year, far from it. What it means is that I think on a purely raw thoroughbred talent standpoint, Goldikova was the best horse to run in North America this year.

2009 Female Turf Horse: Goldikova (IRE)

Horse of the Year	Record	Trainer	Notes
Rachel Alexandra	8-8-0-0	Asmussen	Won G1-Ky Oak, G1-Preakness, and G1-Haskell
Zenyatta	5-5-0-0	Shirreffs	Won five Grade 1 races including Breeders' Cup Classic

So we finally get to the big one: Horse of the Year. An intensely fierce debate has developed over the past couple of months as to which of these two fantastic fillies deserves the title of Horse of the Year. And I'll continue that debate with a separate post dedicated to this very topic…in the near future.

Vodka noses out Oken Bruce Lee in Japan Cup

2009-11-29T09:28:00.001-08:00

In what will likely be the final race of her career, Vodka (JPN) held on by a sliver of her nostril to edge out Oken Bruce Lee (JPN) to win the 2009 G1-Japan Cup, the world's richest grass race. Vodka stalked a mild pace for much of the early going and then powered into the lead in the middle of the stretch only to see Oken Bruce Lee put forth a serious charge in deep stretch. The Place horse was wiping out Vodka's lead with every stride but needed at least one more jump to get by Japan's 2008 Horse of the Year.

Something that has always struck me as odd is the fact that when you watch international racing you never are given any fractional splits so we never really have any clue as to the pace of the race. Post race usually isn't much better as other countries tend to not produce the kind of detailed results charts that we see in the North America. The official site of Japanese Racing (link), however, did provide a pretty nice breakdown of the pace and internal splits which I've condensed into the table below.

¼	½	¾	Mile	1 ¼	Final
23.2	24.0	24.0	24.1	23.4	23.7
23.2	47.2	1:11.2	1:35.3	1:58.7	2:22.4

The first thing that stands out to me in that chart is the time at the 1 ¼ mark, 1:58.7. The pace, which was fairly strong in the early going but not insane, really picked up at the mile marker. I don't know what Vodka's internal splits were, but considering she was stalking the leaders towards the mile marker and had broken a couple lengths free of the pack by the time they were in the final furlong, it's not a stretch to estimate that she might have run that fifth quarter in sub :23.0. Whatever the actual number is the fact remains is that Vodka came home very quickly and is certainly worthy of Group 1 glory.

Two-time Breeders' Cup Turf winner, Conduit (IRE), finished what can only be described as a disappointing fourth. Rated well back for most of the race he didn't have nearly the closing kick needed to get to the top two and never was a serious threat to win at any point. The three American horses in the race, Just as Well, Intrepatation, and Marsh Side, finished 7^th, 14^th and 17^th, respectively.

The Big A

2009-11-28T14:34:00.001-08:00

While watching the card from Aqueduct this morning I noticed that the fractions for early races on the main track seemed incredibly slow, especially the two year-old races where I generally expect to see a quick early pace. So following the last race I decided to throw a little spread sheet together to see if there was anything that stuck out to me. For comparisons sake, I also took the fractions from last Saturday (11/21) and compared it to today. Both tables are below.

Aqueduct, Saturday, November 28^th:

Race	Type	Length	1/4	1/2	3/4	Mile	Final	Winner
1	Clm15 NY 3up(f)	6.0	:23.23	:47.32			1:12.27	Midpack
2	MdSpWt 2yo	8.0	:23.40	:46.90	1:12.59		1:39.15	Closer
3	MdSpWt 2yo	8.5 (T)	:23.78	:49.55	1:14.82		1:45.92	Midpack
4	AlwOC NY 3up	8.0	:23.87	:47.23	1:12.20		1:37.95	Wire
5	MdSpWt NY 2yo	8.5 (T)	:23.63	:49.72	1:16.18	1:41:15	1:47.20	Closer
6	G2 2yo(f)	9.0	:23.59	:49.35	1:15.11	1:40.48	1:53.09	Stalker
7	G2, 2yo	9.0	:24.01	:48.18	1:13.23	1:39.46	1:52.95	Stalker
8	G1, 3yo(f)	9.0	:24.24	:48.73	1:12.90	1:37.75	1:50.94	Wire
9	G1 Open	8.0	:23.69	:46.80	1:11.54		1:35.57	Stalker
10	Alw Open	8.5 (T)	:24.29	:49.89	1:15.11	1:39.37	1:45.36	Wire

