Latest Preakness Betting

Here are the latest odds on the Preakness from UK betting (where ante-post betting is conducted regularly and in a civilized manner):

Animal Kingdom 7/4

Dialed In ranges from 11/2 to 6-1

Mucho Macho Man 11/2 to 7-1

Dance City 6-1 to 12-1

Shackleford 8-1 to 10-1

Flashpoint 12-1 to 16-1

Midnight Interlude 16-1 to 20-1

Mr. Commons 16-1 to 20-1

Sway Away 14-1 to 20-1

Astrology 20-1 to 25-1

King Congie 25-1

Concealed Identify 16-1 to 20-1

Norman Asbjornson 33-1 to 50-1

Isn't He Perfect 50-1 to 66-1

HORSES IN TRAINING - EXPECTED NEXT STARTS FOR TOP HORSES - MAY 14

Acclamation - 5yo h - Warren - EW Johnston - Whittingham - Hollywood - June 11

Acting Happy - 4yo f - R Dutrow - Jay Em Ess - turned out for summer - return for fall campaign

Alternation - 3yo c- D Von Hemel - Pin Oak

Amazombie - 5yo g - Spawr - Spawr & Sanford - Triple Bend - Hollywood - July 2

Animal Kingdom - 3yo c- Motion - Team Valor - Preakness - Pimlico - May 21

Atta Boy Roy - 6yo c - Lund - Schaefer - working for return at Turf Paradise through April

Awesome Feather - 3yo f - Chad Brown - Stronach - uncertain return - retirement likely

Awesome Maria - 4yo f- Pletcher - Robsham - working at Belmont

Behkabad - 4yo c - Royer-Dupre - Aga Khan

Better Than Ever - 4yo g - Laxon - Jupiter Stable -

Big Drama - 4yo c - Fawkes - Queen - in light training - possible for defense of Sprint Smile - July 10 Calder

Bind - 3yo c - Stall - Claiborne -

Biofuel - 4yo f - Baker - Brereton Jones - main summer goal - Delaware Handicap - Delaware Park - July 16

Black Caviar - 4yo m - Moody - Wilkie, Errett Bloodstock, et al - Doomben 10,000 - Doomben - May 28

Blind Luck - 4yo f - Hollendorfer - DeDomenico, Carver & Hollendorfer -

Bourbon Bay - 5yo h - Drysdale - Heerenspergers -

Boys at Tosconova - 3yo c - R Dutrow - Jay Em Ess - at Emerald Farm - return to Dutrow barn in summer - fall campaign to be planned

Bribon - 7yo g - Pletcher -Derrick Smith - no recent works since start in Barbados Gold Cup on March 5

Buena Vista - 5yo m - Matsuda - Sunday Racing - Victoria Mile - May 15 - Tokyo Racecourse

Byword - 5yo h - Fabre - Juddmonte -

Canford Cliffs - 4yo c - Hannon - Heffer Synd, Roy, et al - Queen Anne - June 14 - Royal Ascot - then Sussex - July 27 - Goodwood

Cape Blanco - 4yo c - O'Brien - Coolmore -

Capt. Candyman Can - 5yo g - Wilkes - Rausch & Zell

Carlton House - 3yo c- Stoute - The Queen - Derby - Epsom - June 4

Champ Pegasus - 5yo h - R. Mandella - Diamond A Racing & Vargas -

Cost of Freedom - 7 yo g - Sadler - Barber -

Crown of Thorns- 6 yo h - R Mandella - B. Wayne Hughes - Metropolitan - Belmont - May 30

D'Funnybone - 4yo c - R. Dutrow - Pompa - True North - Belmont - June 10

Dialed In - 3yo c - Zito - LaPenta - Preakness - Pimlico - May 21
Dick Turpin - 4yo c - Hannon - Manley - Prix d'Ispahan - Longchamps - May 22

Dream Ahead - 3yo c - Simcock - Dasmal - possible for Irish 2000 Guineas - Curragh - May 22 - aimed at stakes in 2nd half of 2011

Duke of Mischief - 5yo h - Fawkes - Lieblongs - working at Calder

Espoir City - 6yo h - Adachi -

Fabulous Strike - 8yo g - Beattie -

Fantasia - 5yo m - Sheppard - Strawbridge - working for Belmont or Saratoga return

First Dude - 4yo c - Baffert - Dizney - main goal is BC Classic - Churchill - Nov 5

