Duh, winning!

With apologies to Charlie Sheen, yesterday Pony Bologna was winning!  We went to Fairmount Park to watch the two preps and ended up playing some of the earlier races at Keeneland.  While we didn't really cash many tickets in those early races we began seeing a pretty significant pattern.  In every route run on the main poly track that day, no horse outside of post position 6 even hit the board.  There was clearly an inside bias on the track and it could not be ignored.  Sometimes no matter how much handicapping a person does, they have to adjust their picks to other factors. 

Inside = WINside.

In last year's Kentucky Derby we loved Lookin' At Lucky but after he drew post position 1 we had to back off of him.  Going into Saturday Jeremy liked some horses which were starting from far outside posts.  Once it came time to place bets he could no longer bet those outside horses with any confidence.  He liked some of the inside horses before the race but once the pattern was noticed he decided to adjust his bet to compensate for the bias.  Clearly things worked out well because when the 5-7 exacta came across Jeremy cashed in a pretty nice ticket!  Score one for flexibility in handicapping.

Gregg used GSV (we'll again post something more on that later) to nail the winner, Brilliant Speed, and cashed a win ticket on the horse. As was mentioned in the last post, Brilliant Speed's GSV was so much higher than any other horse in the field.  With Keeneland being a track where GSV can play such a big role Gregg knew which horse he was picking for the win.  Score more cheese for the Pony Bologna sandwich.

Brilliant move backing Brilliant Speed!

After the Bluegrass we turned our attention to Oaklawn Park and the Arkansas Derby.  Jeremy sent Gregg an email a while ago which contained a snippet about ArchArchArch. 

In part the email stated: "Assistant trainer Pat Tanner noted that Archarcharch has grown as the winter has progressed and pointed out that even the blinkers worn in the workout were even getting a little too small."

This was a vital bit of information, as it turned out.  Any horse that grows out of his 2yo blinkers is certainly worth a look.  In three previous starts this season, Archarcharch finished fourth as the favorite in the Jan. 17 $100,000 Smarty Jones Stakes, then bounced back to win the Feb. 21 $250,000 Southwest Stakes (G3). He then finished third behind The Factor in the March 19 $300,000 Rebel Stakes (G2) despite being kicked repeated by Alternation, the horse next to him in the starting gate who was scratched after flipping in the gate. 

Winning exacta? Exactly!

To see ArchArchArch go off at odds of 25-1 given all of his past success was an absolute shock for both of us. Gregg nailed both the exacta and had a win bet on AAA's nose to cash in a big ticket on the race.  However, for as good a job as Jeremy did being flexible with his betting in the Bluegrass, he did an equally poor job with betting the Arkansas.  He liked both AAA and runner-up Nehro but only had a trifecta part-wheel bet on the race, with no exacta box.  Had he made the exacta box bet he certainly would've hit the exacta in both preps but the lesson was certainly learned. Don't put all your eggs in one type of bet. Picking third place in a race with a large field is difficult so make sure to have something bet for just a winner, the exatca and, if you feel lucky enough, the tri and superfectas.

Winner, winner...ribs for dinner!

Overall there can be no complaining about the final major prep day of this Triple Crown season. Tickets were cashed, winnings were turned into more winnings when the Pony Bologna crew went from the track to the casino and there was much rejoicing and celebrating into the wee hours.  We now turn our attention to the First Saturday in May, with a small detour for the Coolmore Lexington this Saturday which will feature Bob Baffert's Jaycito.  In the weeks to follow Pony Bologna will discuss the process we use to narrow down the field to select our Kentucky Derby horses. We'll provide stats from past winners and will show how we use historic figures and numbers to create a profile for the Derby winner.  We'll then compare the current crop of contenders to mine out which horse or horses best fit the profile.  Stay tuned for all this and more...