Day 68

THREE WINS!

Proven Handicapping Adage Leads To Price Play WINNER

For the second consecutive day I scored multiple wins and a solid profit.  And the excellent day at the races was topped with an exciting win by our Florida Panthers at the arena.  The best story of the day came in the first bet of the day.  When I handicapped this Thursday card and came to the second, it appeared at first glance that Bellamy Chief was a standout.  The race was a six furlong, non-winners of two lifetime claiming sprint.  The 'Chief was dropping in class after showing early speed against better, and appeared to be an example of the proven "early speed, class drop" angle.  But the closer I looked at his record, the less I liked him.  Check out his most recent past performances........

See the pattern?  No matter what the race conditions or distance, he quits.  Many years ago when I was first starting to learn this great game and how to handicap my best friend and racing buddy Keith Moran was preparing to move back to Illinois.  Kim and I asked him over for dinner and afterwards I had him sit down with me at the kitchen table and share his most proven handicapping angles and lessons.  One of the things I have always remembered that he told me was this, "...a quitter, is a quitter.......is a quitter."  Bellamy Chief looked like the proverbial quitter to me.  You COULD make the excuse that his last two were at the wrong distance and he'd appreciate the cut back to six furlongs.  But I thought that if he faced true sprint speed early he would cave yet again today.  And as I looked over the field, there was the win candidate...the inside speed in #2-Torrid Heat.  This guy was turning back from a turf sprint where the early pace is always much faster than a dirt sprint.  He'd worked well on the main track, AND the barn was winning with 50% of their surface changing runners (albeit with a limited number of starters) at a big $4.01 ROI.  The way I saw the race was Torrid Heat outrunning Bellamy Chief, who would press and then quit, yet again.  I also saw the plummet in class from $35K to $12.5K as a red flag.  As I watched the live broadcast from Gulfstream, both Ron Nicoletti and Christina Bossanakis extolled the virtues of Bellamy Chief and just saw no way he could lose today.  Not so fast my handicapping friends!  Sure enough, the gates opened and quickly Torrid Heat was in front.  Cruising through the turn in a sharp half mile of :45.3.  Bellamy Chief was sitting third and made his move.  As heads turned for home he collared Torrid Heat, and they dueled for a 16th of a mile.  But as they passed the final pole, the quitter came out in Bellamy Chief and Torrid Heat drew clear to WIN!  WHOOOO HOOOOO! 

The payoff was a generous $9.40 and I cashed for well over $20!  I picked up my phone and immediately texted Keith how I had just scored with a nice priced winner and it all traced back to him.  In the fourth Tightly Bridled was bet down from 9/2 to 9/5 and set the pace into the stretch where he gave it up without a fight to finish a well beaten third.  In the fifth Todd Pletcher's Gemonade ran as I expected - evenly.  But as I wrote, I couldn't let him win at a fair price without a bet.  In the seventh we were travelling a marathon mile and three-sixteenths on theturf and everyone seemed to settle on Magic of Reality who had bested several of these earlier in the meet at this distance.  But I had my eyes on a Chad Brown filly.  Hellenistic was listed at 9/2 in the program and I wrote that even at 3/1 this would be a huge overlay.  She had raced in her native Ireland until her most recent where she was put in Grade 3 company.  The edge in class that Euros hold over their North American counterparts made her a "BIG TIME" play here.  She was my "BEST" of the day.  She sat near the back through the first two turns and as they approached the far turn top rider Javier Castellano gave her the cue.  She began picking off horses one-by-one as she circled the field.  She was some five wide into the lane as she continued to surge to the front and within a couple of jumps on the straight-away she was in front where she set sail for the wire.  A couple of closers were making up ground slowly, but she easily held them off while SETTING A NEW COURSE RECORD for the distance! 

Best of all the crowd had let her go at a big 5/2 so I was cashing in for well over $50 and my day was made!  WHOOOO HOOOOO!  Right back in the 7th with Todd Pletcher's Escondido on the turf.  As I wrote in my analysis, I would not have been at all surprised if he didn't win here, but in this case it was the one Gulfstream Park 40% Club angle for which Pletcher qualifies for this season.  Here's the story.....Three pack Escondido won his MSW sophomore debut, no surprise.  Off that he tried entry level allowance runners and was fifth.  He came back in his most recent in a starter-optional claimer like this and won.  Normally Pletcher runners do not run at this kind of class level, and when they do they either don't win or are claimed away.  And in a race like this where I thought the favorite was good enough to win, but I couldn't find a way to beat him with questions about his ability to repeat I would pass the race.  But over the last two winters Pletcher has been scoring at well over 40% with any runner he enters for less than a $40K claiming tag.  Unusual considering the stock he usually runs here, but with today's tag being $25K, it was a "Club Play."  I doubled the bet.  As they turned for home Escondido moved off the rail where he'd tracked the leaders in third, and surged between horses to take the lead.  He was clear by daylight with a furlong to go, but then here came the late running Ramsey colt, Seventhfleethumor, my second choice.  He kept closing ground while Escondido was desperately reaching for the wire.......PHOTO FINISH!  I felt pretty confident I'd won and though the official slow-motion replay was still inconclusive, I felt I had the winner.  Close, but indeed, my third win of the day!  HORRAY! 

I had doubled the bet so the more than $20 I collected just added to the profit for the day!  In a side note, as I watched the races today I began working on my Florida Derby program - a little over two weeks before the signature day!