Pick & Pray

“Before Our Regularly Scheduled Programming…”

Alright y’all, let’s talk about today before getting started.

Yeah, I know — we got our usual gripes and laughs queued up, but first, let’s handle some current business before we dive into our regularly scheduled programming of blaming the jockey and cryin’ over pick-4s we butchered all on our own.

Now look — I love handicappers, I do. Salt of the earth. We smell like cigars, stress, a half-dead highlighter and chicken nuggets. But y’all talk about form like it’s gospel. Like it was carved into stone tablets, handed down from the man, the god of Saratoga hisself.

Take Good Cheer for example. Been a damn win machine, right? Couldn't lose if you gave the other horses jetpacks. But last out? She hits a sloppy track, doesn’t fire, slides around like a dog on a hardwood floor — and now everybody’s like, “She’s in bad form.”

Bad form?! She stubbed her toe ONE time, like 'Buddy' on roller skates, and now she’s a bum? That’s like your affable cousin Karen sayin’ “I had one bad Tinder date, guess I’m undateable now!” No, Karen. Maybe you just had a rough night. So did the horse.

And don’t even get me started on Godolphin. These folks win so often, you’d think their chemistry lab in their barn went like a girls gone wild video. Win everything under the damn sun — Royal Ascot, Dubai, your local 7-11 scratcher games — and then one horse runs a clunker and suddenly, it’s like, “I dunno, maybe the whole operation’s fallin’ apart.”......maybe their barn caught fire, ......

Fallin’ apart? Hell, they lose one allowance race and y’all act like they’re sellin’ the farm and applyin’ for Rehab and Uber Eats.

Then there’s the dirt track nonsense for Nitrogen — “Oh, this horse loves the dirt! Look, it won on the main!” Yeah? It beat two hapless 'donkeys' in the slop, one of which was its stablemate just trottin’ around like “Don’t mind me, just stretchin’ my legs before dinner.”

That don’t make it a dirt specialist — that just means it was less bad than the other two!

Saying a horse “loves dirt” based on that is like sayin’ you love opera ‘cause you didn’t hate the Bugs Bunny version. "Figaro"..... Classic 'Leopold' aka Bugs.

Well, I'll believe it when I see it, trainer swearing she is a dirt horse, only had 7 starts to prove his point but happen to run on main, in a diluge, by happenstance, a Mother Nature intervention.

It’s like walkin’ into a diner at 8 a.m., orderin’ eggs, grits, bacon… and then gettin’ a Diet Coke. Like, what are you doin’? That don’t make sense. That ain’t balance. That’s chaos.

“Oh, I’m tryin’ to be healthy!” Oh sure, Darla. That lil' aspartame splash gonna cancel out the bacon grease? Get outta here with that science fiction. Try Invermectin.....

Well, since I put it that way, Coffee please instead of a diet Coke.

Same thing with horseplayers twistin’ numbers, stretchin’ logic, turnin’ one-off wins into Holy Revelations. Book 1 and 2.

Y’all treat one win like it’s a divine prophecy, and one loss like the damn rapture happened.

It’s horseracing. It's unpredictable. That’s the whole game! But here y’all go, talkin’ like it’s a math problem with one right answer, instead of a muddy mess of dirt, fate, and poor decision-making.

So yeah — let’s not crown 'em kings or bury 'em bums off one race. Let’s use context, maybe sprinkle in a little common sense, and hey — maybe even taste the track before you bet the buffet.

Now that we got that off our chest — let’s get back to blamin’ the track superintendent and wonderin’ why your “sure thing” tossed the jock and went squirrel-chasin’.

Fun to peruse the Alabamy today, tune in whistling Dixie, y'all.

Now, lets bow our heads and take a moment of silence and Pick and Pray.

Let’s talk Del Mar to start, 'cause that’s where the parade begins. Now, for those of y’all who don’t know — Del Mar is this fancy-pants, boutique racetrack by the ocean in Southern California, all surf and sundresses and people pretendin’ to be laid back while their blood pressure spikes over the early double. But lemme tell you — the horses ain’t vacationin’. No sir.

Track opens like... two, maybe three days before the meet starts. And by the time a horse gets two laps in just sniffin’ the place out, they’re expected to go out and fire a :47 half or a :59 flat. Fast as hell. And why? Because we’re tryin’ to cram two months of fitness into two damn mornings, that’s why. No acclimation, no adjustment, just — Welcome to Del Mar, now RUN like your stall rent depends on it.

And then people act all shocked — like, “Oh wow, horses are coming up with tibia injuries and stress fractures.” Well no shit, Sherlock. You ever run a sprint after movin’ to a new town, new job, and a new mattress that smells like saltwater and regret? Didn’t think so.

And I know folks like to pretend Saratoga's better — “Oh but the Oklahoma track, oh but they get a week or two of training in…” Sure, okay. You do get a little more runway. But it’s still the same song: Push-push-push. Gotta get them babies ready. Why? Because the Spa’s got this damn mystical glow about it. Owners wanna bring their whole extended family, post up in the winner's circle like it's their Christmas card, all just to say “I won at Saratoga.” It’s less about the horse, more about the ego. Vanity disguised as tradition.

You can almost hear the poor two-year-olds going, “I just got here, bro…”

And let’s talk tracks. Look, I ain't no geologist, but I know a hot mess when I see one. Saratoga — the track changes surfaces like a moody teenager changes outfits. Monday it’s muddy, Tuesday it's sealed like a damn highway, Wednesday it's “good,” which means not good, and by the time Saturday rolls around, your horse’s joints are beggin’ for early retirement. It's like Mother Nature’s playin' roulette with a bag of dirt.

