[mamojica]

I worked this race prior to it running. Unfortunately, I had some unexpected company and didn't have a chance to post this earlier, but here is how I handicapped it.

The running styles:
E – 2, 4, 9, 10
P – 3
SP – 1, 6
S – 5, 7, 8

Because of the preponderance of early and sustained horses, right off the bat I felt the #3 had a good shot to win if he could run. If, due to time constraints, I had to stop handicapping at this point, I would have risked a small bet on the #3. Fortunately, I had some more time.

For the projected pace, I took the 10’s most recent line as I felt it was the most representative of how the other earlies would run, plus it was today’s distance at today’s track. The recent races of the other earlies were either at different distances or different tracks. The #4 ran at 6f in Philadelphia back in June, but at a faster pace than I thought she could run today. My projected pace was:

22.2 46.2 1:12.1

These were the horses I eliminated:

#5 – Usually runs at Mountaineer. The 08Dec09 race is good enough to compete with the projected pace, but it was run on a muddy track. The rest of the races showed she was too slow. I like to see more than one race matching the projected pace, so I threw her out.

#6 – I would have kept her as a contender, but in the two races since her three month layoff, she has not been able to handle the projected pace. Before then, her lines were competitive, but not now.

#7 – A California horse. Her California times look great, but the tracks over there tend to be faster than the east coast tracks. I disregarded them completely and judged her based on her lone race at Philly, which showed that she was much too slow to handle the projected pace.

#8 – A slow router. Today’s race was this 9 year old’s first in a year and a half. An easy elimination.

The next step in the 5 step approach is to match all of the horses’ running lines:

2 vs 4 – This is my area of greatest difficulty: track to track comparisons. With these horses, I was dealing with tracks I am not familiar with. I don’t know Canterbury (#2) or Sunland (#4). #4 looked better early when I compared #2’s Delaware and Pimlico lines with #4’s Philadelphia lines. Plus it looked like #4 would enter #2’s comfort zone. #2 needs a big lead to win and I felt #4 and the other earlies would prevent that. Finally, #4 has won when being pressed. So I threw out the #2.

4 vs 9 – Same thing – the #9 needs a fairly large lead to win, which I didn’t think she would achieve. Plus #9 is usually a router, so I thought the #4 would be too fast for her.

4 vs 10 – Both horses can win with short leads, and I thought that #4 was faster, so I threw the #10 out.

4 vs 3 – Once again, the dreaded track to track comparison. They look pretty evenly matched, but experience has shown me that Penn National is a faster track than Philadelphia. #3’s competitive Penn National times were not as good as they looked (or so I thought) when compared to #4, so I threw her out.

4 vs 1 – I felt that #1 was definitely competitive versus #4, plus I thought she had a better chance of winning. I thought the four earlies would burn themselves out and the race would run other than early. #1 was, in my opinion, the best OTE horse. However, since I’m a yellow-bellied, lily-livered coward, I bet both the 1 and the 4. I’ve been doing the Match-Up for only 9 months, and my confidence isn’t always the greatest. Plus, the large number of track-to-track comparisons I had to make didn’t inspire much confidence, either.

The race didn’t quite go the way I expected. The 2 and 3 were very strong and were in it to the bitter end. The #4, who I expected to run a strong race, sputtered and died after four furlongs. The #1 caught the field at the wire. Maybe I was just lucky, but at least that went right.

Regards,
Marc