Still Sitting Empty, But...

(Panoramio image by Helmut Fischer)

We’re finally there. Dresden Racecourse’s greatest weekend of the year has arrived, and so have Dresden’s two Listed events of the the season.

Saturday’s feature is the 20.000€ Freiberger-Premium-Preis, historically known as the Preis der Dreijährigen, a Derby prep over 2000m. The relatively high prestige of this race is based mainly on producing back-to-back Derby winners in 1994's Laroche and 1995's ill-fated supertalent All My Dreams. The latter was the last Derby winner to prep at Dresden, although Derby runner-up’s Night Tango (2005) and Dickens (2006) came awfully close.

Of this year’s starters, only the unbeaten Navajo Dancer could be on somebody’s Derby shortlist, but it’s a fine field anyway. There’s no one who has won anything of real importance yet, but there are two or three very promising stayers who are just one or two steps away from entering the Derby picture. After all, that’s what you want to see in a 2000m Listed event for 3yo’s at this time of year.

What you wish for in a 2000m Listed race for older horses are starters who have been reasonably close in Group races, or who have proven competitive on this level before. The Sachsen Preis, Sunday’s 20K feature, far exceeds that standard. 4yo filly Goathemala starts for the first time this year, she won the G3 Frankfurter Stutenpreis last time out. Other season debutants are Schützenjunker (who is extremely inconsistent, but hasn’t earned 130K in eight lifetime starts for nothing) and Andre Fabre transfer El Comodin, who finished on the board in a French 52K Listed race on his last attempt. El Comodin was bred in Ireland, but is by German-bred champion sire Monsun and out of German-bred three-time G1-winning mare Elle Danzig (by Roi Danzig), which makes his current record of a won Listed race at Chantilly and a fourth-place finish in the G2 Prix Guillaume d’Ornano at Deauville almost disappointing. More International color is added by Classical Word (by El Prado), one of the top Danish horses in training (admittedly that doesn’t take very much).

N.B.: You gotta love this lifetime record for 13yo gelding Aladan (by Danehill, no less) heading into Saturday’s 3rd:

143 (12-10-13)

HANA Predictions 09-06-13

After I had to skip the last installment of HANA’s Pool Parties, I’m back for this one. There are a lot of nice things to say about Monmouth, but other bloggers have done so in abundance over the last couple of weeks. I'm pretty sure none of those glowing reviews was triggered by anything but honest opinion, nevertheless it does leave a sour taste to read a glowing review of a day at the track, then see a Monmouth ad an inch to the left. In light of recent discussion, I’m not sure if the few bucks the TBA makes by selling ad space are really worth the cost.

My favorite TBA ad, btw, seems to have disappeared recently: the one for Mark Ripple’s ÜberHorse.com (“Handicapping the Wall Street way”). I’m pretty sure the guy regrets that subtitle by now (I mean, the going broke part is easy, just not sure if begging for bailout money will work as well for horseplayers as it did for Goldman Sachs).

Back to the issue at hand: tomorrow’s Race 9 from Monmouth, the cleverly-named Monmouth Stakes, is a great choice. It’s 9 furlongs over the turf at Monmouth, which means you can almost completely discount starting positions 7 and higher. Moreover, there are a number of starters that seem to use this race as a mere stopover on the UN Hcap trail. Among those are #4, 5 and 7. I don’t think Fearless Eagle and Banrock (whose stakes wins have come exclusively in NY statebred turf races) will be a factor. Same goes for Richard’s Kid, who is obviously hoping for this race to be taken off-the-turf, but even then he would need the added assistance of several scratches. Which leaves the following:

#1 Proudinsky – pretty much every conceivable angle points to this horse, plus the race could set up nicely for him; he isn’t a world-beater, but here he looks in the right place at the right time

#4 Grand Couturier – I love the way this horse is campaigned, and it paid off last season with two G1 wins; trainer has given him a prep race the last two years though, and this almost certainly is one too; may be good enough to hit the board on class alone, but he most certainly will be an underlay

#5 Strike A Deal – bit of a sucker horse, plus he is one of several who seem to need a longer distance; nevertheless, shouldn’t be overlooked here

#6 Buddy’s Humor – would have to step up some from his Elkhorn performance, but has shown he can live with Presious Passion opening up (i.e. doesn’t absolutely need the lead); seems to be in the right spot

#7 Presious Passion – really like this horse, but I doubt his running-style is fitting here, especially from this post

A more detailed analysis can be found on the Monmouth Park blog.