Flashpoint - 3yo c - Ward - Peachtree - Preakness - Pimlico - May 21

Fluke - 6yo h - Ascanio - Bozano - Shoemaker Mile - Hollywood - July 2

Frankel - 3yo c - H Cecil - Juddmonte - St. James Palace - Royal Ascot - June 14 - then Juddmonte International - York - August 17

Gayego - 6yo h - Suroor - Godolphin -

Giant Oak - 5yo c- Block - Virginia Tarra Trust - Foster - Churchill Downs - June 18

Gio Ponti - 6yo h - Clement - Castleton Lyons - working at Belmont - Manhattan - Belmont Park - June 11

Goldikova - 6yo m - F. Head - Wertheimers - Prix d'Ispahan - Longchamps - May 22 - then Queen Anne - Royal Ascot - June 14 - long range goal is defense of BC Mile - Churchill - Nov 5

Good Ba Ba - 9yo g - Schutz - Yuen -

Havre De Grace - 4yo f - L Jones - Fox Hill Farms - main summer goal - Delaware Handicap - Delaware Park - July 16

Helleborine - 3yo f - Head-Maarek - Juddmonte - Poule d'Essai Des Pouliches (French 1000 Guineas - Longchamp - May 15

Ice Box - 4yo c - Zito - LaPenta - working at Palm Meadows through April

Life At Ten - 6yo m - Pletcher - Candy DeBartolo - working at Belmont

Machen - 3yo c - Howard - Courtlandt -

Maclean's Music - 3yo c - Asmussen - Stonestreet -

Midday - 5yo m - Cecil - Juddmonte - Coronation Cup - Royal Ascot - June 3 - main target BC F&M - Churchill - Nov 4

Moonlight Cloud - 3yo f - Fabre - Strawbridge -

More Joyous - 4yo m - Waterhouse - Singleton -

Mucho Macho Man - 3yo c - K Ritvo - Reeves & Dream Team Racing Stable - Preakness - Pimlico - May 21

Overdose - 7yo h- Ribarszki - Mikoczy - Temple Stakes - Haydock - May 21 - then King's Stand - Royal Ascot - June 14

Payton d'Oro - 5yo m - Larry Jones - Ferris & Presley - working at Del Park - likely to be pointed towards Delaware Handicap - Delaware Park - July 16

Plum Pretty - 3yo f - Baffert - Peachtree

Poet's Voice - 4yo c - Suroor - Godolphin

Presious Passion - 8yo g - Hartmann - Generazio - working at Monmouth

Presvis - 7 yo g - Cumani - Marinopoulos - Singapore Airlines Cup - Kranji - May 22

Rail Trip - 6yo h - Dutrow - Jay Em Ess Stable - working in New York - will be ready for start in June or July

Rainbow View - 5yo m- Shepherd - Augustin - no recent works

Recital - 3yo c - O'Brien - Coolmore - Derby - Epsom - June 4

Red Desire - 5yo m - Matsunaga -

Redding Colliery - 5yo h- McLaughlin - no recent works - was training at Palm Meadows during December

Regal Ransom - 5yo h - Suroor - Godolphin -

Reve d'Essor - 3yo f - Matsuda - Sunday Racing -

R Heat Lightning - 3yo f - Pletcher - Robsham -

Richard's Kid - 5yo h - Baffert - Zabeel -

Rocket Man - 6 yo g - Patrick Shaw - Crabbia - KrisFlyer International Sprint - Kranji - May 22 - then possible for Golden Jubilee - Royal Ascot - June 18

St. Trinians - 5yo m - Mitchell - Capen & Chavers - working at Hollywood Park - Milady - Hollywood Park - May 21

Saamidd - 3yo c - Suroor - Godolphin -

Secret Gypsy - 6yo m - Werner - Richland Hills -

Sidney's Candy - 4yo c - Hollendorfer - Craig - Hollywood Gold Cup - July 9

Smiling Tiger - 4yo c- Bonde - Klein & Lebherz - Metropolitan - Belmont - May 30

Snow Fairy - 4yo f - Ed Dunlop - Anamoine Limited - Pretty Polly - Curragh - June 25

So You Think - 5yo h - A. O'Brien - Coolmore - Tattersalls Gold Cup - Curragh - May 22 - then Coral - Eclipse - Sandown - July 2

Switch - 4yo f - Sadler - CRK Stable -

Tackleberry - 4 yo c - Olivares - Metropolitan - Belmont - May 30 - working at Calder

