May/114
Hollywood Park Pick 6 – May 7
Friday Hollywood Park Recap – May 6
Both surfaces seemed to play fair.
All-weather hat trick for Alonso Quinonez.
On the ticket front I tabbed two Primary (Every Ego, Popular Cause) winners and two Secondary (Cherokee Heaven, Coil) winners. I landed the place with primary players in the two races I missed.
Check out the top Kentucky Derby 2011 contenders, and be sure to follow Horse Racing Nation on Facebook!
For more Hollywood Park action check out Marc Doche at Pick 4 Blog.
Saturday Free Play Links
Below are links to my May 7th free selections…enjoy!
7th race from Hollywood Park – MySpace Blog
9th race from Hollywood Park – Today’s Racing Digest
Senorita Stakes from Hollywood Park – Horse Racing Nation
Fast Track with Steve Bortstein
I am pleased to announce that I have joined Steve Bortstein on his Fast Track radio show. Tune in each Saturday and Sunday (8-9am MT).
Click here to listen to the Fast Track on Fox Sports 1340AM.
2011 Full Card Schedule – Triple Crown + Belmont Park Saturdays
*** Ky Oaks Day full card highlights: R1 – Smooth Charm ($8.80), R2 – Trifecta ($123.60), Double (R 1-2, $59.20), R3 – Juanita (best bet #1, $6.80), Double (R 2-3, $32), Pick 3 (R 1-2-3, $230.20), R 8 – Trifecta (best bet #2, $1,288.20). *** My Oaks day analysis can now be viewed on my Digest handicapper page (click view sample).
I am offering the following full cards for $10/each at Today’s Racing Digest…
Kentucky Derby Day from Churchill Downs (Saturday, May 7)
Saturday, May 14 from Belmont (Peter Pan Stakes)
Black-Eyed Susan Day from Pimlico (Friday, May 20)
Preakness Day from Pimlico (Saturday, May 21)
Saturday full cards from Belmont Park including Belmont Stakes Day (Sat. May 28 – Sat. June 4, 11, 18, 25 – Sat. July 2, 9, 16)
*** The Derby card is complete and ready to purchase!
Saturday’s pick six from Hollywood Park includes an even split of three Cushion Track and turf events. The feature race is the Grade 3 Senorita for 3-year-old fillies traveling a flat mile on the turf. Morning line favorite Cambina is after a four-bagger and if she is successful she will have to do it over a new turf course without a ton of pace help. Mostly sunny skies are expected with high temperature of 64.
Degree of Difficulty: Moderate. On a scale of 1 to 10, the Saturday pick six from Hollywood Park rates a 6.
Possible Singles: Magnificent Blend (7th race), Bella Giornatta (11th race)
Jarrod Horak’s Hollywood Park Pick 6 Tickets – Saturday, May 7, 2011
Hollywood Park Race 6 (Clm-25k, 3up, 8.5T) Primary (#8 Mr. Katz, #9 Advice) – Secondary (#3 El Merito, #1 Control Seeker)
Hollywood Park Race 7 (Clm-20k, 3up, 6.5f) Primary (#9 Magnificent Blend) – Secondary (#5 Gallatin’s Run)
Hollywood Park Race 8 (MSW, 3up, 6T) Primary – (#2 Green Cat, #6 Guest Star) – Secondary (#3 Brutally Handsome, #9 Rock Off)
Hollywood Park Race 9 (Str-Alw, 3up, 6f) Primary (#3 Dime, #11 Klassy Saint) – Secondary (#6 First Strike, #8 Caffeine High, #13 Honor Among Us)
Hollywood Park Race 10 (Grade 3 Senorita, 3yo fil, 8T) Primary (#5 Star Billing, #8 Justenufappeal, #2 Cambina)
Hollywood Park Race 11 (Mcl-20k, f&m 3up, 6.5f) Primary (#8 Bella Giornatta) - Secondary (#10 Black Wildcat)
Saturday Pick 6 Tickets
Note that the Standard Ticket shows how much it would cost if you used all of the contenders on one ticket. The multiple Primary/Secondary ticket strategy saves money and allows you to put your strong handicapping opinions to the test.
Pick 6 Spread Ticket Calculator courtesy of Del Mar website (click tickets to enlarge)
8:46 pm on May 7th, 2011
Animal Kingdom? A synthetic horse? With all the talk about how dirt is superior and blah, blah, a synthetic horse wins. He looked good admittedly, but on synthetic.
I had the second and third horses. You can’t stop a closer like Nehro. And I thought Mucho Macho Man was extremely reliable as he was able to race with To Honor and Serve two times. That was last year when To Honor and Serve was hot (he was definitely not hot this year, injured actually.) Horses that beat To Honor and Serve this year got no credit. I also took out Horses that seemed to need their last race just to get in the Derby — Pants on Fire, Arch, and I should have thrown out Midnight Interlude as you said, Jarrod.
Funny, shortly before the race, there was a lot of buzz about Animal Kingdom. What was that all about? The jockey switch?
8:46 am on May 8th, 2011
The ky Derby was easy picking,just ask Liam Durbin of e-ponies.com. In his special kentucky heature analysis which he emailed to loyal supporters, he picked Animal Kingdom the winner and had Nehro and other horses behind. The exacta paid a cool $364.00. None of the DRF public handicappers and other blogging “experts”, Beyer and Crist included, picked Animal Kingdom, with the exception of my other favorite handicapper, Marcus Hersch….Liam is contemplating another special feature for the Preakness. I can’t wait…
3:16 pm on May 8th, 2011
Thanks for the comments Del and Art. It was anybody’s guess how Animal Kingdom would handle dirt. He obviously had no problems but the race shape was probably the reason he won it. The :48 and 1:13 fractions made the Derby seems more like a synthetic/turf race and it played right into the hands of the eventual winner.
Animal Kingdom was my pick in the Spiral Stakes and on my radio segment Friday with Steve Bortstein I said he was the horse I feared most but in the end I wanted him to prove that he could handle dirt. I have picked synthetic horses in past Derbies (Colonel John, Pioneerof the Nile) and sure enough when I am off that angle it strikes, lol.
8:20 pm on May 8th, 2011
Just got home to read the posts. Liam Durbin is a wizard then. I browsed DRF after the race and found one poster that said to “Bet the kitchen sink on Animal Kingdom”. I think I recall Marcus Hersch selecting Animal Kingdom. But there are so many with hunches. And nobody wants to tell their real handicapping angle. That’s like giving out the secret formula.
Yeah Jarrod, too bad you didn’t get stuck on the Animal. You could have had a good start on an exotic. He was probably the best of the synthetic horses. All of them had good trajectories but Animal K had the best backspeed with an 84 beyer at Keeneland. He was in my core group that I focused on in the Brisnet Summary. I kind of graph the horses performances and take the best ones and isolate them in the Summary. I found, in the Prime Power, a box with Mucho Macho Man on the top and Midnight Interlude on the bottom. Right above Midnight Interlude is Animal Kingdom.
Well, it’s the puzzle that makes the whole thing so fun. It doesn’t matter if you win it as long as you find some sort of angle for next time.