The Breeders’ Cup is a wrap for this year and I had one
horrid weekend of handicapping but a VERY silver lining at the end of it all.
First the ugly: The stat line for the weekend was 15 races,
2 wins, 6 seconds and 3 thirds. I was a
hanger. I couldn’t quite get there and
close the deal. You move half of those
seconds into the win column and it’s a helluva weekend. Instead it was a crapload of
frustration. AND, my two winners were
the most obvious of the weekend: Groupie Doll and Shanghai Bobby.
The Horse of the Year debate will now rage, which should be
fun. Little Mike, Wise Dan, Groupie
Doll, Royal Delta all will be a part of the conversation. It is hard to argue, though, with Wise Dan’s
2012, but that’s an argument for another post.
The silver lining?
Well, the REAL winner this weekend was the Minnesota Retired Racehorse Project. Thanks to Hello Race Fans and the Breeders’ Cup $2500 is going to be
donated to them from the HRF/BC Fantasy Capping for Charity
Challenge.
Many celebrities, turf
writers and, of course, me, made fantasy wagers for 13 weeks leading up to the
Breeders’ Cup. The wagers were either:
$20 to win, place or show, or a $10 exacta box.
Ernie Munick jumped out to an early lead hitting the exacta on the very
first race of the contest, the Whitney.
I finally hit the board in Week 4 in the Travers when I picked Alpha to
place (41 points). You may recall that
was the dead heat race in which Alpha paid more to place than to win! Two weeks
later I hit the board again (Super Derby) with Bourbon Courage for 50
points. And I sat at 91 for the
remainder of the season. I did change a
pick – or I thought I did – in one of the final weekends from a loser to a
winner, but did not confirm the change.
I can’t even recall which race it was (PTSD, I think) and I ended up
going from thinking I was in the top 5 to being mired in 11th
heading into Breeders’ Cup weekend when all wins would be doubled.
In the interim, Ernie had hit more and was heading into the
weekend still atop the leaderboard with 426.50 points, Team Rotondo was right
on his heels with 369 with a nice series of wins. The top 5 were rounded out by Bobby Flay
(251), Chris Rossi (223) and Pete Denk (201).
I had good company with me in the middle of the standings, surrounded as
I was between Mike Penna (98) and Melissa Nolan (76).
I knew I had to go exactas for the two BC Classics. I was too far behind to do anything
else. My strategy in the Ladies Classic
was go with who I thought was best and combine her with a higher odds horse
that may complete a nicely priced exacta.
Royal Delta was the choice but I needed a longer shot to combine her
with and with everyone else BUT Include Me Out wanting to be close to the lead,
I went with her.
As I noted in my recap, “Joe Talamo had Include Me Out in
good position but the one thing I was afraid of, that she just wasn’t as good
as the top horses in there, panned out as she was outfinished for the second
spot by the very classy My Miss Aurelia.” I couldn’t fault the ride, she was perfectly positioned. She just was not good enough and I was WAY
behind the eight ball heading into the final race of the contest. Upside? No one cashed on the Ladies Classic
so the margins remained the same.
It all came down to the Classic. I needed a big score and it needed to be the
exacta play. I wasn’t getting there
otherwise.
The Classic featured the
deepest pool of contenders that I can remember which was good and bad. For the contest it was pretty damn good because
with the money being spread out there was a chance I could nail a boxcars
payoff and not just stab at a 25-1 shot.
The bad is that it was going to be really tough to narrow it down. I had to just throw out Game On Dude – no
combination with him was going to get me there.
I threw out horses that I didn’t think really had a chance: Pool Play, Handsome
Mike, Brilliant Speed and Nonios and then sized up the remainder. I narrowed it down to three: Fort Larned,
Mucho Macho Man and Ron the Greek. Fort Larned
was in – I really liked his consistency and after racing every 5 weeks or so,
he went nearly eight between the Whitney and the Gold Cup. With solid works after the Gold Cup and his
usual 5 week spread, I really liked him a lot.
The remaining two, Mucho Macho Man and Ron the Greek seemed
relatively even to me. Ron’s Gold Cup
was awful, but he had a really solid campaign up until that point. One bad race perhaps? MMM had been off since September 1 and that
would have worried me except that he is a horse that has been running
relatively fresh all year and doing it
very, very well. The Greek or 3M – both
had some appeal to me from a hunch perspective (for the uninformed: I’m Greek
and I live in Minnesota, home to 3M – the company, not the horse). Ultimately MMM’s ability to run well fresh
and Minnesota won the day.
Heading into the far turn I wanted the race to stop right
there. Fort Larned had spurted to a 4
length lead and MMM was starting to clear some daylight behind him in the
chase. The way speed had been holding on
the dirt all day I knew if I could get into the stretch one, two, it could be
all over but the shouting – my shouting.
LOUDLY. Up in the Canterbury press
box where I watched day 2 unfold. By the
team the field straightened out it was only a question of which horse would
win. There was only about a $6
difference in the exacta payouts so it didn’t really matter but Fort Larned on
top paid a bit more.
All that was left was the payoffs and who else wagered. The payout was a whopping 1254 points
(remember, BC races counted double!).
The only other scorer in the race was Chris Rossi who earned 132 points
with MMM to place. That was it…I
WON! Or rather, the MNRRP won.
The MNRRP is, in their words, “a volunteer based, 501(c)3
non-profit organization dedicated to the rehabilitation, placement, and
promotion of retired racehorses.” In
only 3-years of existence, the MNRRP has helped retire over 100 racehorses that
have grace Minnesota racetracks. More
could have been helped but horses need to be fed, housed, and cared for and all
of this takes money – and space. I hope
that this $2500 contribution, along with Tabby Lane’s annual contribution of 1%
of her earnings (this year $222) will help the efforts to retire more of
Minnesota’s race horses with pride and dignity and get them started on second
careers. I also hope that this awareness
causes you to help out – with the MNRRP or you own local race horse retirement
group. The demand for their services
outstrips the supply. Maybe you don’t
have the cash, but own a farm where you can foster a few off track racehorses
until they can be adopted; or donate feed; hay; vet services. Anything can help. If you’re a part of this game, you need to
give back and I hope this helps.
Many thanks to Hello Race Fans and the Breeders’ Cup for
this opportunity and, of course, to the folks at the MNRRP - and all horse retirement groups and individuals - for all that you do
for our equine partners.