Aqueduct, Saturday, November 21^st:

Race	Type	Length	1/4	1/2	3/4	Mile	Final	Winner
1	Clm22N2L 3up	6.0	:22.89	:46.17			1:10.18	Wire
2	MdSpWt 2yo(f)	6.0	:22.83	:47.07			1:12.04	Stalk
3	MdClm20 NY 3yo	6.5	23.79	:47.40	1:12.66		1:19.45	Stalk
4	MdSpWt NY 3yo	8.0	:23.85	:47.71	1:12.81		1:38.42	Mid/Stalk
5	Clm7500 3up	6.0	:22.75	:46.60			1:12.01	Mid/Stalk
6	MdSpWt 2yo	5.5	:21.75	:45.29			1:04.47	Stalk
7	AlwOCN2X 3up	8.5	:25.60	:52.58	1:18.15	1:42.65	1:48.76	Midpack
8	G3 3yo	9.0	:24.25	:48.84	1:13.46	1:37.51	1:50.10	Stalk
9	MdSpWt	8.0 (T)	:25.04	:50.67	1:16.26		1:40.34	Wire

These two days from Aqueduct are a prime example of the usefulness of speed figures in order to compare the relative speed of a track surface on a given day. Last Saturday (11/21), Aqueduct sent forth a card comprising almost entirely of sprint races while today there was only a single race carded at less than a mile. The fractions on the 21^st were, across the board, much quicker with several races coming up with sub :23.0 opening quarters. Today? Nothing under :23.0 for the opening quarter with half mile times generally in the :47 to :48 range. And while we can attribute some of that discrepancy to the different types of races (sprint vs. route) there still seems to be a general slowness to the times today. Also throw in the fact that the quality of racing today was much higher than last Saturday (four graded stakes and only one claiming race).

I don't follow Aqueduct on a daily basis which was the reason I initially started to perform this analysis - because to my eyes watching the races live I thought that the track was playing slow but I didn't know "how" slow. At a minimum, I now know that today was a much slower day than last Saturday.

Another thought about today's Aqueduct surface: when I initially saw the slow splits the first question that popped into my head was "is this track tiring or just slow?" That's generally a question that you have to wait until some races have been run in order to answer. Had I seen race after race with slow fractions combined with winning closers I would have come to the conclusion that the track was tiring. But look at the winner's running style today on the main track as indicated in the last column; we saw all types of winners at the Big A – front runners, stalkers, closers and midpack runners. If anything, the track seemed to play fair, even though the times were slow. On the other hand, last Saturday almost all the winners up close early without even a sniff of a true closer. (And if you dig into the results charts you'll see that deep closers weren't even getting up for the minor prizes, either.)

The determination as to whether a track is slow or tiring is an important distinction; an adept handicapper that can correctly identify a tiring surface will likely end up going home with a lot of green in his wallet.

Goldikova Returns

2009-11-23T15:08:00.001-08:00

According to the Daily Racing Form, two-time Breeders' Cup Mile winner, Goldikova (IRE), will remain in training in an attempt to win the Mile for the third consecutive time next fall at Churchill Downs.

This should come as welcome news for all the people that can't stand to see horses retire early and rushed off to the breeding shed.

In my opinion, Goldikova has been the most impressive winner at the Breeders' Cup the last two years running, bar none. This year's effort was spectacular as she simply toyed with a field full of colts as they came down the stretch. What's even more impressive about this filly is the apparent ease that she dominates these fields. Like many great thoroughbreds before her, Goldikova has such a smooth running style that it appears that she is gliding along the turf as if skating over a pond of ice, while her competitors flail helplessly in the mud. It's not often we get to see such greatness from a single horse that isn't hastily sent off to the farm in order to make their owners millions of dollars in breeding fees. And for that reason, I say "kudos" to her connections for their competitive and sporting spirit.

