11/6: Churchill (Late P4)

Terrific election day card went pretty much according to hoyle, as one would expect from the most "form reliable" track in the country. The biggest win price on the day was in the nightcap and that was $13. Glad that some of the derby trail denizens took a day from their wretched NY racing and added to the pool, only sorry there were no scores.

The opening leg of the late 4 featured a dozen youngsters with nine of them being debut runners. We spread here looking for chaos and injecting some value into the play, but Robby wins it on the Klein homebred returning $10.40 and winning somewhat comfortably. Taking firsters in sequence bets is always a challenge and the horses must be both physically and mentally ready which requires the capper to make assumptions, oft times with limited or missing data. Our seven charges ran 1,2,3,4,5,6,and 8th and we escaped but expended serious capital to do so.

Race 8 was an entry level allowance for f&m going six and a half panels. In this type of heat class generally trumps speed, yet most players bet the opposite! Calvins, Forestry filly laid all over them classwise returning a bettable $12.80 mostly due to to her polytrack debacle at Keeneland. Competent cappers noticed that in all four of her poly efforts this filly never ran a jump and her race at Saratoga two back need only be duplicated to get the money here. We included the runnerup on our ticket who won easily in her only dirt outing and was winless on the synthetic ovals in five tries. Few horses relish more than one surface.

The feature is where our sequence imploded. We do not include horses because they "might win" on our tickets and it was difficult to have much confidence in Storm Treasure ($9.40) who won for the second time in a row after opening his career 1 for 18. Our selection Slam MY Heart figured a perfect trip and got it. The Romans colt had been in the money in seven of nine this year with two cases of being fractious. Didn't see the race but the chart indicates this one sat off the speed took over at the pole and wilted severely without cause. Perhaps what ever contributed double M to run this one for a tag, and the resulting sixty days off after the claim, reared its ugly head. 'Slam finished two lengths behind the horse he passed in the stretch so something went wrong and our ticket was toast.

The caboose was extremely formful but the conditions disturb us. California racing secretaries, years ago, faced with a multitude of horses that had broken their maidens but could not find any winning level thereafter, wrote this type of race and thus this ridicuous condition. Not as bad as the ludicrous new scratch rule which will not last thru the meet but thats another story. POSSIBI ($13) wins it for the aggressive Maker and if you train for K. Ramsey you have to be purse driven. The PID form has been a learning experience but when you win by a dozen as a 2yo, then repeatedly work lights out, your plenty dangerous. Our other single ran huge but could not get to the winner dropping a neck decision at half the price. The $2 four came back a buck and a half short of three large and we suspect many would like to have their ticket back, we would. Post again Friday probably at letitride. BBB