Summary:
With question marks surrounding most of the big names, this race should be Proudinsky’s for the taking. I see Buddy’s Humor’s as the only real threat.

Best Bets:
A bit risky to throw out what may be the two best horses in this field (#4 and 7), but all the more rewarding if it works. I’ll wait to see how my candidates look in the post parade before settling on a bet, but a Win bet on #1 Proudinsky and an Exacta with him on top and a combination of #5 and 6 looks most likely.

Notice:
This will be the last installment of my HANA Predictions. Starting this segment, my goal wasn’t to show off my handicapping skills (I’m perfectly aware there are far better guys and gals out there), but to spread the word about HANA’s Pool Parties. I think they’ve reached everyone you can reach via the blogosphere by now. Also, not surprisingly, readership numbers for this feature have been extremely poor. If you’ve reached here: congrats! You’ve hit the board. If you haven’t, well, that’s my point.

Result:
Looked good at the top of the stretch with Proudinsky taking the lead and Buddy's Humor charging for second, but Proudinsky left too much energy when pulling to catch Presious Passion over the first five furlongs and faded a bit at the end. Clear-cut handicapping error on my side for underestimating this factor. Congratulations to Elvis Trujillo, whose ride on Presious Passion was one of the best jockey performances I've ever seen on a front-runner. After going clear in the early stages, Trujillo gave his horse a breezer through the final turn and conserved enough energy to come back in the stretch. Perfection!

Triple Crown Alive In The UK

A strong field of opponents wasn’t enough to keep Sea The Stars from impressively winning the Epsom Derby under moderate urging from Mick Kinane. The John Oxx-trained son of Cape Cross became the first horse since Nashwan in 1989 to win the first two legs of the English Triple Crown. If he starts at Doncaster in September, he’d be the first Derby winner to contest there since Reference Point in 1987, and the first one since TC-winner Nijinsky in 1970 to start with a Triple Crown sweep on the line.

The second-to-fifth finisher were all trained by Aiden O’Brien (in this order: Fame And Glory, Masterofthehorse, Golden Sword, Rip Van Winkle) and all of them looked classy even in defeat. O’Brien predictably played stable tactics, sending Golden Sword and Age Of Aquarius to set a near-insane pace, but none of this could stop Sea The Stars, who has to be considered a great one. Slight disappointments were Dante-winner Black Bear Island and Guineas-third Gan Amhras (needless to say, both are Irish horses) who never got into the race today.

Well-beaten sixth-place finisher Crowded House was the first British horse to pass the post, although eighth-placed Debussy may be the only one worth a mention. The winner of the Blue Riband Trial had a remarkably bad trip and ultimately fell victim to the pace scenario, but showed some potential to build upon (and for the few remembering my post about the Epsom Trial, my favorite, Mustaqer, unfortunately finished distressed and hasn't returned to the races since).

After Galileo, Sea The Stars is the second Epsom Derby winner for recently-deceased broodmare Urban Sea. And for those who think great female racehorses make lousy broodmares: Urban Sea won a little something called Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe in 1993.

Epsom And Elmont

The last days have seen such a flurry of Belmont Stakes predictions and analysis that it would almost be ridiculous to post another one. And that’s where I come in:

It’s been slightly more than a week ago that Rachel Alexandra’s connections informed the racing world about their filly skipping the Belmont in an announcement that obviously lacked a sentence. Something along the lines of: “And by ‘she is in great shape’ we mean from a medical standpoint, yet we as the people in everyday contact with the horse feel she isn’t as fresh as we had hoped for, and therefor won’t contest another tough race at this point in time”. With that qualifier fallen victim to the “delete”-button (Microsoft- or mind-wise), the remaining parts of the announcement read like Stonestreet aren’t starting a perfectly ready horse (after all, a bit of attrition is supposed to be a factor in the Belmont) and inexplicably delayed the announcement for two weeks.

