Recapping my Abject Derby Humiliation

By: T.R. Slyder, TRSlyder@yahoo.com, @AndyDisco on Twitter

Yesterday was the KY Derby and had a Floyd Mayweather fight. It reminded me of the article where I said my dream is for Mayweather to fight Manny Pacquiao in the infield of the track while Zenyatta races against Rachel Alexandra.

Yesterday's derby and Mayweather's fight shared two common links yesterday: both were favored and both significantly changed their usual game plans en route to victory. Money Mayweather actually initiated a lot of the action in the later rounds- which is rare for him, and Super Saver sat off the lead, which many horse players had little reason to assume would happen.

After looking at Super Saver's previous races, it would be safe to assume that the horse would again go right to the lead. But when Calvin Borel had Super Saver pinned to the rail about 4 lengths off of a suicidal pace, I had a very bad feeling about the future of the Super Saver-less bets I made. Betting all exactas that excluded SS, I couldn't win if SS finished any better than third. So I decided to watch Borel and SS navigate the rail and not look away until I saw two horses pass him, because I knew he was a good horse who was getting by far the shortest trip around the track. When the horses who set the suicidal pace started to fade, it was SS who reached them first and passed them like they were standing still.

No one passed Super Saver and Borel and I watched him hit the wire first. He ran a race I didn't think he would, or frankly could, and won. Great game plans by trainers Roger Mayweather and Todd Pletcher. And that's probably the first time those guys have been in the same sentence together.






That's how I roll.

My 2010 Ky Derby Analysis

By: T.R. Slyder, TRSlyder@yahoo.com, @AndyDisco on Twitter

update: check out how crazy the odds will be tomorrow when betting opens on derby day


I expect a pace meltdown and the winner to be passing horses later than in most KY Derbys. I am basically taking the horses I feel are, 1. Not speed horses, 2. capable of running a 98-105 Beyer, 3. Have won from off the lead before, 4. Can reasonably assume he/she will like the distance and the possibility of a wet track, and finally, 5. Have done #s 1-4 on a dirt track at some point.

Additionally, as with most KY Derbys, I am not conceding in a 20 horse field a LOT can go wrong for ANY horse and the best horse does not always win. With that in mind, I wanted to use a few different horses to increase my coverage. When you are positive where the fish are, you use a fishing pole, and when you think you have an idea where a few might be you use a net. I am using a net and saying, "I'm not positive who will do what, but my guess is that two of these 6 horses will do something good.".

Is my net of 6 of 20 horses bordering on embarrassingly large? Yeah, kinda.

Handicapping:

That narrowing down left me with 6 horses:

1 Lookin at Lucky
10 Paddy O'Prado (admittedly violates rule #5, but I liked his work over a sloppy Churchill)
13 Jackson Bend
14. Mission Impazible
16. Awesome Act
20. Sidney's Candy

After that I rank them in the Steve Crist-ian way of assigning the horses I think are most likely to win with a category of A, then for horses I find slightly less likely to a win a B, and so on with C.

My A horses were- 1, 14, 16
B 10, 20
C 13

Betting:

27 Straight Exactas using the aforementioned horses.

1 with 10, 13, 14, 16, 20- 5 bets total (AA AA AB AB AC)
10 with 1, 13, 14, 16, 20- 5 bets total (BA BC BA BA BB)
13 with 1, 14, 16 - 3 bets total (CA CA CA)
14 with 1, 10, 13, 16, 20 - 5 bets total (AA AA AB AB AC)
16 with 1, 10, 16, 14, 20 - 5 bets total (AA AA AB AB AC)
20 with 1, 10, 14, 16- 4 bets total (BA BB BA BA)

Horses that I wanted to use but didn't because you can't bet every horse, but omitting them from my bet still frightens me a bit:

Ice Box- loves the distance, and I like his local work on the slop on 4/23 an awful lot, but I think may be a one hit wonder with his FL Derby win. It doesn't take Derby winners four tries to break their maiden.

Stately Victor- seems to be the wiseguy horse as of late. Loved his dad but I also think he may be a one hit wonder. If he were destined to win the KY Derby I wonder why 0 of his last 3 starts were over a dirt surface and two were Allowance races. Most Derby winners have a more impressive resume heading into the derby.

Devil May Care- plenty to like, but there are too many question marks for me: going against boys for the first time- 19 of them, to be precise; she gets blinkers for the first time since she wore them in the Breeder's Cup and got humiliated by a field of 12 females.

Undercard:

I don't think I will wind up playing the undercard any, but I had entertained the idea of playing a few pick 3s. I handicapped the undercard a bit and for the following races I'd use the following:

Race 6: 2
Race 7: 5
Race 8: 2, 3, 6, 10
Race : 7, 12
Race 10: 6,2






That's how I roll.

It's Time we Look Into the Future

By: T.R. Slyder, TRSlyder@yahoo.com, AndyDisco on Twitter



Lets take a look at the Las Vegas futures pools for the KY Derby, March Madness, the World Cup, and Baseball. Not because I have some insight that you can gain, but because it's fun to think about the playoffs/post season/huge race, etc. even when it isn't not all that close to us.

First up: KY Derby. (you can find the past performances of the Derby eligible horses here.) If you have never heard of any of these horses that's ok, as I have heard of about 4 of them. This is the second "pool" or round of betting, you can see that atop the list it says "Pool 2", some horses were dropped or added since Pool 1 and odds on some horses have changed, (drastically in the case of Eskendereya- click here to see the race that precipitated his odds plummeting).