The Factor - 3yo c - Baffert - Bolton - Woody Stephens - Belmont - June 10

The Usual Q.T. - 5yo h - Cassidy - American Handicap - Hollywood - May 28

Trappe Shot - 4yo c- McLaughlin - Mill House - True North - Belmont - June 10

Turbo Compressor - 3yo c - Pletcher - P&G Stable - being pointed for Haskell -Monmouth - July 31

Turbulent Descent - 3yo f - Puype - Blinkers On Racing Stable - Acorn - Belmont - June 11 - then Test - Saratoga - August 6 - longterm goal - BC F&M Sprint - Churchill - Nov 4

Twice Over - 6yo h - H. Cecil - Juddmonte -

Twirling Candy - 4yo c- Sadler - Craig - no works in a month - next race TBD

Uncle Mo - 3yo c - Pletcher - Repole - at WinStar Farm - next start TBD

Vineyard Haven - 5yo h - Suroor - Godolphin - will return as 5 year old

White Moonstone - 3yo f - Suroor - Godolphin -

Wigmore Hall - 4yo g - Bell - Hawtin - Singapore Airlines Cup - Kranji - May 22

Witty - 5yo m - Mandella - Claiborne Farm & Dilschneider - injured - out until 2011

Wooten Bassett - 3yo c - Fahey - Brady & Cosmic Cases - Poule d'Essai des Poulains (French 2000 Guineas) - Longchamp - May 15

Workforce - 4yo c - Stoute - Juddmonte - Brigadier Gerard - Sandown - May 26

World Domination - 3yo c - H Cecil - Juddmonte - King Edward VII - Royal Ascot - June 16

Animal Kingdom and the American Triple Crown

I have Fred Stone's "The American Triple Crown" painting displayed prominently in my home. I pretty sure that Andrew Beyer has the same painting displayed in his home based on my recollections of an interview done with him.

The painting displays the eleven American Triple Crown winners from Sir Barton in 1919 (when the term "Triple Crown" had not yet been coined to 1978 when Affirmed was the last horse to win the series. Each year at this time time - immediately after the Kentucky Derby - I gaze at the painting (which I had Fred Stone sign at Hollywood Park one day) and wonder if this is the year that the painting will become obsolete - when it will no longer be an accurate portrait of the all American Triple Crown winners.

There have been eleven "near-misses" since Affirmed. Starting with the next year - 1979 - when the great Spectacular Bid supposedly stubbed his hoof on a safety pin in the Belmont to the epic failure of Big Brown in the 2008 Belmont, eleven have entered the starting gate in the Belmont with a chance to make Stone's painting obsolete. None have made it - the closest being the Baffert trained duo of Silver Charm-Real Quiet who were run down in the shadow of the wire.

So there have been 11 American Triple Crown winners and 11 Near-Misses in the 32 years since Affirmed last won the Crown. 9 of the 11 Triple Crown winners were homebreds raced in familiar racing colors of Samuel Riddle, Belair, Calumet, John Hertz, King Ranch, Meadow Stable, and Harbor View. Only 2 of the 11 Near Misses were homebreds - Thomas Mellon's Pleasant Colony and the Chapmans' Smarty Jones.

This trend reflects the change in racing ownership away from owners who bred and raced their horses to a racing industry dominated by commercial breeders. No one could make a reasonable argument that horse racing has benefited from this change and a plausible case can be made that this change has been the most significant reason for the decline of American thoroughbred breeding and racing in the past half-century.

And now we have Animal Kingdom - a homebred conceived originally in the mind of Barry Irwin - head honcho of Team Valor. In many ways, this horse is a "throwback" - from the breeding to the training methods of Graham Motion - to the methods which the nine homebred Triple Crown winners from 1930 to 1977 were bred and trained. The most glaring exception - of course - is the small number of starts that Animal Kingdom has made to reach this point of his career - five starts. The nine homebred Triple Crown winners raced an average of more than fourteen starts up to their first Triple Crown series win. The two homebred Near Misses had nine (Pleasant Colony) and seven starts (Smarty Jones) after winning the Kentucky Derby.