The last two weeks also made it hard to defend against the widespread public perception that racing is a fundamentally elitist sport.
First, Paul Moran declared there were several better riders than Calvin Borel in the New York jockeys room but didn’t feel the need to name a single example (much less any actual argument) even after repeated urging. Moran sounded even more like he just wanted to vent some frustration when adding that Borel wouldn’t have ridden Mine That Bird any better in the Preakness, which of course can’t be disproved, but isn’t exactly convincing given that the gelding went from a perfect Derby trip to a decidedly sub-par one in the Preakness. Add the fact that Borel was in a tough spot of his own in said race, and he mastered it perfectly.
After that, a number of racing fans used Moran's sentiment (opinion minus argument = prejudice, as Aristoteles never quite said) as proof for their theory that MTB’s connections are a couple of rednecks who aren’t up to the challenge.

The main backwoods redneck, Chip Woolley, has had one really good horse in his life, and he trained him to win the Kentucky Derby, after which only a bad trip provided MTB from really challenging RA in the Preakness (insert your own Toddster reference of choice here). He may still be prone to make a beginners’ mistake or two on this level, but so far he has outsmarted all of us, so you better wipe that smug look right off your face!

With those thoughts off my mind, let’s have a look on the two main races today. The Epsom Derby shapes up as a virtual added-distance re-run for the 2000 Guineas. As always, handicapping the English Classics (except the St. Leger) comes down to an exercise in guessing at horsemen and pedigree angles rather than comparing actual forms, but Guineas winner Sea The Stars looks to be the one to beat. He’s a half-brother to Galileo and his pedigree doesn’t include too many stamina question marks. Still, with no less than six horses in a twelve-horse field, Aidan O’Brien has a lot of options, even though his first jockey (Murtagh) skipped what would be his logical first two choices (Fame And Glory and Black Bear Island) for Rip Van Winkle, whose last two disappointing performances aren’t helped by his doubtful pedigree. The first six choices are all Irish raiders, and there’s only Godolphin’s Kite Wood to hold up the Emirati flag, but he was beaten decisively by Black Bear Island in the Dante Stakes.

As for the Belmont, I find myself underwhelmed by this race now that RA is out of the mix. It’s not that no Triple Crown is on the line (I wasn’t particularly thrilled by last year’s edition either), it’s just that there isn’t too much sporting interest left. Mine That Bird could once again cement his status, but anyone who still doubts that he is the real deal probably can’t be helped anyway. If he gets beat by one of the fresher horses, he’ll have enough excuses.

#1 Chocolate Candy – unusual comment for an Argentine-sired horse, but I doubt his stamina; also, he was beaten quite decisively in the Derby, and I don’t see enough reason for a reversal of fortunes

#2 Dunkirk – probably the only interesting non-Borel storyline left: will he disprove his meager Derby performance? I doubt it, but I was never on the Dunkirk bandwagon; Pletcher indicated his colt might not like wet ground, but he may have been just scrambling for excuses; all in all I consider him an underlay at a 4/1 ML

#3 Mr Hot Stuff – sorry, but 1-from-8, trained and run almost exclusively on artificial surfaces just doesn’t translate into Belmont victory for me

#4 Summer Bird – has the pedigree, and by my long-standing policy to automatically bet any horse that ran okay going spectacularly wide in all of his last races, this 12/1 ML horse is a “buy”

#5 Luv Gov – unless I’m completely missing something here, his 20/1 ML would make him the underlay of the day; trainer has proven often enough that he WILL send out horses with a snowball’s chance.

#6 Charitable Man – won well in the Peter Pan, but wasn’t too impressive; may profit from added distance and likes this track; needs the race to set up for him to beat MTB, but may get it

#7 Mine That Bird – almost looks like a sucker bet, but I just don’t see a better horse in this field, only a couple that could be more fortunate; I’m not concerned about the distance, but the track and level of attrition are concerns, though wet-fast would help; with RA out, his opposition might concentrate on making this tough on Borel and his horse

#8 Flying Private – ran well in the Preakness, but won only one of twelve LT starts and doesn’t look to be the greatest fighter of all; at 12/1 ML he is worth consideration for the exotics, but I wouldn’t rate him a real threat; as a fan, I find Lukas horses an automatic “root-against” after he once again proposed his TC extension plan.