The Calm before the Storm

2009-11-22T11:01:00.001-08:00

Those post-Breeders' Cup blues, that dead-time of horse racing between the conclusion of the championships and the beginning of the race for the Triple Crown. Next weekend there is stakes loaded card at Aqueduct, featuring the Cigar Mile and the Remsen, but after that the calendar is fairly sparse over the next six weeks. Below are the final Grade 1 races for 2009:

Date	Race
Nov. 27^th	G1-Citation (Hollywood)
Nov. 28^th	G1-Cigar Mile (Aqueduct)
	G1-Gazelle (Aqueduct)
	G1-Matriarch (Hollywood) [Ventura's* final start]*
Nov. 29^th	G1-Hollywood Derby (Hollywood)
Dec. 19^th	G1-Cash Call Futurity (Hollywood)
Dec. 20^th	G1-Hollywood Starlet (Hollywood)

From there it's a whole lot of nothing until January 1^st when Gulfstream and Santa Anita open back up and the Triple Crown prep races slowly begin to heat up.

January 1^st is also opening day for what I think is one of the best kept secrets in handicapping, Tampa Bay Downs. It's a great secret in handicapping because of the large and competitive Maiden Special Weight fields that are routinely carded at the track. I you like to play races with a great deal of pedigree and trainer angles, then Tampa Bay Downs is right up your alley. For me, I love their Maiden Special Weight turf races, of which there seems to be at least one a day. It's not top level racing but the large fields generate solid prices if you can ferret out some mid and long shot winners. And it's a great track to hold me over until Keeneland kicks off in April.

Another small track that offers some great value for the horseplayer is Sam Houston Park in Houston, Texas. Sam Houston offers a 12% takeout on all Pick 3 wages, one of the lowest takes you'll find at any track in the country. The Pick 4, unfortunately, is offered at an awful 25% take, but with a 12% Pick 3 why would anyone play the Pick 4?

Studs of the Studs

Birdstone has received the bulk of the breeding shed attention this year after siring both the Derby and the Belmont winner, but it's Medaglia d'Oro (sire of Rachel Alexandra) that leads the pack of second crop sires with 58 winners to Birdstone's 27. Some other breeding notes:

The Top 5 first crop sires for 2009 are Offlee Wild, Roman Ruler, Pollard's Vision, Kitten's Joy, and Wildcat Heir. Kitten's Joy, in particular, was well represented at this year's Breeders' Cup with five juvenile pre-entries, all of whom were owned by Ken and Sarah Ramsey.
I think it's fair to say that former Derby winner Smarty Jones has been a little bit of a disappointment at stud. He sired the winner of this year's G2-Samford at Saratoga, Backtalk, but other than that it was a fairly quiet year in terms of stakes winners. Smarty Jones ranks 16^th on the list of second crop sires, just ahead of Pleasantly Perfect.
Looking at the synthetic sire lists it should surprise no one that Zenyatta's sire, Street Cry (IRE), sits atop of the standings. What might surprise you is the #2 synthetics sire of 2009: Smart Strike, the sire of 2007 & 2008 Horse of the Year Curlin. Yep, the same Curlin that was defeated in the 2008 Breeders' Cup Classic over, tah dah, a synthetic track. All horses are different, even those from the same bloodlines, so we can't say that all Smart Strike horses will love synthetic tracks. But I do find it somewhat ironic that Curlin's connections essentially blamed his loss in the Classic on the Santa Anita ProRide surface when his sire is one of the top synthetic sires in America. And while this is far from "conclusive evidence" that Curlin's loss wasn't due to the track, I think it does add weight to the assertion that he simply wasn't the best that day regardless of surface. For comparisons sake, Smart Strike was the 9^th ranked synthetic sire in 2008 and the 14^th in 2007. At a minimum, there doesn't seem to be any evidence that Smart Strike's prodigy hate running on synthetics. He also ranked #8 among turf sires.
Giant's Causeway ascended to the top of the sire charts in 2009, with earnings of $10.5 million from 143 winners (including 12 Graded Stakes winners). Northern Afleet (sire of former Preakness and Belmont winner, Afleet Alex) sired 147 winners.

Reviewing the 2009 Breeders’ Cup (Saturday Card)

2009-11-20T11:53:00.001-08:00

Juvenile Turf	Horse	Odds	Trainer	Jockey
Winner	Pounced	5/2	Gosden	Dettori
Post Favorite	Pounced	5/2	Gosden	Dettori
ML Favorite	Interactif	4/1	Pletcher	Desormeaux

Lessons Learned: When looking at European horses in the Breeders' Cup I think it is always important to look at how much running the horse has done during the season. If you see a horse that has had a long, grueling campaign, and then ships over the US, you might be looking at a horse that is over-the-top regardless of how accomplished that horse may be. On the other hand, when you see something like Pounced, a lightly-race, group-placed horse, you go running to the windows and bet with both hands. In that same light, I think Viscount Nelson was also a good play in this spot, although he broke very slowly and then failed to fire coming off the turn. The beaten Morning Line favorite, Interactif, ran a solid race but just didn't have enough to get to the winner.