Five starts and the Derby is won by Animal Kingdom. Big Brown had four starts after his Derby win. This is the question that all the wiseguys will be focusing on during the next week - the potential for a "bounce". This is why Animal Kingdom will not be Jerry Brown's top choice for the Preakness and the Rag heads are already chiming in: "Chances are, he did nothing more than put together a knock-out number that will result in a big bounce in Baltimore" - Bob Ehalt in his Ragozin Insider column in Thoroughbred Times Today (May 14, 2011).

The "Baltimore Bounce" angle is the dominant question on how a horseplayer views the Preakness next Saturday.

The DRF's Glenye Cain Oakford writes an excellent story on the breeding behind Animal Kingdom in this week's DRF Saturday supplement:

http://www.drf.com/news/irwin-wins-kentucky-derby-maverick-way

Black Caviar - 13 is Not Unlucky

The great sprinting 4 year old mare Black Caviar continued her unbeaten career winning the 29th BTC Cup at Doomben Racecourse in Brisbane, Queensland on a beautiful autumn day in front of a crowd of more than 20,000 - biggest crowd at the track since Gunsynd's farewell in 1973.

Black Caviar deservedly has her own website which has all the details:

http://www.blackcaviar.net.au/

Barry Irwin is Done Talking

“This is going to be my final comment
on that, okay? What I said was
true. The timing was not very good.”
Team Valor International President
Barry Irwin, in the Louisville Courier-
Journal, on comments he made on national
television in the moments after
Animal Kingdom won the Kentucky
Derby about past trainers lying to him

Barry also he wasn't going to talk anymore about the Velazquez-Albarado switch on Down The Stretch radio show this morning. Roger Stein also discussed it this morning on his show.

Do you think he will talk to NBC Sports about it this week in the run up to the Preakness?

The "New" Daily Racing Form

No list of the day's races and entries for many tracks (including Arlington on Saturday in my edition).

No significant coverage of global racing by an expert like Alan Shuback

No Peb cover drawing for the Kentucky Derby

Barry Irwin - Additional Interesting Remarks

I do believe that one of the storylines that will be developed over the next two weeks until Preakness Day will by Barry Irwin and his rather controversial remarks about parts of the horse racing industry. When a guy who wins the Derby and has a tear in his eye says "I got tired of trainers lying to me", I think it's a legitimate story.

There are plenty of racing industry actions that deserve criticism. But Irwin has earned widespread condemnation within racing - Indian Charlie had a cartoon in his pre-Derby edition that seems to represent many racing people's opinion of him:

http://www.indiancharlie.com/2011/05/05/friday-saturday-may-6-7-2011/

A few other remarks by Irwin at the Derby post-race press conference - the first one I would agree with completely:

ON INTERNATIONAL RACING:

"Well, I've always liked international racing, even when I was a turf writer. It's more interesting. I'm the kind of guy that gets bored very easily. I need a lot of different things to do.

Following international racing is a lot of fun. I also think that we have not done enough importing of horses and blood lines from other places where horses don't run on drugs and horses legs are not manipulated and horses, basically, are bigger and tougher, stronger and sounder.

And we have won a couple of big races now in the last six months, we won the Breeders' Cup with a horse that was out of a mare that I brought from South Africa, and this is a horse that I bought in Germany.

In Germany, you are not allowed to breed a mare that has ever raced on drugs, Lasix, Bute, nothing. So when you buy some stock from there, you know you're getting something good. So that's where I'm coming from."

ON RACING OWNERSHIP PARTNERSHIPS & RACETRACKS:

"I think this was a big weekend for the partnerships, Peachtree, Todd won a race today we won this. I hope these racetracks pay attention to the partnerships and treat us a little better than they have been treating us."

Barry Irwin and Horse Trainers

Immediately after winning the 2011 Kentucky Derby with Animal Kingdom, Barry Irwin was interview by NBC's Bob Neumeier. Neumeier asked Irwin why had had shifted all of Team Valor's horses (including Animal Kingdom) under Graham Motion in November - his response was "I was tired of trainers lying to me. I wanted a guy to tell me the truth."

At the Derby post-race press conference, Irwin expanded upon his earlier remark:

"Well, it's a combination of things. This is my 25th year racing horses for a syndicate. I started in 1987. And I've done this a long time. I'm 68 years old. I've reached the point where I still want to work hard, so then I don't want to have 18 trainers. I don't want to hear stories from 17 trainers every day.

Unless you're there and you have one guy on your team that's on your side, you're not going to get the truth. And I reached the point where I was fed up with it. I also wanted to have my horses trained off‑site from the racetrack, because racetrack life for a horse isn't any good. And we found Fair Hill, which is, I wouldn't say it's a paradise for horses, but it's the closest thing to a European training center that we have in America.

