Matchups in the Distaff
 

VIP and Gameday have just put up some matchups for the Distaff:

Balletto vs Healthy Addiction
Best finish - Both horses must start for action
11/01/2006
09:00 000 Balletto (-160)
000 Healthy Addiction (130)

Fleet Indian vs Pine Island
Best finish - Both horses must start for action
11/01/2006
09:00 000 Fleet Indian (-170)
000 Pine Island (140)

Happy Ticket vs Pool Land
Best finish - Both horses must start for action
11/01/2006
09:00 000 Happy Ticket (-140)
000 Pool Land (110)

Healthy Addiction vs Happy Tic
Best finish - Both horses must start for action
11/01/2006
09:00 000 Healthy Addiction (-125)
000 Happy Ticket (-105)

11/01/2006
09:00 000 Healthy Addiction (-125)
000 Pool Land (-105)

Pine Island vs Asi Siempre
Best finish - Both horses must start for action
11/01/2006
12:00 000 Pine Island (-120)
000 Asi Siempre (-110)

Pine Island vs Balletto
Best finish - Both horses must start for action
11/01/2006
09:00 000 Pine Island (-125)
000 Balletto (-105)

--Dunbar

Happy Ticket vs Healthy Addiction for basically even $...daddy like.

The Pine Island-Asi Siempre one should be 4:1.

Pine Island will crush Balletto like a grape.

That matchup is reasonable, however, as they are both similar horses who have shown similar ability. Pine Island will, at most, be only a little shorter than Balletto.

The match-up vs. Asi Siempre is puzzling as they both have similar running styles and Pine Island will be a significantly lower price. That one will change dramatically.

It is dangerous to use specific opinions when looking at matchups.

i'm not a big matchup player, but I do have opinions about both Balletto and Pine Island. Although you say they have shown similar ability, and they probably have, my take is that there is no way that Balletto finishes in front of Pine Island.

That's fine but not the way, IMO, one should be looking at matchups....at least if one hopes to make money playing them.

ok then, do you mind explaining how you would look at it, if the intention is to make money?

Like I said I don't play these and haven't given them a lot of thought over the years. Whenever I have looked at them I generally did not have an opinion.

this was a rare one that I did have an opinion on.

I dont think Healthy Addiction is a very good shipper and I've never trusted her, so I'd take everyone against her.

Personally, and like you I don't play them very often, I think you have to think of them more situationally, in that how the horse fits the make-up of the race is much more relevent than what their actual chances of winning are. It is not a case of, say to be simple, horse A is 6-1 and Horse B is 12-1 so horse A is a 2-1 favorite. There was a match-up in the Derby, I believe, where Sinister Minister was only a short fav over Jazil even though he was roughly a third the price. While it was believed ( not by me ) that Sinister Minister had a more realistic chance of winning the race, he didn't have a normal distribution, say, of finish, in that he was also probably one of the favs to finish last. Jazil, on the other hand, was a great horse to finish in the top half of the field, as the only running he was going to do was at the end, he would not hurt himself early.

To me, Balletto and Pine Island are very similar entities in this particular race, and thus the chances of one beating the other is somewhat of a coin flip. Now, don't get me wrong, if they were both the same price TO WIN I would definitely take Pine island, as like you I like her chances, but situationally I can't seperate them. They run around the same numbers and have the same running style. To me this is a poor match-up choice as I am relying on a specific opinion of talent as opposed to taking advantage of a situation. I think you can do better playing the race parimutually if your opinion of Pine Island, or any horse, is what your's is.

actually i think we're on the same page relative to how to analyze the match-up. I think the only difference is in our assessments of this match-up itself.

when I get home from work I'm going to review more closely Balletto's PP's and see if I missed something.

regardless of how I end up feeling though, this is not the type of "score" that i'm looking to take down come BC day. I usually have my sights set on much longer odds.

Actually you were right. I took another look at the PP's of these two. At best I can give a slim edge to Pine Island. Pass on that match-up for me.

Pine Island / Asi Siempre is a joke.....I'm not a great fan of Pine Island, but she is a GREAT bet to finish ahead of Polytrack specialist Asi Siempre

Just dump your life savings on Pine Island in that matchup and then go rent a dump truck to back up to the bank after the race.....

I know, that one really makes no sense and I wonder how much could be bet on that match-up and I would love to see where the line ends up.

I am having my Mother make a needlepoint of the first sentence to hang over my bed.

Believe me, I'm as shocked as you were!

Awww, isn't that special? First time mom had to use those words for you?

No, but she will be excited to hear she wasn't the only one.