Day 13

Close Out A BIG Weekend!

40% WINS Today

I tried to be a little more selective with my races today, but I still ended up with five solid plays.  We have had a great time on the cruise, and the best part for Kim is that when we arrive in Ft. Lauderdale early tomorrow morning it will be the first day of her Christmas Holiday break from school!  I was hoping that our Formal Night photo, taken between two Christmas trees would turn out well, and indeed it did!  The final night's dinner was steak and the live performance was excellent.  I was little skeptical with the Caribbean Princess cast back on stage, but tonight they were top notch! 

The racing today...... I was second in the opener at 8/5, with a minimum investment.  Then a disappointing third at even money in the fifth.  But the sixth was a very interesting race.  On Thursday's card I had named Todd Pletcher's Race Day as a top pick, but he scratched.  On Friday I had really liked Kings Over from the Peter Walder barn, but he too scratched.  Now, here on Sunday in the sixth they BOTH were back in the starting gate.  To make it even more interesting, Race Day had been originally scheduled in a 3-other-than allowance on the turf, a surface he'd never tried.  Today he was DROPPING into an AOC non-winners-of-two, back on the dirt at a one turn mile.  Conversely, Kings Over had looked like an easy winner on Friday for a $30K claimer, but today was in for double the price, $62.5K.  So, take the Pletcher class dropper going back to a better surface or do you like the confidence Walder has in scratching out of what looked like a much sweeter spot for this one?  I went with Pletcher, obviously.  On the far turn a seam opened up inside and he burst through under a hand ride and drew off by TWELVE!  Better yet, somehow the crowd let him go off at more than 2/1. 

And even better yet, when I wrote the results down I listed the winnings at $32 for a double bet.....but when  was doing my final calculations I noticed I had TRIPLED the bet so instead I was going to get nearly $50!  OUTSTANDING!  In the eighth it was a maiden special for two-year-olds.  You know the drill, where's the Pletcher runner?  There he is, in post five, Resilient One.  I often struggle with these five-furlong turf sprints, but it was easier when considering Resilient One had been a best-of-the-rest second in her turf debut, and then was third in an off-the-turf event.  Both Beyers (72 and 70) towered over all the figures earned by the maidens who had raced; in fact the top BSF in the field was in the mid-60s; another around 60; and the rest all in the 50 or lower range.  Unless one of the first time starters jumped up (and none of the stats, or workouts indicated this would happen) then Resilient One was clearly the one to beat.  John Velazquez had her sitting mid-pack until heads turned for home.  Then he split horses, moved into the clear on the outside and it was GOODBYE to the field! 

For the day I finished 5/2-1-2 and made money again, topping a weekend that saw my final numbers stand at:

6-for-13 .... Profit = $82

It was an excellent weekend of cruising and racing.  As an added bonus on the cruise Kim and I had enjoyed some "binge TV watching."  We'd found the series "Longmire" this summer and watched three seasons of episodes.  When the "finale" was a cliffhanger and there were no more episodes on Netflix we went searching and found them on the iTunes store.  So we downloaded them, ten episodes, and saved them for the late-evenings on the cruise.  I brought along the HDMI cable and we were able to hook the iPad to the flat-screen TV!  Loved watching those as an added treat to our trip!  Check out the week's highlights......