Turf Sprint	Horse	Odds	Trainer	Jockey
Winner	California Flag	7/2	Koriner	Talamo
Post Favorite	California Flag	7/2	Koriner	Talamo
ML Favorite	California Flag	7/2	Koriner	Talamo

Lessons Learned: Nothing too earth shattering to learn from this race; California Flag is a horse that has dominated over the Santa Anita downhill turf course and once he and Joe Talamo broke free and clear in the first quarter the race was efffectively over. The winner went :21 and 2 for the opening quarter and had plenty left in the tank to hold off the closing duo of Gotta Have Her and Cannonball. The second, third, and fourth place finishers all came home faster than California Flag, but just like the F&M Sprint, the early speed was impossible to catch.

Sprint	Horse	Odds	Trainer	Jockey
Winner	Dancing in Silks	25/1	Gaines	Rosario
Post Favorite	Zensational	2/1	Baffert	Espinoza
ML Favorite	Zensational	9/5	Baffert	Espinoza

Lessons Learned: The sprint races at this Breeders' Cup were just stacked with California horses that had been running over the Santa Anita track during the whole season and, as a result, race after race they dominated the competition. There were nine horses drawn in the Sprint, four of which made their final prep race at Santa Anita – those four horses ran 1-2-3-4. All one had to do was a four-horse Superfecta box of all horses making their final prep in California and you would have walked away from this race with $7,651.00. Seems so easy in hindsight, doesn't it? A four-horse Superfecta box would have cost $24 and paid out at odds of 319/1. Not bad…not bad at all.

Juvenile	Horse	Odds	Trainer	Jockey
Winner	Vale of York (IRE)	30/1	bin Suroor	Ajtebi
Post Favorite	Lookin at Lucky	2/1	Baffert	Gomez
ML Favorite	Lookin at Lucky	8/5	Baffert	Gomez

Lessons Learned: I was watching the odds boards prior to the running of the Juvenile and noticed the ridiculously large numbers next to the name Vale of York (IRE). Now, Vale of York wasn't a standout on paper, but he was a legitimate contender. His last race prior to the Breeders' Cup was the G1-Gran Criterium at San Siro in Italy. He finished second by a neck with a Racing Post Rating of 111. The race previous to that he finished 3^rd at the G2- Royal Lodge Stakes at Ascot and earned a 110 RPR. Those are two very solid races even if they weren't victories. How does Radiohead (GB) go off at 10/1 while Vale of York is left at 30/1? This is a perfect example of the American betting public not knowing what to do with many of the European entries when we should respect any runner that is fresh and has run well in Group company.

Looking at another Eruo, Beethoven (IRE), I go back to my comment above on the first race: Euros that have gone through a long, hard campaign are a dangerous bet. For Beethoven, the Breeders' Cup was his eleventh start of the year. Eleven! It wasn't surprising this horse had nothing left in the tank, yet he went off at odds of 14/1, almost half that of the winner.

Turf Mile	Horse	Odds	Trainer	Jockey
Winner	Goldikova (IRE)	7/5	Head	Peslier
Post Favorite	Goldikova (IRE)	7/5	Head	Peslier
ML Favorite	Goldikova (IRE)	8/5	Head	Peslier

Lessons Learned: Goldikova (IRE) is just a phenomenal filly with push-button acceleration that only the truly great horses have. But beyond her physical strengths she's a mentally tough runner, as well. The great horses know how to win and they understand what the job is all about. Watching Goldikova's victory in the Mile I was reminded of Ouija Board's victory in the 2006 Filly and Mare Turf. Like Ouija Board, Goldikova tucks in along the rail, waits paitently for a signal from her rider, and then explodes when she sees daylight. In this year's Mile, as she was making her run down the lane, she had to slightly switch out and regain momentum after Courageous Cat bore out slightly. Not a lot of horses can make that move: make a runm break momentum, switch out, and then come again.

