MOGEYBOY03
05-05-2006, 05:07 PM
the guy that wrote this article for the plain dealer is a great handicapper. rumor has it thistledown racetrack tried to ban him from the track. interesting reading though for derby bettors.
Telling a fortune can earn it
Wednesday, May 03, 2006
Bob Roberts
Plain Dealer Reporter
Louisville, Ky.- You have just four more days to find the winner of Saturday's 132nd Kentucky Derby? Too hard? C'mon. It's easier than a NASCAR race. There are 43 of those screaming gas-guzzlers making big circles each Sunday. The Derby has room for only 20 shiny thoroughbreds.
I'm not tipping my hand in midweek, but there are some trends and long-standing jinxes that might help you come up with a winner.
It's worth the effort. Last year, a half- dozen railbirds bet the four- horse combina tion of 10-18- 12-17 and each walked away with $864,253.50. Now that's a super-duper Derby superfecta.
We've already lost two of the greatest Derby day throw-out theories. A winner of the previous year's Breeders' Cup Juvenile has yet to win a Run for Roses. The annual autumn race is 22 years old. And a freshman champion, usually the BC Juvenile winner, hasn't won the Derby since Spectacular Bid in 1979, five years before the Breeders Cup series became a reality.
Stevie Wonderboy, who raced for television's Merv Griffin, won the Juvenile and was voted the Eclipse Award as North America's leading 2-year-old of 2005, but he sustained a hairline fracture in his right foreleg during a workout in early February and won't race Saturday.
Trying to win the Derby off a layoff has been poison. The last horse to do so off a month's rest was Needles in 1956.
Four horses are wearing five weeks of starting-gate cobwebs this year - Barbaro, Sharp Humor, Flashy Bull and Sunriver. That's because they all made their last starts in the April 1 Florida Derby at Gulfstream Park in Hallandale Beach, Fla.
An April Fool's Day foursome? We'll find out Saturday.
Barbaro, the winner of the Florida Derby, is undefeated in five starts, and his trainer, Michael Matz, is tired of defending his decision to bring the colt to the Derby refreshed.
"I'm doing what is best for the horse, that's what the owners entrusted me to do," Matz said. "I could not care less about what some writer writes about it."
Not only have long layoffs been a bugaboo for Derby colts, but so have limited racing opportunities. The most recent horse to win the first leg of the Triple Crown with just two preps as a 3-year-old was Sunny Halo in 1983. Before him, it was Jet Pilot, way back in 1947.
Who are this year's two-start daring duo? It's Private Vow, who finished third in the Arkansas Derby, and Sharp Humor, the Florida Derby runner-up. It means that Sharp Humor is facing a double-whammy, also qualifying under the long layoff jinx.
The horse who really is bucking huge odds is the unbeaten Showing Up. Winner of Keeneland's April 22 Lexington Stakes, the last major prep race for the Derby, he didn't start as a 2-year-old and has run just three times this year.
The only horse to win the Derby after being unraced as a juvenile is Apollo in 1882. And the most recent horse to win the roses with four career starts or less was Exterminator in 1918.
Barclay Tagg trains Showing Up, and overcoming jinxes and trends is nothing new to him. Tagg trained Funny Cide, winner of the 2003 Derby and the first gelding to win the race since Clyde Van Dusen in 1929.
Showing Up figures to be a huge price. Maybe the kind of horse who ignites the next $864,253.50 superfecta payoff.
Telling a fortune can earn it
Wednesday, May 03, 2006
Bob Roberts
Plain Dealer Reporter
Louisville, Ky.- You have just four more days to find the winner of Saturday's 132nd Kentucky Derby? Too hard? C'mon. It's easier than a NASCAR race. There are 43 of those screaming gas-guzzlers making big circles each Sunday. The Derby has room for only 20 shiny thoroughbreds.
I'm not tipping my hand in midweek, but there are some trends and long-standing jinxes that might help you come up with a winner.
It's worth the effort. Last year, a half- dozen railbirds bet the four- horse combina tion of 10-18- 12-17 and each walked away with $864,253.50. Now that's a super-duper Derby superfecta.
We've already lost two of the greatest Derby day throw-out theories. A winner of the previous year's Breeders' Cup Juvenile has yet to win a Run for Roses. The annual autumn race is 22 years old. And a freshman champion, usually the BC Juvenile winner, hasn't won the Derby since Spectacular Bid in 1979, five years before the Breeders Cup series became a reality.
Stevie Wonderboy, who raced for television's Merv Griffin, won the Juvenile and was voted the Eclipse Award as North America's leading 2-year-old of 2005, but he sustained a hairline fracture in his right foreleg during a workout in early February and won't race Saturday.
Trying to win the Derby off a layoff has been poison. The last horse to do so off a month's rest was Needles in 1956.
Four horses are wearing five weeks of starting-gate cobwebs this year - Barbaro, Sharp Humor, Flashy Bull and Sunriver. That's because they all made their last starts in the April 1 Florida Derby at Gulfstream Park in Hallandale Beach, Fla.
An April Fool's Day foursome? We'll find out Saturday.
Barbaro, the winner of the Florida Derby, is undefeated in five starts, and his trainer, Michael Matz, is tired of defending his decision to bring the colt to the Derby refreshed.
"I'm doing what is best for the horse, that's what the owners entrusted me to do," Matz said. "I could not care less about what some writer writes about it."
Not only have long layoffs been a bugaboo for Derby colts, but so have limited racing opportunities. The most recent horse to win the first leg of the Triple Crown with just two preps as a 3-year-old was Sunny Halo in 1983. Before him, it was Jet Pilot, way back in 1947.
Who are this year's two-start daring duo? It's Private Vow, who finished third in the Arkansas Derby, and Sharp Humor, the Florida Derby runner-up. It means that Sharp Humor is facing a double-whammy, also qualifying under the long layoff jinx.
The horse who really is bucking huge odds is the unbeaten Showing Up. Winner of Keeneland's April 22 Lexington Stakes, the last major prep race for the Derby, he didn't start as a 2-year-old and has run just three times this year.
The only horse to win the Derby after being unraced as a juvenile is Apollo in 1882. And the most recent horse to win the roses with four career starts or less was Exterminator in 1918.
Barclay Tagg trains Showing Up, and overcoming jinxes and trends is nothing new to him. Tagg trained Funny Cide, winner of the 2003 Derby and the first gelding to win the race since Clyde Van Dusen in 1929.
Showing Up figures to be a huge price. Maybe the kind of horse who ignites the next $864,253.50 superfecta payoff.