Del Mar? Different mess, same outcome. It’s built on marshland — like literal old swamp, y’all — and when that ocean tide creeps in, it’s like tryin’ to run on the beach and a trampoline at the same time. One day it’s got bounce, next day it’s quicksand. And through it all, them Southern California trainers? They want speed. They train fast, they break fast, they work fast. Everything’s fast, fast, fast.

And the East Coast? Hell, they ain't innocent either. But at least they acknowledge the weather might kill your vibe. Work a horse in the morning in :48, and by post time you’re slidin’ through soup. But even still, it's a slightly different culture — they’ll go :23 first quarter and wait to turn the jets on. California? They go :21 and change out the gate like they’re late for a Southwest flight.

But at the end of the day, y’all — it’s not the tracks, it’s not the weather, it sure as hell ain’t the horses’ fault — it’s us. It’s the humans. The trainers get squeezed by the owners, the owners get drunk on dreams of glory, and somewhere in the middle is a poor 2-year-old that’s being asked to do Simone Biles routines on the goddaing Autobahn.

By the third week of the meet, guess what? All them gate works that were happening like clockwork? Gone. Vanished. You start to hear excuses: “Oh, the track’s too hard,” or “The surface changed,” or “My jockey don’t listen.” It’s never, ever their fault. Trainers pass the blame around like cheap whiskey on the backside — and it burns just the same.

Being a horseman ain’t easy. You’re a babysitter, a psychologist, a mechanic, and a goddamn meteorologist all rolled into one — and meanwhile, you got an owner breathing down your neck like it’s the Belmont and your saddle’s on fire. Every horse they own is a world-beater, until it ain’t. And then it’s your problem.

So yeah — Groundhog Day? Hell yes, it’s Groundhog Day. But this time, instead of a rodent, it’s a Thoroughbred, and instead of a clock radio, it’s a starting gate — and every year, we hit reset, make the same mistakes, and hope to God the winners’ circle don’t notice the limp.

And hey — don’t think for one damn second I’m lettin’ the handicappers off the hook here. Oh no, y’all ain’t innocent. You’re just as guilty as them trainers rushin’ their horses like there’s a damn fire sale on maiden special weights.

You know the type — come struttin’ into Opening Day like they own the joint, confidence oozin’ off 'em like sweat at a Baptist church picnic in July. Got their past performances clutched in one hand and a wad of ATM cash in the other, ready to just unload like Yosemite Sam with a betting account.

They don’t even try to get a feel for the track. Don’t sniff the surface, don’t check how the tides are rollin’ at Del Mar or whether Saratoga’s turned into a slip-n-slide, not even check if the daing gate is in the right spot. No sir, they just look down and go, “Oh, off the turf? Linda Rice must be live. Let’s bet the rent money, honey!”

And listen, I get it — “When it’s wet, go with Rice” is the kind of homespun wisdom that sounds like your uncle made it up between beers, but y’all out here treatin’ it like gospel. Like Linda’s saddlin’ Poseidon himself and Neptune’s about to win the third at 6-1.

Same thing happens at Del Mar — first weekend is always straight-up like a carnival chaos. Longshots galore. It’s like the Del Mar Fair forgot to pack up the tilt-a-whirl and all the horses are ridin’ it, some pukin after one spin, just a hot mess of equine fur and ..... well, let's leave that alone. Ain’t no logic, no order, just pure chaos in a feed bucket.

But the handicappers? They don’t care. They ain’t bothered. They're runnin’ to the windows like a two-year-old colt just spotted a hole in the fence: wide-eyed, tail-high, and hollerin' “YIPPIE KAY-YAY MOTHER TRUCKERS!!”

No plan, no discipline. Just vibes.

You know what you could do? Here's a thought — pick a race or two, treat it like chaos roulette. Look for a little value, toss a few darts, pray to the parimutuel gods, and hope that one lands. But nah, that ain't fun, right? It’s more fun to fire on every race, every day, then blame the jockey when your trifecta goes belly up.

And lemme tell you, if I had a nickel for every time someone said, “Well, the Santa Anita form didn’t transfer to Del Mar,” I could buy a used pony and name him “Excuse Machine.” No sh*t it didn’t transfer — it never does. But somehow, y’all act shocked. Like Los Alamitos form means anything when the surf’s up and half the horses just moved into a barn that smells like seaweed and desperation.

But sure — go ahead, keep bettin’ them SoCal bullet works like they’re carved into stone tablets. Some folks treat a :59 breeze like it's Moses himself brought it down off Mount Clocker. “Behold, a holy work over five furlongs! Surely it shall win!”

Past performances? The Ten Commandments.

Bullet works? Bible verses.

Track condition? Completely ignored.

Horse been off nine months? “Ah he’s fresh!” Horse ran three days ago? “He’s tight!” Trainer’s 0-for-38? “He’s due!”

Y’all don’t handicap — you pick and pray with a form in your hand and call it “strategy.”

But hey — it’s the Sport of Kings, baby. Or maybe just the sport of broke court jesters yellin’ at the simulcast screen and blamin’ a 5-pound bug boy for their bad picks.

So yeah — next time you wanna gripe about the trainers or the track surface or the “damn jockey cost me again,” maybe first take a long look at your ticket and ask yourself: Did I handicap this race, or did I just close my eyes and throw money at the problem like it’s a cover charge at a honky tonk?

Just sayin’. Accountability — it’s not just for trainers anymore.

And today the track at Del Mar deader than a roadkill in August with a diet coke.

Preshate y'all.