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My Picks for the Suburban and Belmont Derby Races

This is a good week to be a horse racing fan. If I’m with the right crowd and 5/8ths of the way to being completely drunk I’ll usually lament the carding of sprints and wax philosophical about how the game was meant to be run at the classic distance of a mile and a quarter, so, needless to say I am pretty excited for the Suburban and the Belmont Derby. Both of these races feature some of the best 10-furlong horses in the country.

I won’t get into the Elmont Derby too much except to say that it will take a lot to beat Adelaide. I always give the Europeans a half a grade bump when comparing their races to American races. This means that a Group 2 is a Grade 1.5 – classier than an American Grade Two but not quite as good as an American Grade One. Adelaide has run with some of the best in Europe and the American contingent isn’t at its best this year. Yes, Bobby’s Kitten is the real deal, but he’s no Wise Dan, especially at ten furlongs. As long as Adelaide ships well he should find this distance within his reach. I would like actual raw times for the last 600 meters, but those figures are not accessible. Still, on video his last 600 meters look significantly better than anyone else does in this field.

The Suburban looks like the race that is more up for grabs. In the Suburban, we basically have a couple of horses who are stepping up in class versus some really classy horses who have fallen on hard times.

This is one of those races where I think tactical speed helps. Yes, there have been plenty of horses who have pressed the pace in the Suburban and faltered, but those horses were milers and shouldn’t have entered the Suburban to begin with. Now, when there is a horse that has tactical speed and can get the distance, he tends to win pretty easily. This is why I like Last Gunfighter and Norumbega. I think they’ll stay close to whomever gets the lead, press that horse into an honest pace and then battle one another throughout the stretch. When combing several TA metrics and weighing them how I thought best, Last Gunfighter and Norumbega both really stood out. Once again, they aren’t the most talented horses in the race, they just fit this track and pace scenario better than the other runners. I also like Mylute, but coming from ten lengths off to win the Suburban just isn’t going to happen. I do think Mylute is a great horse to pick up the pieces though.

WIN: Last Gunfighter

PLACE: Norumbega

SHOW: Mylute

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Sprint Handicapping for Beginners

I like looking at historical data and seeing if any trends have emerged. As you can probably tell, sometimes I overthink a race, but I’ve always believed that eight out of ten times historical data and trends will help you to better handicap a race than you could have otherwise. I like seeing anything that I enjoy being done to be done at its best. I play a ton of six-furlong dirt races, so naturally I like the Breeder’s Cup Sprint. As much as this may surprise some, the historical trends of the BC Sprint actually are relevant to six furlong races run across the country regardless of class. Let’s take a quick look at the race and see what it can teach us about sprints in general.

In the past 15 runnings of the race, stalkers have won more than half of the runnings of this race.

Running Style	Number of Wins
Frontrunner	4
Stalker	8
Closer	3
Deep Closer	0

This may not surprise veteran horseplayers, but the art of knowing how to rate is as important in a sprint as it is in a route. What does not show up in this data is that of the four frontrunners who won, three enjoyed some type of speed bias that day. This means that on an average day at the track, regardless of how the pace scenario looks on paper, you would be better off playing the confirmed stalker.

One thing that I love to do when playing sprints is breakdown the horses by running type and play the stalker with the highest TA Indicator, even if a frontrunner has the highest overall TA Indicator. This will all become irrelevant once we launch our pace projector, but for now you as a handicapper must do a little extra homework when handicapping sprints.

As far as post position is concerned, there isn’t a significant anti-rail bias. Most jockeys are savvy enough to know that if they draw the rail they need to gun their horse or take all the way back and so post position one isn’t great, but isn’t nearly as bad as everyone thinks it is. Surprisingly, anything further than post 11 is pretty bad due to the fact that you will get hung out wide. The best thing to do is if you see a horse that draws one of these posts, subtract four points from its TA Indicator. Do not add any points to horses who drew post positions 1 through 11 as there isn’t a huge advantage one way or another.

Breeding is a tough angle. As California Chrome has shown us, horses don’t know and don’t care who their parents are. This is why I traditionally have not been the biggest pedigree handicapper. However, there are certain sires that are worth looking into. They are the usual suspects like Speightstown and Teuflesberg. I will be getting into pedigree handicapping in next week’s post, so I don’t want to go overboard here. The main takeaway is that you should be prepared to forget a horse’s pedigree if he is showing you that he wants to outrun it.

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What Makes a Handicapper Great?

