Friday June 11, 2010

Recapping the Belmont:  Belmont figures show this group as terrible by any standard applied to Grade -I horses.  For that reason, we should be playing against this entire group for the rest of the season.  That means any new comer 3 year olds should be considered against this group and these 3 year olds, should not get any consideration when mixing it with their elders.  If any of the 3 year olds advances,  I will let you know.  The two that give me some pause are Looking At Lucky and First Dude, also Fly Down might get better later.  Remain circumspect especially at short money…  Drosselmeyer and First Down ran 73.8 and 73.5 respectively, which is at least 4 points below par fopr this class and this age, at this distance, at this time of year.

Today’s Free Play;  Friday’s night at Hollywood Park is in the 6th race tonight.  In this affair we have a group of poor race horses and weak trainers, for that reason the actual way the horses race in terms of speed figures is more predictive than normal.  That’s because the horses just race a certain way and the trainers aren’t getting them to the max effort, so they don’t bounce as much.  As I like to say, these horses just tend to race themselves into a certain racing shape and go along that way.  Leyva Man seems to have got himself to a point where he can beat these. The trainer is Derek Meredith who is having a decent meet so far and he is making a nice move in taking the “blinkers off”.  so at 9/2 as a top rated horse on the Power Page, we should be looking at a win-price-advantage, just what we are looking for!  This makes Leyva man a solid win or win/place wager at 7/2 or higher.  If you want to include some exactas, include the 2,7 & 8 with Leyva Man…Good Luck…