Race 6 - The Cecil B DeMille - # 10 Dressed in Hermes (Final Odds 3.70*) - "A" Selection
Race 7 - # 11 Arabian Legend (7.50) - No Selection
Race 8 - The Matriarch - # 10 Stormy Lucy (65.40) - No Selection
Race 9 - # 2 Uncle Lino (7.50) - "B" Selection
We dodged a bullet in the opening leg when Dressed in Hermes came on late to pass # 2 Collected (8.90) in the stretch, as Collected was a runner who most certainly should have been on our tickets but wasn't. Collected had won his debut effort charging down the Santa Anita hill last time out without ever having been more than a half length away from the lead. Such a strong effort should have merited Collected consideration by us, and we were fortunate that he came up second best.
Should we have used Race 7 winner Arabian Legend on our tickets? Well, hindsight being twenty / twenty the answer is of course; he won. But pre-race it was a legitimate question as to whether or not the improvement Arabian Legend showed in his last race was due to the switch to the turf; which, as a son of Scat Daddy, is where you would expect Arabian Legend to succeed. Still, the bullet work over the Santa Anita main track on 11/20 (where Arabian Legend covered four furlongs in forty-six and two fifths seconds) should have alerted us that he was ready to run huge, regardless of which surface he was on.
But while we hope to learn from our errors in the first half of the sequence, it's hard to feel truly bad about the end result; because no matter how perfectly we may have played Races 6 and 7, there was no way we were hitting today's Pick Four, because there was not way I was going to have Stormy Lucy on any of my tickets.
Today was Stormy Lucy's first win since she took the Grade 3 Santa Barbara Handicap (as the Post Time Favorite) back on April 13, 2014. Not only had she failed to win any of her eight races since that event, Stormy Lucy had not even taken the Place in any race since that victory. Stormy Lucy had not earned a Beyer Speed Figure above 94 in any of her previous thirty races in her career; meanwhile, six of her opponents today had topped that 94 figure in either or both of their two most recent contests. My congratulations to those lucky few who won with her today; but going into today's race, I wouldn't have bet Stormy Lucy on a dare.
Oh well; onto the next race.
Meanwhile, those who had the correct Pick Four sequence of 10 / 11 / 10 / 2 were rewarded with a payout of $25,229.95 for their fifty cent wager. May God bless them as they spend their winnings.
Peace and Love,
Jimbo
No comments:
Post a Comment