#9 Miner’s Escape – Federico Tesio to Belmont may be stepping up a bit too fast

#10 Brave Victory – a Zito-horse like #9, he has yet to hit the exacta in five graded stakes attempts; highly doubtful he’ll do so here

Summary:

Plenty of things could go wrong for MTB, but as a racing fan I hope he wins it. If he doesn’t, I doubt that a new star will be born as the rest of the field (with exception for Summer Bird and Dunkirk) is rather playing the angles than actually Triple Crown material. I’ll just try to get some small bets on the 'Birds for a good price (both are attracting too much in the early market at betfair, actually below their ML right now) and leave it at that.

If you want to bet more, I recomend you single #7 for a Win, #4 and 6 for the Exacta spot and #2,4,6 and 8 to hit the board. You might switch #7 and #4 for a value bet.

Lost In Translation

As fortunately as it is surprising, no one around here seems to be in the early stages of hysteria in anticipation of this week’s visit of the American Messiah-elect to our (really not that) humble town.

Unlike the prophets of old however, Obama is poised to block our way through the raging waters (or over them, for that matter), as the bridge I would usually take to my job will be closed for security reasons on Thursday.

Anyway, the reason I posted today is that Pull The Pocket has brought it to the blogosphere’s attention that Poker Channel Europe yesterday started to televise American racing in a daily hour-long show. PCE is an extremely remote digital channel available on a very limited number of cable systems, but one that can be viewed using Zattoo.

Poker and Racing, by the way, are a natural match. Both are the only two forms of gambling in which skill and determination can give you a winning percentage. Both are also the only ones in which the house (at least theoretically) can be neutral towards the result as long as the handle is high enough.

I was intrigued by the concept for a couple of minutes, even more so when I clicked the link on PCE’s website to get further information and realized that their program is actually presented and produced by Equi8, a relatively new and very promising German web channel/ADW which is for the most part a continuation/copy of defunct Premiere Win. P-Win was a German channel dedicated almost exlusively to American horse racing run by pay-per-view service Premiere, but it was actually available for free and streamed its entire program (6pm-2am weekdays, ca. 2pm-2am weekends) online.

It had its pitfalls, but nevertheless it was easily the best of several failed attempts at establishing a racing channel in Germany. One of its best features was a crew of really good commentators, ranging from longtime analysts to active jockeys and trainers.

After watching half an hour of the “Equi8 Happy Hour”’s lead-in program (virtual poker, no kidding) I was sure I knew what to expect, and that it wouldn’t be bad. After all, what could go wrong with a studio crew of longtime veteran Michael Luxenburger and Thorsten Castle, the track announcer at Munich Racecourse and a brilliant promoter at times (both are P-Win alumni)?

I was gonna find out soon enough: they were forced to moderate in English. Both aren’t bad at English, but both aren’t nearly good enough to go On Air speaking it, mainly because they have too detectable an accent and lack the easy slap-of-tongue they master in their native language. The program had a studio crew that can be a joy to listen to, and used it in a way that made listening to them an ordeal. That’s wasted talent, and a textbook case of offending two audiences by trying to be everything to everyone.

Let’s be honest for a second: how large does PCE assess the market in Cyprus, Croatia and Belgium to be? As long as they aren’t allowed to show it in the UK or Ireland, the market for this show is Germany. And if they would be allowed, they’d find out the hard way that no native speaker would listen to a bunch of accent-plagued Germans using mispronounced English to discuss American racing. If you assemble a team of some of the best German racing analysts, why not use that potential rather than have them struggle uncomfortably through moderations that end up lacking, or worse?

Quarters to Square the Rectangle (And Other Observations)

I was gonna write a piece yesterday about the slightly odd direction the Zenyatta v Rachel Alexandra match debate has taken, but EquiSpace has pretty much said all I wanted say already, kudos!

I would only add that I don’t quite understand why a Belmont-winning RA would be the “challenger” against Zenyatta at all. If she won the “Test of Champions”, the filly would have an Oaks triumph and two Triple Crown wins under her belt. Zenyatta has shown all the potential in the world (or at least the artificially surfaced world), but still hasn’t beaten anyone better than Ginger Punch, especially considering she met Music Note and Cocoa Beach on a tilted playing field. In my understanding of "challenging" a Champion, the one in the challenging position would be Zenyatta. Without the Belmont, I’d regard it a tie, so they may meet each other somewhere half way, like Prairie Meadows (I’m not seriously proposing this, I just desperately needed a segue).