KY Derby Future Wager Pool 2 Odds
#	Horse	M/L Odds
1	Aikenite	50-1
2	American Lion	30-1
3	Buddy’s Saint	12-1
4	Caracortado	12-1
5	Connemara	20-1
6	Conveyance	12-1
7	D’Funnybone	30-1
8	Dave in Dixie	30-1
9	Discreetly Mine	30-1
10	Dublin	15-1
11	Eskendereya	6-1
12	Jackson Bend	20-1
13	Lookin at Lucky	6-1
14	Nextdoorneighbor	30-1
15	Noble’s Promise	30-1
16	Odysseus	50-1
17	Radiohead	20-1
18	Rule	20-1
19	Setusko	50-1
20	Sidney’s Candy	20-1
21	Super Saver	20-1
22	Tempted to Tapit	50-1
23	Vale of York	30-1
24	Field (all others)	7-2

Many of these horses raced in the Breeder's Cup Juvenile, the chart of the results can be found here And the race can be viewed here.



That race was 1/16th of a mile shorter than the Derby will be, and was raced over a synthetic surface, whereas the KY Derby will be run over dirt. A few random notes about that race and the Derby:

-You can get 30-1 odds on the winner of the BC Juvenile in the Derby Futures Pool.

- Lookin at Lucky was undefeated going into that race (all of his races coming over a synthetic surface, like he saw in the Breeder's Cup), lost by a head, will race on natural dirt in KY Derby, yet still remains co-favorite at 6-1. Doesn't seem like great value. He also loses value for having a superstar trainer in Bob Baffert- who doesn't hurt his chances of winning the Derby, but also skews his price, much like buying a condo in a Trump-owned building. The owner doesn't make the condo good or bad, but with an owner like Trump, you can be sure you won't be getting a steal, either, in fact, you'll probably overpay.

-D'Funnybone was the 4th betting favorite in Juvenile and is currently 30-1. You can see him winning his 2010 debut here in the Grade 2 Hutechson Stakes.

- Vale of York had never raced on anything but grass before his win in the BC Juvenile.

-Aikenite finished 5th and was the third betting favorite in the Juvenile and is now at 50-1.

-Noble's Promise was the second favorite in the Juvenile, finished third by a head, and is now 30-1 in the Derby pool. Why? Because he has never raced on a dirt surface.

So that's the Derby. I haven't paid much attention to horse racing since the Breeder's Cup, but I am starting to pick it up again now. I am not making any predictions just yet, but just trying to gather the facts, note the trends, and begin watching the upcoming Derby prep races.



NCAA Futures- taken from VegasInsider.com

Future Book Odds ODDS TO WIN THE 2009-2010 NCAA MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP Team Open Current Kansas 4/1 2/1 Kentucky 8/1 4/1 Syracuse 25/1 7/1 Villanova 14/1 10/1 West Virginia 15/1 15/1 Michigan State 6/1 15/1 Duke 16/1 15/1 Texas 7/1 18/1 Ohio State 40/1 18/1 Purdue 12/1 25/1

I didn't include all of the teams, but I thought these were the only ones with a chance to win it. It looks like the only real value on the board is Duke at 15-1. The point of playing a Futures Pool is to get better odds NOW then you would at the time of the event. If Kansas goes undefeated until the tournament starts, they still won't be less than 2-1, so they offer terrible value. If you love Kansas, why waste your money now when a player could get injured before the tournament starts, and why not just hold your money and take them at 2-1 on the day the tournament starts? Same goes for Kentucky. Syracuse was great value at 25-1, but 7-1 seems fair, and I can't see their price dropping below that before the tournament starts. Again, the point of a future's pool is to assume more risk (injuries, the unforeseen, team falling apart, etc.) and get a price break as a result. Unless you think that Duke, OSU or MSU will make a big run betwixt now and the start of the tourney, you'd be silly to make a wager on the current NCAA futures.



Baseball- taken again from VegasInsider.com Opening Line Current

N.Y. Yankees	3/1	14/5
Boston	13/2	11/2
Philadelphia	13/2	6/1
L.A. Angels	17/2	14/1
Detroit	20/1	24/1
Seattle	125/1	50/1
Arizona	75/1	60/1
Toronto	75/1	125/1
St. Louis	8/1
L.A. Dodgers	9/1
Tampa Bay	11/1
Chi. White Sox	12/1
Atlanta	12/1
Chi. Cubs	14/1
Colorado	20/1
N.Y. Mets	20/1
San Francisco	30/1
Texas	30/1
Minnesota	30/1

Again. If the Yankees were in the World Series, they'd be about about 1/1, so why take less than 3/1 in March? If your goal is to make $200 on the World Series this year, you could either bet about $65 on them in March, or about $110 in October. I'd prefer the latter, since if you do the latter, you at least know that the Yankoffs are IN the world series. Same for Boston and Philly, If the WS were the Yanks and Philly, Philly would be about 3/1, so why take them now at 6/1?

The only real value I can see might be with the White Sox and Mets, and I am not really sold on either.


World Cup- I got it from this site.

2010 FIFA World Cup – June 11 – July 11 – South Africa

Spain 9/2

Brazil 5/1

England 11/2

Argentina 9/1

Italy 11/1

Germany 12/1

Netherlands 12/1

France 14/1

Ivory Coast 25/1

Portugal 28/1

USA 50/1

Your guess is as good as mine, but my value play is Germany. True story: I have ESPN on while I am typing this and while typing Germany was my value play, I saw they lost 1-0 to Argentina. It's probably an omen. The only stand I will take is to not bet on England, they are just total wussies and love choking on the big stage. Don't believe me? Ask Tim Henman how his Wimbledon career went. England reminds me a bit of the Cubs- they make a lot of not noise, play up their tradition and love of the game, occasionally don't suck, have a huge and wild fanbase, and often confuse their bed for their toilet so to speak.










That's how I roll.