We often talk about training angles, jockey switches, speed figure analysis, how to adjust the TA Indicator to pick better long shots, but we never actually talk about what makes a handicapper great.

I have been around a ton of handicappers in my life and learned a lot from each of them. The thing I have taken away is that some are better than others and it’s because of four factors-three of which are mainly a function of personality. The four traits are non negotiable and are as central to being a great handicapper as bravery is to being a firefighter.

Great handicappers have no preconceived notions of anything

Did you pick California Chrome? Let’s be honest and say you probably didn’t. The funny thing is that if you didn’t know who his parents were, you probably would’ve picked him. Let’s break this down; in terms of natural talent, Hoppertunity was one of the best horses in this three-year old crop and Chrome made him look like an amateur. Chrome also had the only consistently high speed figures in the entire group – he was the logical pick, but we had all seen this story before and thought Chrome’s bargain basement breeding would catch up to him – well it didn’t

Great handicappers are neither optimists nor pessimists

This is where the cream starts to rise to the top. You must understand that most people truly are one or the other. There are very few people who wave the colors of neutrality when it comes to this crucial personality trait, but the great handicappers I know all do. They take calculated risks, but they aren’t overly confident nor are they downtrodden for no apparent reason. The fact that they are neither optimists nor pessimists can be summed up in the types of plays they make. If they are on a win streak and there is an evenly matched 14 horse race they will not play it. However, if they are on a win streak and there is a 14 horse race with a 10-1 shot who should be 4-1 they will play that race for sure. They don’t comply with the arbitrary rules of most pessimist handicappers and the pick 6 obsessions of optimistic handicappers. They are even keel.

Great handicappers are very intuitive

Let’s go back to the triple crown once more. Most of the great handicappers I know saw similarities between California Chrome and Sunday Silence. They picked up on his grittiness and heart. They saw that his tactical speed would translate and that he doesn’t have an Easy Goer to contend with. They know without knowing.

Great handicappers all wanted to be horseman

Okay this one sounds weird, but is the truest of them all. Every great handicapper secretly wants to be Nick Zito or Graham Motion. They love discussing workouts and are usually more well versed on the subject than the general handicapping population. It’s the art of getting a horse to the race that excites them the most. The betting is just part of the journey. They really shine when it comes to horses off of layoffs. They always seem to know whether the horse is being brought back as a tuneup and hence the current race is a throwaway, or if the horse is fully cranked up. They realize that workout times don’t matter and can tell how much effort each horse has put out. They have studied training patterns so well that they know what works for a particular type of distance and what doesn’t. When you talk to great handicappers, you see the race through the eyes of a horseman. The five horse has a limited worktab because he’s old and needs rest more than a 6 furlong bullet work. The four horse is working in company because he doesn’t have a sense of competitiveness and needs to develop one. Teuflesberg will beat Stormello because Teuflesberg is being taught how to rate and Stormello isn’t. You start to see what an advantage you would have in handicapping if you saw the race the way a Zito or a Motion does.

So, there you have it. These are the four things all those guys cleaning up have in common. You may think you have some of these traits, but I guarantee you that if you work on becoming well-versed in all of them you will have a positive ROI at the track.

I love talking about great handicappers, so feel free to shoot me an e-mail or a private message on Twitter if you want to discuss this further.

Thoroughbred Analytics

California Chrome and the Angry Rant

Every now and again something happens in the world of thoroughbred racing and you are pretty much forced to comment on it. If you are a fan of racing- wait, scratch that, if you are a fan of the triple crown- wait, if you have a pulse you probably heard California Chrome’s owner Steve Coburn go on an angry tirade about how there will never be a Triple Crown winner if racing keeps allowing horses who did not compete in the Derby and Preakness to compete in the Belmont Stakes.

The racing world ripped Coburn to shreds. People in the racing business who I have never seen agree on anything agreed that Coburn was an embarrassment to the game. The interesting thing about the barrage of arrows people in the industry threw at him was the implication that what he said made absolutely no sense. While I do agree that his idea has some severe flaws, the interesting thing is that there are kernels of wisdom to his passionate and desperate plea for help from the racing establishment.

Thoroughbred Racing needs a feel good story

I don’t have to tell you that the average attendance at Thoroughbred racetracks in North America has fallen every single decade since the 70’s. I also don’t have to tell you that most people see this sport as some sick barbaric joke. So, didn’t you find it odd that 103,000 people attended? That is how much the Triple Crown resonates with America. There is something about the quest for greatness that we cannot get enough of. While a Triple Crown would not have saved the industry, it certainly would have provided a feel good story for the next few months.

