My comments on Track Safety and Obligation:

Tracks should be  designed and prepared each day to safeguard all the race horses.

This principle should come before the perceived notion of the “SHOW”.  I understand that fast times tend to excite the viewing audience and the telecasters can talk up the fast times. While if the times are slower, they have to advise on “equivalencies” that the viewing public might not get.  However, selling the game should never exceed safety.

I have no knowledge, nor do I in anyway know the correct hardness or comparative depth of the surface the track  should be on a day to day basis.  What I can tell you, is that immediately after the first race yesterday, I sent an e-mail to Ralph Siraco, stating that I thought the RAIL was super fast and there was a strong INSIDE BIAS.  That was clearly confirmed throughout the racing day.  Later on,  on Ralph’s show on Sunday, Jon Lindo – who owns horses stabled at Santa Anita and is an astute observer of our great game  — commented that the track had “tighhtend” up and become very hard.

Let’s add in this concept.  That SPEED x Mass = Force.  This is simple, the faster a horse runs, the more Forces he is exerting!  This is simple…  A SLOW horse and a FAST horse actually weigh the same for the most part, the only difference is the speeds they travel at.  While the fast horse is likely to be a better made animal, the fast horse is still exerting more FORCE and thereby more likely to hurt him/herself than the SLOW horse.  This is not rocket science – this is the basis for understanding literally everything connected to SPEED SPORTS, especially our SPEED SPORT.

And so, to my mind, it would be most important if the tracks were prepared to protect the well-being of our fastest horses – FIRST!

One more comment, horses have a unique, suspensory type of system, and they do not absorb the same kinds of impact that we might believe they encounter.  With that understanding, I do not suggest that I know the right depths or preparations that a track should actually have.  I have heard from some quarters that deep tracks are hard on horses and I have heard that tight tracks can be hard on horses… So there is an optimum balance that should be the province of the Track supers…

My main idea is… that the track should be designed and prepped to protect all the equine athletes, with a special eye to protecting our fastest participants…

I am not suggesting  the Santa Anita strip was safe or not safe for the equine athletes on Saturday 3/11/2017. What I am saying is,  it should be prepared to the same safety standards everyday, the very highest safety standard there is!

So, IF the track super had the track “souped-up” to put on a show, resulting in a lower safety standard horses, then I that case – I think that would be wrong.  I’ just saying…. and of course this is just my opinion …

3 year olds this weekend…

Tapwrit was very strong in the Tampa Bay Derby, but still has only traveled up to 1 1/6th mile and has not carried much weigh so far…  We shall have to see the next step… but stays near the top of our ratings… 

Mastery is done now, apparently suffering a condylar crack in his back hind leg.  He looked beautiful in winning.  Apparently the injury fully expressed itself after the wire, during the pull up.  It’s always hard to say when it actually happened, can anyone really know for sure…

Iliad is a sprinter and Gormley doesn’t appear to be much…Normally after the San Felipe, I personally am excited but the race and deeply interested in getting into the nuts and bolts of it.  Concerned with what the splits were and how much ground loss this one had and so on and so forth.  But this year, I just have a big sigh.  There is now no horse that comes out of California with much upside directed at Churchill Downs on the first Saturday in May.  Gormley really tells the sad story of the balance of the West Coasters at this point.  (Of course, Bob Baffert might unveil a monster at any moment).

So the biggest story of the day might well be the Santa Anita track – itself —  which was prepped to favor the inside to a fault – at least in my opinion…and I wonder out loud if it was so hard, that it participated in the unfortunate injury to Mastery. 

Shaman Ghost showed real class!

I will update my betting totals and Bias information tomorrow… but your JJPPs are ready…

 The San Felipe:  Mastery, Iliad and Gormley

All eyes are have to be looking West for the San Felipe Grade II. on Saturday.  But this edition, has more question marks about the class caliber.  Last year, we had Nyquist and Exaggerator stepping onto the scene and we knew they had terrific ability as 2 year olds and there styles were opposite, with Nyquist brilliant and Exaggerator more of a stout style runner.  And we knew going in these two were the class of the San Felipe. This was all clear.

Well apart from Iliad who we know is very fast early,  we do not know that much more.  Mastery returns from his vacation, the last we saw him in December, running 2 turns at Los Alamitos, and while he ran much better than the competition, he didn’t really do very much running that day, as the competition was soft.   His “line” is hard to imagine and difficult to forecast off.  His opening 6 furlong race was his best race by quite a margin, he registered a 75.0 in his opener, the next two races were WINS, but in slow figs.  So we simply have to assume his can run better than his opening effort, and hence, I assigned him a 76.0.  But in truth he could run much better, but it’s hard to know.

