Merry Christmas and a Horse Players’ New Year…

Santa Anita is will be running in it’s traditional spot on the day after Christmas, for most of us, this is the start of the New Year!  It’s exciting and it’s uplifting, especially after a 10 day vacay for So. Cal racing.  The card is full of fabulous horses, many of which are bet-able, but maybe the best looking and most bet-able will bee the Star crossed McKinzie.

Anyone who has followed JJ, knows how much talent this horse has, and since he showed it as a very young 3-year old, the upside is phenomenal.  He suffered a hoof injury after his stirring run in the San Felipe, when he out-boxed the then very good Bolt d’Oro. Only to be DQ’d.   Shortly after that effort the injury showed!  Don’t know if it happened in that duel, or innocuously thereafter.  It doesn’t matter!

After his apparently easy victory, it looked like nothing but Green lights to me as he went to take on the Breeders Cup.  But something happened at Churchill Downs, that made me think something might be really wrong with Big Mack (as I like to call him).  But we need to consider that he was just too sharp that day, got involved in a nasty speed duel and just wasn’t fit enough – fooling the master.

One note of caution, Baffert has had a number of horses the past 2 years that were champs that went wrong, and he kept racing them and they kept losing.  So that has to be part of our value equation.  Of course I am naming West Point, Abel Tasman and the great Arrogate. I have commented on this, that he has not been able to bring back some of the really great horses to a previous “sensational level”, in fact they have often race quite sub-standardly.

But unlike Arrogate or Abel Tasman who barely tried, when McKinzie ran at Churchill this past fall, he really ran hard for the first 6 furlongs, so it’s not like he didn’t want to race.  We will see, but if he is feeling like his old self, he will win…

Gulfstream News at Power Page HQ…

Starting on Jan 2nd, through April 30th… I will be publishing a Power Page Classic for Gulfstream Park – Wednesday through Sunday.  It will be available ON-LINE Only  (for the time being) for $5.00 per… but also available for a Monthly Subscription of $60.00 – which include automatic overnight delivery.

Let me know if this is of interest to you…