The pace scenario will always go against the Triple Crown hopeful

I am a pretty great guy if I do say so myself, but even I would press a Triple Crown hopeful throughout a race in order to sabotage his chances. While there is nothing wrong with this practice, it does mean that the next horse that goes for the Triple Crown is incredibly vulnerable even if the horses he is racing against are tired themselves, and if they are not; well that brings us to our next point.

Great trainers know how to get horses to peak

This is the point that I think Coburn really was trying to make, but couldn’t find the words. While most people lament the decline of the American thoroughbred, what they are really getting at is the American thoroughbred can no longer reproduce his best speed figure. Look at most stakes winners and their best speed figures in a given year. Look at how much their best effort usually is when compared to any other effort that year. More importantly, look at horses that have run in all three legs of the Triple Crown. The standard deviation for all three Triple Crown races Monarchos ran was 5.69, the standard deviation for Point Given was 8.54, the standard deviation for California Chrome’s epic run was 2.0, which means that unlike many other great horses he showed up and was consistent each time. Now, you may think that I cherry picked horses with high standard deviations in order to make Chrome look good. My answer to you is that you can pick any horse you want, only Afleet Alex Silver Charm and Real Quiet will come close to matching Chrome’s consistency. This means that horses have to bounce at some point, and a new shooter with a modicum of talent will always be able to cash in. Horse racing is a game of loopholes, angles and opportunities.

The Three Possible Chrome Killers

I have always believed that the Belmont Stakes is the most honest of the Triple Crown races. It is just a dogfight that is usually won by a horse that has an incredibly high threshold for pain and halfway decent breeding. The best examples of this were Drosselmeyer and Sarava, they both possessed the turn of foot of a claimer with the pain threshold of a champion. After analyzing the field, three horses seem to be cut from the same cloth as Sarava and Drosselmeyer. These three are the most dangerous horses in the field, and Espinoza must keep an eye out for them turning for home. Let’s look at each of the three, and how he will plan to attack the fearless California bred in the Belmont.

Commissioner:

His plan of attack: His connections have realized that he does his best work three to four lengths off the lead. Look for him to stick to this plan and even put some pressure on Chrome at the three-eighths pole to thwart Chrome’s chances at a triple crown.

How effective will it be: This all depends on how fast they are going up front. I honestly believe that Commisioner will not get sent to the lead no matter how slow they go. If they get a slow pace, it will only make it tougher for Chrome to out kick Commissioner, so if you’re a fan of this horse hope for 3/4ths in 1:12 and 3 so that Commissioner has something to run at.

Wicked Strong:

His plan of attack: Despite all the misfortune in the derby, Rajiv Maragh is high on this horse and he has reason to be, the horse will get the distance. Maragh knows that this horse could be another Birdstone, so don’t be shocked to see him take Wicked Strong 12-15 lengths off the pace early and make the one sustained run he knows this horse is capable of making. I have said time and again that Wicked Strong’s breeding screams distance and I still stand by that. Espinoza knows that this is one horse that will give Chrome and him all they can handle. If Chrome wants to be a Triple Crown champion, he better be able to get that last quarter in 26 seconds flat; anything less will not be good enough to hold off Wicked Strong.

How effective will it be: So, Rajiv wants to pull a Birdstone. Well, the reason Smarty lost to Birdstone was due to the fact he ran a terrible race strategically speaking. He was on the bit from the moment the race started and ran the first 10 furlongs in 2:00.5 seconds! Hopefully Chrome will do no such thing. If Rajiv and Wicked Strong want to win this, they will have to just outkick Chrome the old fashioned way.

General A Rod:

His plan of attack: Speed! Kill them with tactical speed. He’ll try to lull everyone into a deep sleep and steal the race in the final quarter of a mile. If the first six furlongs go any faster than 1:13.0 he doesn’t stand a chance.

How effective will it be: Surprisingly, speed can carry at Belmont. There has been a bit of a speed bias at the track and most of these jockey’s aren’t the type to push horses they already know cannot get the distance in the first place. I don’t see General A Rod as the winner, but he’s one of the more intriguing prospects in the field. Ultimately, Chrome will not go down without a fight. How you play this race depends on how fast you think they’ll go early on. The key to remember is that these four horses all have what it takes to win.