How good was Goldikova's closing kick? She ran the final half mile of the race in a little over :43 seconds. Only one other horse in the field was able to duplicate that effort, Justenuffhumur, the show horse. Needless to say, I'll be waiting patiently to see where that colt turns up next. And about that last half mile...watch in the video as she loses momemtum in the stretch and then ramps it up again. If she had a clean trip down the stretch she would have probably run the final half mile in under :43 seconds. Truly brilliant.

Dirt Mile	Horse	Odds	Trainer	Jockey
Winner	Furthest Land	21/1	Maker	Leparoux
Post Favorite	Mastercraftsman (IRE)	7/5	O'Brien	Murtagh
ML Favorite	Mastercraftsman (IRE)	6/5	O'Brien	Murtagh

Lessons Learned: If you were looking to learn something from the Dirt Mile it really should have been this: Rip Van Winkle (IRE) was going to be a bad play in the Classic. After what happened in 2008, players were going to be scrutinizing any Euro entered on the "main" track in order not to let another Raven's Pass slip by. Rip Van Winkle appeared on paper to be the most likely winner from across the pond, and why? Because he had been running close to Arc winner Sea the Stars on multiple occasions. Mastercraftsman (IRE) had a similar profile to that of Rip Van Winkle, finishing 3^rd and 2^nd to the Arc winner earlier in the fall. Those performances made a lot of people, including me, believe he was an absolute standout in a field of so-so American milers. But once the Dirt Mile was over you had to start questioning the strength of the Euros in the Classic – perhaps this group of contenders wasn't as strong as last year's? Mastercraftsman hadn't had a particularly long campaign (only six races going in) so fitness shouldn't have been an issue. But while he looked great on paper he was, at best, flat on the track and never seriously threatened the winners.

As for the winner, Furthest Land, well, here's a race I could have handicapped for a year and probably never have come up with that horse. Furthest Land ran in the Claiming Crown at Canterbury two races back…I'm shocked he wasn't 30/1 or higher on the board. Sometimes you just don't have a clue and all you can do is move on to the next race.

Turf	Horse	Odds	Trainer	Jockey
Winner	Conduit (IRE)	4/5	Stoute	Moore
Post Favorite	Conduit (IRE)	4/5	Stoute	Moore
ML Favorite	Conduit (IRE)	6/5	Stoute	Moore

Lessons Learned: This is generally my favorite race of the Breeders' Cup but the last two years it's lost something due to many of the top Euros taking a shot at the Classic and the synthetic surface. Presious Passion was clearly the lone speed heading into a race full of closers and if it wasn't for the :21 flat second quarter (after a :23 flat first quarter) he might have had enough in the tank to hold off Conduit (IRE) for a big upset. Ultimately, the jockey just couldn't 'get Presious Passion to conserve enough energy to wire the field but it was an terrific effort by this six year-old gelding in his 42^nd career start.

Classic	Horse	Odds	Trainer	Jockey
Winner	Zenyatta	5/2	Shirreffs	Smith
Post Favorite	Zenyatta	5/2	Shirreffs	Smith
ML Favorite	Zenyatta	5/2	Shirreffs	Smith

Lessons Learned: After witnessing the lackluster performance of Mastercraftsmanin the Dirt Mile, it appeared to me that Twice Over (GB) was the top European horse in this field, even thought I thought Rip Van Winkle was the fresher of the two horses. I figured that Twice Over's tactical speed would be an asset in a race that looked like it was going to set up well for those near the lead. However, when the race finally went off it set up much better for closers than I had originally thought it would. The horses that were 1-2-3-4 at the ¾ pole ended up finishing 8-10-5-11, with Einstein (BRZ), one of my top picks, beating only one horse in the twelve horse field. In the end it really didn't matter how any of the rest of the field ran because the winner, Zenyatta, was truly the best of the lot. Encountering a deep field and some moderate traffic problems in the stretch, Zenyatta overcame it all to power past the entire field and capture the Classic. Her final two quarter mile splits were :23.89 and :23.30, which means she ran the final ½ mile faster than the front runners ran the first ½ mile. That's an impressive feat in a deep, competitive, Grade 1 race at a mile and a quarter.

I'll leave the Rachel Alexandra/Zenyatta debate for another post, for right now I'll just say that Zenyatta proved her worth as a champion in the Classic.