Prairie Madness

When I hear “Racing in Iowa”, the first thing I think about is the tradition-rich Iowa Fairs harness circuit, then comes the tradition of Thoroughbred racing in the Midwest (actually, the first thing to come to mind would be amateur stock car racing, but that’s besides the point).

The "non-profit" Prairie Meadows Racino seems to think otherwise. They plan to shift the focus of their product towards Quarter Horse racing, dropping the equivalent of 10 Thoroughbred racedays in the process, and quit racing Standardbreds altogether.

I feel a bit odd criticizing the switch because I don’t really dislike the result, what bugs me is the method applied, and the logic that I suspect is behind it.

Less thoroughbred racing at PrM is good for the sport (although not necessarily for racing in Iowa), and I guess (really guess, my harness racing knowledge is extremely limited) that Iowa Fair racing is best helped by reverting those racedays to Iowa fairgrounds. Still, this reasoning was obviously not what led Prairie Meadows to propose the change.

What got this non-profit organization to do it then? Well, first of all the fact that non-profit is a clear-cut misnomer, since the racino does make profit for its state and its perpendicularly angled host county. Despite lower handle, the considerably lower cost of QH racing makes it more profitable for the track. So profitable obviously, that they will even change their race dates to Thursday through Sunday, even though their Monday and Tuesday events currently attract more than three times the handle (but probably not enough to outweigh the lure of having a lead-in on the most profitable casino days).

So in essence, what the good folks at Prairie Meadows mean by “promoting racing in Iowa” is to drop the state’s most tradition-rich mode of racing, demote the most popular mode on their track, and concentrate on a mode of racing that has hardly any heritage in Iowa, and has so far failed to gain substantial public interest.

"Non-Profit" never sounded so hollow before. Seems like Iowa is starting to cut off the parasite.

10.099 Beats 7.412, But Not By Much

In all the euphoria over yesterday’s atmosphere at Belmont Park, where 10.099 racegoers apparently had a great time, I was relieved that I wasn’t the only one struck by how low this number really was. Just over 10.000? On a public holiday, in beautiful weather, with one of the most prestigious handicaps of the continent on the card? Dresden had 7.412 for this year’s only raceday so far. And horse racing is by no means a generally more popular sport over here.

That’s 7.412 in a city of 500.000, which (no matter how often English-language Wikipedia wants to ignore the objections by me and other editors) isn’t part of any metropolitan area. It’s for a raceday on which the “feature” was a Hcp D for 4.600€, on the same weekend on which Dresden also hosted the largest Dixieland festival outside New Orleans, among other alternatives.

For all they screw up in every other part of marketing the sport, the one thing German racecourses do well is marketing themselves as an outdoor event. There are several thousand regular racegoers (especially families) in any city with a track who don’t have any interest in the sport on any other than raceday, but who attend for the atmosphere and side attractions alone. They will usually only make a couple of spice-up bets at minimum stake amount, spread out over the day. Yet the racetracks profit from the admission and programmes paid and the revenue generated from on-site beer gardens, cafés, vendors, pony rides and other attractions.

Due to the, self-inflicted, absence of meaningful off-track handle (on Dresden’s first raceday, only 40,4% of the 108K total handle were off-site), this source of income is increasingly vital for the continuing existence of the sport in our remote corner of the Thoroughbred world.

Good attendance is great for the horseplayers too. Because a large portion of the handle comes from people who aren’t really dedicated handicappers, it’s much easier to find quality bets at a good price, the level of competition is much lower (although in Germany this is somewhat offset by the difficulty of getting meaningful information).

I’m aware that it’s easier to get good attendance figures if you only have a dozen of racedays per year to promote, but then nobody forces NYRA to run two stakes races every weekend. This way, they’re teaching the audience that a comparable product will be offered all the time, thus diminishing the incentive to attend today, or tomorrow. It would be easier to attract large crowds if they would create several racedays when the product offered (on the courses and around the paddock) far exceeds the usual levels, then promote only those days, and leave the rest to the few that will come anyway and have little interest in the side attractions. This is the way the Paris tracks do it, and it works fine for them.

Of course, it would be even better for NYRA to realize that even in the “Golden Age” they ran hardly a third of the number of races, but I’m trying to be realistic here.