Memorial Day Horse Racing Part 1: RT picks the four race Lone Star Challenge
May 27, 2019
Happy Memorial Day
Some fast facts about this day that you may, or may not know
· In 1868, Union General John A. Logan founded the holiday. According to legend, he chose that date because it was not the anniversary of any battle in particular.
· Originally, only soldiers who died in war were honored.
· In 1966 LBJ declared Waterloo, NY to be the birthplace of Memorial Day
· In 2000, Bill Clinton signs the “National Moment of Remembrance Act,” which designates 3:00 pm, local time, each year as the “National Moment of Remembrance.”
Enjoy your day away from work.
Musings ∞
Good news and bad and we’ll start with the bad
RIP Bart Starr. A class act.
The good
Congratulations Lady Terps on your fourteenth National Lacrosse Championship.
Congratulations to Simon Pagenaud for taking The Indy 500
Looking ahead, I took Golden State -1 in the first NBA finals game on Thursday. Thinking that The Warriors will score early and often due to Toronto having zero finals experience, their collective pants soiling will be forthcoming.
Yesterday, again, I was on the right horses, yet made the wrong bets.
Today, we’re going to take a stab at the 1,000,000 point Lone Star Challenge. The million points is worth approximately $10K.
Later today, we’re also going to try our hand at the Cross Country Pick 5, which, according to my PP’s, is a pick four…akin to the Mexican Triple Crown which has four races.
Lone Star Challenge (late pick four)
Race 6
$20K MCL for F&M’s 3yo+
Equibase rates the par of this race as a 60. As most maiden races, you look for three mitigating factors.
a) It’s last race at or above todays par
b) Class droppers of a reasonable magnitude (a horse coming from a $25K allowance race to a $5K claimer is not reasonable – it signifies, in most cases, something is wrong.
c) It’s last race at or above par and has run within 2 lengths of the leader at some point in the race. If you get all three, it’s a bet (especially when they led throughout and got beat in the end).
The horses in this race who qualify, and their last speed rating are:
1 – Pushy – 69
6 – Nothinglefttogain - 61
12 – Rock Hard Song – 64
Of the three that satisfy the first criteria, Pushy & Rock Hard Song are dropping for a tag from $23K MSW company, and Nothinglefttogain is dropping from a $25K claimer, or just one class level; however, Nothinglefttogain has a terrific running line in her last race, conjuring up late kick and just missing. This shows you that she’s in good form and will be competitive.
This narrows it down to Pushy and Rock Hard Song.
Reviewing their running lines, Rock Hard Song has bounced around from claiming to MSW and has shown some jump in $25K claimers, yet nothing terribly competitive. Pushy dropped to this level three back, led the way and flattened out in the stretch. A live play.
Lone Star 6 Bets:
1 – Pushy
6 - Nothinglefttogain
Race 7
$7.5K MCL for 3yo+ going 6f
4 – Irish Missile (9/2) comes in with the best last numbers and dropping for a tag. Yes, it’s not wise to back an eighteen time loser; however, the turnback in distance, price and the fact that he’s a 5 year old facing three year olds’ make this gelding more compelling.
1 – Awesome Rain (3/1) for the past year, a very good friend of mine, who happens to be a math genius, has been instrumental in developing a program that helps identify contenders in each race. It’s been arduous and so is data input because it goes into a database and pushed through to a spreadsheet to allow for color coding and notations. The results have been a pickup. The hilarious piece to this endeavor is having to explain horse handicapping to someone of his caliber.
That brings me to this horse.
This one has both speed (the flag) and fares well against this money class (the check) , which is not common and comes in the money 77% of the time. So, this selection is on faith.
These are available for $1.99/race or an 8 race card for $13.50. All initial proceeds will go to Bettors Insider. Email me if you’re interested rtsspotplays@bettorsinder.com. I’ve hit three pick 6’s this year with it.
Race 8
The $100K Lone Star Park Turf Stakes
F&M’s 3yo+ going 1 mile
We’re going to see a hot pace in this with the 9 – Blessed Again (15/1), 3 – Texas Belle (15/1), 5 – Hay Flo (20/1) and 8 – Adore (2/1) all busting their humps trying to keep up with 4 – Sensitive (1/1). The two for me to watch are 2 – Santino (8/1) and 1 – Terra’s Angel (12/1). Santino is coming into form quickly and can use the lesser path to save ground and make a run in the end. Terra’s Angel is a turf specialist with a record of 5: 2-1-0 for $115K.
Race 9
$5K Claimers NW Since for F&M’s 3yo+ going 5.5f
3 – Expect To Fly (10/1) was incognito for 1.5 years before returning on April 19th. New trainer George Bryant sent her out in a $5K claimer and it is evident that getting this filly back into the mix was more important than winning. The next out, May 11th, she went postward in the soup and didn’t like that. Today, she’ll have a chance to show her previous talent, when she was faced with better, and a square price is in the offing.
5 – Promissory Note (7/5) Karl Broberg claimed this filly in late November, raced her in late December in a $7.5K claimer and won. She was then moved to Will Rogers and entered into a $20K Allowance and failed miserably. Now, Broberg has dropped her to this level. Hmmm. We’ll see. I’m including her for the late pick 4 only because of the 24% win rate with Broberg/CJ McMahon connection
For the Lone Star Challenge, my $12 ticket looks like this:
