EXIT PLAY for the Weekend:

This weekend the Exit Play for New York will be the Wood Memorial and the Exit Play for Santa Anita will be The Santa Anita Derby.  Both will be presented in the  typical video format but each will be attached to it’s own KHSS for that particular track…

TOP RATED HORSES:

On Thursday, we once again see, that playing Top Rated horses has it’s place.  As the cost for playing all the Top Rated horses was $34.00 and the return was $33.00, nearly break-even.   So that set should have been easily manipulated to plus street by our astute handicappers/players…   All I can do is give you good information, you have to make the selection and the play according to your understanding of the situations…

The Kentucky Derby Shuffle:

No doubt its still too early, but I had to shuffle my ratings listed above, as you will note, I have dropped Hear The Ghost from my top 10.  I don’t think that Hollendorfer has decided to officially pass the KD, but I assume that’s the next announcement, otherwise he will be going into the KD with only 3 lifetime races.   That would put HTG and Governor Charlie in the same handicap group, entering the KD on only 3 lifetime races…  The only person who could get me to consider betting a horse going into the KD on only 3 lifetime races, without any races within 5 weeks of the KD would have been King Charlie W. and as you know Charlie would never have considered such a thing.   It’s bad enough that we are going to have to consider horses entering the KD on only 4 lifetime races – oh how the moderns behave–  as things are heating up!

So we have the draw for the Wood Memorial this Saturday.  The one thing that pops right out, is my 2nd rated horse, Normandy Invasion doesn’t have enough points, so he must accumulate enough to secure his spot in the lineup.  It’s pretty interesting and for my money, not quite right!  Normandy Invasion must run big enough to beat a couple of really – really – really good horses on Saturday and then recover to win the Derby.   It’s not impossible, but it is a challenge, over the years there have been numerous great horses that failed to win the KD largely because they ran too big in their last prep.   Point Given and Afleet Alex come to mind right off the bat.   Also, the idea of having only 2 prep races in the 3 year old year is also very challenging, it seems that 3 or 4 prepares a horse better, but I don’t want to get too hung up on this argument as Chad Brown is a supremely gifted trainer.   All this being said, Normandy Invasion ran a very decent come-put race in Louisiana and should run a terrific race in the Wood.  Its’ my guess if he runs in the range of  77.5 to a 78.5 in the Wood he will be perfectly positioned to run giant in the KD.   Here is the problem, the winner of the Wood, might well have to run near an 80.0 to win.  The last horse that ran that big in The Wood Memorial was Bellamy Road and we all saw him — PREDICTABLY – go down in burning flames on the first Saturday in May.   I’d be much more sanguine on Normandy Invasion if he didn’t have to do TOO MUCH this Saturday.  Oh yeah,  there is alwas the Chad Brown factor that might well be the really important factor of all the important factors…  Anyway, Vyjack and Verrazano and Normandy Invasion  should make this one of the great Wood Memorials of all time…let’s hope…