Gormley is a litte more conventional, and he ran a 75.0 in his last and I have assigned him a 75.5, I expect improvement, but don’t necessarily think it’s a wild forward move today.  I would guess his best effort might show up in April.

And Iliad just showed off his sensational early speed.  This is really the type of line that produces huge forward more, more often than we typically get or expect.  So he’s the most interesting to me as a play, but to be honest, we need some price to support a play here…

Kentucky Derby 2017:

Kentucky Derby Info…  Before we get going on this years KD, we should get a handle on some recent history.  It’s important, because this is a giant ask, and we have to understand who and how they are going to arrive in Kentucky for this season’s Kentucky Derby. So let’s look back first…

Previous Winners           Raw Clocking, Mile and Final             JerryJ’s Figure

2014 California Chrome           (97.45,    203.60)                                 74.3

2015 American Pharoah           (96.45,   203.02)                                 76.5

2016 Nyquist                               (95.61,    201.31)                                  79.0

Interestingly and not surprising Nyquist had the fastest clocking and also earned the highest JerryJ figure – a 79.0.  It’s also worth noting that Nyquist also ran faster in the final quarter, both in actual time and in relative time.  What do I mean by relative time?  Considering that Nyquist ran faster through the opening 8 furlongs, so it would be reasonable to allow him to come the final quarter a little slower.  Nyquist ran the final 1/4 in 25.70, while American Pharoah ran his final 1/4 in 26.57 and California Chrome 26.21 (CC was a little faster in the stretch than AP, but that would be expected because his split were a little slower).  But American Pharoah, seemed to run faster – RELATIVELY- than California Chrome, because he expended more energy through the opening mile.  So while he ran slightly slower in ACTUAL closing quarter, he ran equal to CC or even faster.   By the way, the variant for these 3 different KD, were very similar according to my protocols for assigning variants. And it’s a pretty solid day for making variants, because we have much more data to work with due to 12 race cards and the huge fields and the higher quality horses.  But kudos to Butch, he’s a fabulous track super!

One last comment on the slowish clocking and JerryJ fig of CC, it’s just one race and he always ran down to his competition, if they had run faster, surely he would have run faster and to my eye, he had pulled himself up for the last 100 yards — At Least.  To me these are all superior racehorses, with American Pharoah going on to be a GREAT racehorse.  Also, they all ran similar ground loss, because they all went on an outside trip.

One more comment on the quality of Nyquist.  To my knowledge he ran the fastest 1st quarter of any horse who ended up winning the Kentucky Derby, with the possible exception of Seattle Slew, whose actual clocking was slower than Nyquist, but he had to make up 3-4 lengths after breaking slowly and getting in behind some slower horses. Nyquist’s Kentucky Derby was sensational…

NEXT WEEK we will get into the form AP, CC and Nyquist showed going into their KD’s.

Here are my current numbers for a series of KD Contenders, as if they were going to run a 1 1/16 tomorrow…

McCraken              78.5 *

Iliad                         75.5*

Unique Bella          78.0

Tapwrit                    77.8

One Liner                77.3

Classic Empire       76.5

J Boys Echo           76.0

Mastery                   76.0

Royal Mo                75.8

Girvin                      75.5

Gormley                 75.5

Amer. Anthem      75.0

El Areeb                  74.3

Gunnevera             73.5

Practical Joke        73.5

Notice in this listing, I have rated on McCraken and Iliad  as STAR horses and put them to the top of this list…  Also note, Classic Empire ran a 77.8 as a 2 year old and is the only horse with a rating below his best 2 year old effort.  We will have to see how he comes back from his abscess injury.

Daily Bias Report…

Aqueduct …(3-9-2017)   No play at Aqueduct today.!

Santa Anita (3-9-2017) Honest.

Race Day Las Vegas Section

Thursday  3-10-2017

Santa Anita  Race #7 Battle of Midway off at 9/5… surprisingly took hold and raced wide around the first turn, went wide on the far turn, showed some acceleration to open a clear lead then held well late while under urging.

Gulfstream Park Race #8  Veil off at 9/2 slow early, had mild gain late, never threatening…

Race Day Plays for New York and So. Cal Plays

(starting February 24,2017 thru 3/9/17)

NY — Total Return  $4.70, Total Cost  $ 12.00,  ROI Total  $0.39

SA — Total Return  $39.20, Total Cost  $ 18.00,  ROI Total  $2.18/$1.00

GP –  Total Return  $~~~, Total Cost  $ 2.00,  ROI Total  $0.00/$1.00

Returns on all plays for 2017…

Total Return      $ 148.10
Total  Cost          $ 142.00

(Updated to include Shareholder Value at Fair Grounds)…

ROI $1.04 per $1.00 played…(thru 3/9/2017)

All ROI totals are to a $1.00 base play.
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