July 24, 2010

 My Del Mar Special is offered because I don’t publish the Power Page for Fairplex and since Del Mar ends a couple of days into September,this offer makes a lot of sense.    For the past 12 years I have been offerring this special at the same price and I am keeping it going because it appeals to so many of you.  If you haven’t tried it, but expect to follow the meeting from beginning to end, it’s great to have , since there are approximately 40 days of racing, that makes the cost of a Power Page at only $2.50 per set or less…Now that’s a deal…I keep the special open for the first week, so the value starts to diminish if you delay for too long…   When you purchase the special, it is e-mailed to you the night-before, usually before 8PM.  

Here is an interesting statistic — Top Rated horses have finished (1st or 2nd)  154 out of 295 times — from June 25th through July 18th.   every  race with least 1 rated starter was counted at both Belmont and Hollywood Park during this period. 

This means that the TOP-RATED horses emulate the frequency of being a favorite without always having the negative of being the favorite — the short price.  Beyond that, remember, you can adjust my numbers according to your own handicapping, since I don’t include important fundemental handicapping factors such as post position, workouts, trainer patterns, jockey moves, claiming, 1st gelding and anything else you can think of that isn’t in a speed figure.   Just taking this set of horses and improving the set with your own handicapping should make you a winner, if we can keep the frequency rate up…Let’s follow it together, through Del mar and Saratoga…

Naturally, at the beginning of the meeting, with the most recent races occurring at other tracks, we might expect the top-rated horses to be slightly less frequent.  We can learn together, so far at Del Mar the TR is 12 (1st or 2nds) out of 35 races.  I will continue to follow these and include Saratoga to the mix…STAR horses are PLUS EQUITY!

Yesterday’s Free Play…Del Mar — Race #5…Star Nicholas was a so-so fourth,

Today’s Free Play …Saratoga…Race #8…If you understand the Power Pages you will know to add points to horses with an “m” or “M” if the track is ACTUALLY wet and the handicapping has been for a FAST (or dry )surface.  That might be the condition today.  Another important aspect of the Powre Page is that I peg layoff horses a touch to the low (slower) side of their form range.   So it’s fair to say that layoff horses have some hidden potential but perform less frequently.  If the track remains on the wet side of Fast, it might be a good idea to take Patience Drive at a M/L of 8/1!  Two reasons, one is we can add a full 1 point to PD’s PPN of 71.5 which would improve the rating to within 1 point of the TR.   You might also improve or knock the TR a small amount as well, making  Zong Zing rating somewhere in a range from 73.0 to 74.0, we can do this simply because no one really knows the effect of a wet track on this filly; she might love it or she might hate wet going at Saratoga.  So at 8/1 on a more know quantity, with some reasonable indication of a preference for a wet surface, we might have something pretty decent here.   I’s make the win place on Patience Drive and demand a price of at least 6/1 in the WET going and 10/1 if it’s FAST going…See how I did that!