Dodge City

🏇 SARATOGA MEET — FINAL STATS 🏇

That’s a wrap on the Saratoga meet! 🔥

TODAY:🎯 5 Top Choices💰

2 Double-Digit Winners🏆 R5: Episode — Top Choice $30.40🏆 R12: Lil Army Girl — Top Choice $10.10➕ 3 other winners

FINAL MEET RESULTS:

📊 Top Choice Winners: 23%

📊 1st & 2nd Choice Winners: 47%

📊 Top 3 Choice Winners: 61%

📊 Top 4 Choice Winners: 70%💰

62 total double-digit winners on the sheet🔥

18 racing days with 3+ Top Choice winners

And importantly: ALL selections were made before scratches and changes.

Consistency matters. Results matter. Saratoga delivered. 🏇💰

And, It was a fucking bear -- BUT ITS IMPRESSIVE 🔥

First, all decisions were made before scratches and changes. There were days when handicapping the following day I had absolutely no clue what the track condition would be. On or off the turf? Firm or yielding? Mud? Slop? Fast?

It was the Wild Wild West, Dodge City. No Sheriff in Town if there was, he was paid off to look the other way. A circus, with clowns and all to boot.

Then, there was the workout information.

Workouts are always a KEY. But when the Turf Authority floods the market with workout opinions and gives them away to thousands of people for gratis, you have to understand what that does to a parimutuel market.

It creates market manipulation.

Horses they touted were bet hard—sometimes below any conceivable value.

A great example was The Good Life.

He was at CD, not Saratoga. We touted him hard off the videos and works. They had nothing. Zero in their report.

He paid $8.80 in his debut.

Then $7.14 in the Hopeful.

If those works had been in their report, would he have been $8.80?

Would he have been $7.14?

Probably not.

He would have been 3/5 or even money.

That's the difference.

The lesson is simple: you can manipulate a parimutuel market by flooding it with workout information disguised as inside information. A lesson that most completely gloss over for their own tribalism.

Then, there is today's handicapper whose generosity is incredibly touching [sarcasm] they pass this information around to their friends like they are handing out Bud's light while being completely ignorant of the parimutuel betting system and the repercusions on the tote board. We have gentleman handicappers turning $10 winners into $4.80.

The CRWs were masked, and operated quietly at the NYRA tracks but they were there. You felt it in the exotics. David Copperfield type shite.

The, new, Belmont Park will kick off next week with one big thing visibly unavailable, Workout Videos from the New Belmont Park.

Workout Videos enhance the handle, gives the player a belief he has a chance, hope. no videos from Belmont Park Works.

I was asked why am I not doing it? Its simple, its not FREE. you have to get permission from NYRA, first of all, two, you have to hire, buy cameras and pay for the help. That's about $10K a month minimum. Yes, it takes monies to put that together. Who knew?

Then, there was the Fair Hill 5.

That situation, later, raised serious questions about whether albuterol was being used to improve horses' breathing and performance. The episode was another reminder of how performance-enhancing practices can radically change a horse's performance, EPO, Albuterol, Clenbuterol, —and, in my view, NYRA and HISA were nowhere to be found on the matter until too little to late.

And where does that leave the handicapper?

Last man on the totem pole.

Funny, isn't it?

The customer—the person who makes this whole thing go around—is needed to do one thing:

Put dollars into the game, and in return they do not giving a hoot about you.

Then, there is Linda.

Handicapping Linda Rice was a challenge. No pattern. No tendencies. You think you have something figured out and then she changes it.

She does like Jose Lezcano.

He seems to be her long-shot jockey.

Maybe that's just handicappers looking for Jose Ortiz.

Or Irad. Now Manny.

Linda owns NYRA. Period.

Which brings me to the bigger lesson taken from Saratoga.

You cannot view every track the same way.

NYRA is different than CDI, KY Downs, Keeneland.

NYRA has more of a country-club ideology.

Kentucky Downs attracts horses with purse monies.

And it attracts handicappers with full fields.

Ellis and Colonial took horses away from Saratoga. Later, Kentucky Downs did the same.

NYRA overestimated the lore of the Spa.

Even their jockeys proved it.

Jose Ortiz and Flavien Prat were in the heat of a jockey title battle, and they chose the hefty purses at Kentucky Downs. What does that tell you?

That helped hand the title to Manny Franco.

Franco rode very well. He also picked up many of the Irad Ortiz Jr. mounts late in the meet after Irad went on the disabled list.

That's racing.

That's the business.

Every track has its own identity.

You have to wear a different hat for each and every one.

We wore a different hat for the Spa.

So yes, the numbers were good.

Very good.

But Saratoga is Saratoga.

And Saratoga is NOT all that.

It sucks the life out of every other track in the summer.

It has become cultish.

Handicappers fall all over themselves believing Saratoga is the greatest product in racing.

Maybe once it was.

I am not convinced it is anymore.

I will take my CDI and Keeneland over them any day.

The Kentucky tracks have changed the equation. The purse money is changing where horses go. Full fields are changing where handicappers want to play.

The lore of Saratoga isn't what it used to be.

It is still a country club.

A gentleman's club, the only thing missing is a strip club on grounds.

But I am leaving the Spa alone - for another year.

We survived it.

We learned from it.

We made money from it and will bet against it.

And we wore the right hat.

Now it's time for a new hat and no more clowns.