horse racing writing. horse racing enthusiasm.
Over at Picks and Ponderings, don’t miss my look back on last week’s racing at Arlington Park: including several strong maiden winners, the return of the Springfield Stakes winner, and one dead game performance by a hard-knocking old warrior.
Head over to Picks and Ponderings, read the latest Chicago Racing Review, and let me know your thoughts in the comments!
CLOSED BOOK EXAM.
Usually, handicapping is the opposite. It’s a game of information, and we have so much at our fingertips: past performances, race replays, the analysis of handicappers we know and trust. It’s as open-book as it gets, thanks in such a huge part to the Internet.
But, I decided to try a little exercise in memory, and in my feel for the circuit: handicapping the card with only the overnight, the list of scratches, and the knowledge that we’re off the grass today. I didn’t look at the past performances, and didn’t look at the morning lines. It’s all based on what I remember about each horse, jockey, and trainer.
It may turn out well. It may turn out to be a disaster, since my memory (as most people’s) tends to lapse at times. If it is a disaster or I do miss an obvious horse, feel free to laugh at me, or harangue me in the comments because of things I got wrong in my notes or logic.
Here are my notes — after all, if I decide to write about this experience afterwards, it would be nothing but redboarding were I not to post something beforehand about my picks and my logic. I also note my top picks in each race, and the horses I’m using in my Pick Fours.
Let’s see how this goes.
Continue reading “a bizarre experiment in handicapping and memory”
Summer has officially found its stride. After all, racing action returns to Saratoga this weekend.
Picks and Ponderings turns it attention this week to the pair of graded stakes on Saturday at the Spa. In the Grade 1 Diana Stakes, a select field of six — including proven star Lady Eli and rising stars Antonoe and Dickinson — will tussle for the honour of becoming the first top-level winner of the Saratoga meet. One race before that, eight juveniles will clash in the Sanford Stakes. All entrants have a win to their name — Direct Dial and Admiral Jimmy have stakes experience, but whoever wins the Sanford will tally the first added-money victory of their career.
Head over to Picks and Ponderings, read my preview of Saturday’s pair of graded stakes races at Saratoga, and let me know your thoughts in the comments!
Have you ever dreamed of going to the Hong Kong International Races (HKIR)? If so — you’re going to want to pack your bags for Saratoga and attend Equestricon from August 13-15. In my latest blog for Equestricon, I talk about the HKIR Lucky Draw: a drawing, sponsored by the Hong Kong Jockey Club, that will award one lucky Equestricon attendee an expenses-paid trip with one friend to this year’s Hong Kong International Races!
(Seriously, writing that blog post has already made me so envious of whoever wins this drawing, and so ready to follow their Twitter obsessively during HKIR week.)
If you’re on the fence about going to Equestricon…read my blog post, get excited about HKIR, and if there’s any way you can get up to Saratoga next month, book your tickets!
For the last few years, we have reported live race results on our Twitter account, @picksponderings. Recently that has become untenable due to my chart calling responsibilities for Equibase at Arlington, and we will no longer be able to post race results as they happen.
Of course, that’s not the end of our presence on Twitter. The Twitter account will remain active for discussion of races, posting links to our newest blog posts, and sharing news about Chicago racing and Illinois horses.
Picks and Ponderings remains as engaged in Chicago-area racing as ever, but we need a different avenue to keep you, the readers, informed about what goes on beyond the stakes races. Hence? Chicago Racing Review. In this new weekly column, we’ll highlight what you need to know, and who you want to follow.
At Picks and Ponderings I discuss the most interesting performances of the week at Arlington Park, and a sire angle that you may not know…but probably should. Read the first issue of Chicago Racing Review, and let me know your thoughts in the comments!
If you insist upon playing the Delaware Handicap, you will want to play exotics. Songbird will pay five cents on the dollar in the win pool…and yet, that almost makes sense, as a humdrum effort by Songbird (to the extend that she is capable of humdrum) would still be good enough to eclipse a strong effort by any of her five foes. If she hadn’t tried a mile and a quarter, perhaps there would be a question. But, she won the Alabama (G1) last year at the same distance, and should be able to tackle it again.
So, who’s the best of the rest?
Head over to the ThoroFan Handicappers’ Corner, read my preview of today’s Delaware Handicap (G1), and let me know your thoughts in the comments!
This Saturday is Indiana Grand’s biggest day of Thoroughbred racing. The day’s card features a pair of competitive Grade 3 stakes for the three-year-old set. Eleven horses have entered to vie for a $500,000 Indiana Derby; eight fillies will contend for a $200,000 purse in the Indiana Oaks. The fields feature the combinations that make the midseason Derbies so interesting: those familiar Classic contenders from the spring clash with later bloomers who hope to make their mark as their sophomore year progresses.
Head over to Picks and Ponderings, read my preview of Saturday’s Indiana Derby and Indiana Oaks, and let me know your thoughts in the comments!
Keen Ice (Medomak, by Awesome Again) hasn’t been the most consistent horse in his four seasons on the racetrack, but the son of Curlin has built a track record of blowing my mind once a year.
In 2014, when he was two, that came in the form of an impossible-looking maiden victory. The next year, his star performance came at Saratoga, where he ran past Triple Crown winner American Pharoah in the Travers. Though he did not win at age four, he amazed me by hitting the board in the Breeders’ Cup Classic, off just an allowance prep.
At five, that “wow” moment from Keen Ice came earlier in the year than ever before: in Saturday’s Suburban Stakes (G2).
If you’re my patron, I hope you’ve seen my recent posts about horses to watch over the last couple of weeks at Arlington.
If you’re not a patron yet? Now is a great time to start supporting my Patreon campaign!
I recently made the exciting yet scary leap from a full-time job in the tech world to a job as a chart caller at Arlington Park. I absolutely love it — it still seems a bit surreal that I’m employed to watch and document horse races. Tech had burned me out. Now I’m remembering what it was like to look forward to going to work…and to leave work with enough energy to write. Read. Live.
That job also means that I’m only working on the days that Arlington runs: four days a week through July and August, then three days a week through September. So, it means I have more time and energy for writing…but also means that it’s more important that my writing becomes financially sustainable.
That’s where your patronage comes in. If you enjoy reading what I write, please take a moment and consider supporting my work. Even $1 a month gives you access to more of my writing…of course, higher levels allow you more access and rewards.
If you have any questions, please leave a comment or send me a message — and I’m looking forward to your support and your community for the months and years to come!
Saturday’s card at Arlington International Racecourse featured four graded stakes races, each of which intended as local preps for the Arlington International Festival of Racing. In addition to the purse money for each race, the top three finishers in each of today’s graded stakes races also earned the right to have their fees waived if they enter the corresponding Festival race next month.
Jockey Julien Leparoux shined during the stakes portions of the card, winning the American Derby with SONIC BOOM and then the Stars and Stripes with KEYSTONEFORVICTORY. Both Florent Geroux and Santo Sanjur placed in two different stakes today, as well. Though Geroux knows graded success at Arlington well, Santo Sanjur had never before hit the board in a graded race. He did so with a pair of longshots today for local trainers. Sanjur crossed the wire third in the American Derby with MY BARILEY for conditioner Anthony Granitz, and later second in the Arlington Handicap with Brian Williamson’s charge OAK BROOK.
Head over to Picks and Ponderings, read my look back at Saturday’s Ride to the Million, and let me know in the comments about who you’re most looking forward to seeing on Million Day!