We have had horses with Graham for the last three years. I asked him early last year if he would train horses for us on a private basis. He didn't want to do it. So we waited about six, seven months, after he had a little more chance to work with me, and I asked him again, and he decided to do it, and then we decided to go that way.

It's hard to find one guy that can train every kind of horse, but I think Graham comes pretty darned close. We gave him a young two‑year‑old by the same sire as Animal Kingdom and he ran second is first time out of Keeneland, four and a half furloughs. Any guy that can win a Derby and run a horse four and a half furloughs is my kind of guy."

Barry Irwin Knows Racing History?

At the post-Derby press conference, Team Valor's Barry Irwin stated according to the official transcript:

"The other thought is, I like to try to make history if I can, and we made a lot of history today. This is the first horse that came to win this race with only four previous races, since Exterminator in 1918, the first horse to win after a six‑week layoff since Needles in 1956 so that means a lot to me."

Big Brown won the Derby in 2008 off a mere three starts.

Zayat Stable at the Derby

Jay Privman in DRF had good article on Ahmad Zayat in their Derby preview issue

http://www.drf.com/news/kentucky-derby-zayat-knows-ups-and-downs

Zayat has now had a horse that at the top of the stretch looked like the winner in two of last three years - Pioneer of the Nile in 2009 and Nehro this year - before being caught in the final eighth of a mile. In 2010 they had Eskendereya who was Derby favorite who was withdrawn a week before the race.

A book could be written on Derby hard luck stories and it would include a chapter on Zayat's past three years.

2011 Derby Storylines

Here are the storylines for Derby 137:

Archarcharch - 70 year old trainer Jinks Fires in his first Derby charge, 50 year old Jon Court (trainer's son-in-law), Arkansas owners who rebuffed offers to buy horse pre-Derby. Great story.

Brilliant Speed - Live Oak's To Honor and Serve was top 5 for Derby in winter book - 2nd stringer takes the prize for Campbell Soup heir

Twice the Appeal - Calvin wins again

Stay Thirsty - Pletcher/Repole combo wins race after scratch of 2 year old champion and winter book favs Uncle Mo on the day before the race

Decisive Moment - Trainer Juan Arias wins race like his namesake with Canonero II forty years ago and 52 year old Kerwin "Boo Boo" Clark wins race on his first mount.

Comma to the Top - Will he or won't he horse wins with 49 year old P Val twenty two years since his first win on Sunday Silence.

Pants On Fire - Jockey Rosie Napravnik becomes first female to win the race

Dialed In - The confirmation of the arrival of a great horse and the tears flow from trainer Nick Zito on his 3rd Derby win

Derby Kitten - Last horse to get into race wins it for his exuberant owner Ken Ramsey

Twinspired - 45 year old jockey Mike Smith wins his 2nd Derby

Master of Hounds - "foreigner" in race shows further demise of American racing

Santiva - no idea on this one - will probably win

Mucho Macho Man - first female trainer Kathy Ritvo wins race after heart transplant. Watch for the full-length movie in 20 years.

Shackleford - wise guy horse wins it for local trainer Dale Romans

Midnight Interlude - trainer Bob Baffert wins his fourth Derby to break the streak of no unraced 2 year old winning race since Apollo in 1882

Animal Kingdom - provides redemption for jockey Johnny V (after losing mount due to Uncle Mo fiasco) and trainer Graham Motion (who lost top contender Toby's Corner this week)

Soldat - trainer Kiaran McLaughlin wins race to redeem 2nd with Closing Argument in 2005

Nehro - backrupt owner Zayat Stable wins big one with comebacking Corey Nakatani to redeem for Zayat's Eskendereya - last year's Derby runup favorite

Watch Me Go - first female trainer wins race for longtime owner/breeder Gilbert Campbell

Three horse are grandsons of AP Indy - 1992 Derby runup favorite scratched on day of race and recently pensioned - Stay Thirsty, Pants On Fire, Nehro.

Take your pick.

Stay Thirsty, my friends.

Deservingness of Derby Win

Winning the Kentucky Derby should always be the privilege of horsemen and horsewomen who deserve the honor based on their time and service to the racing industry. Winners like Sea Hero in 1993 for trainer Mack Miller and owner Paul Mellon, Unbridled in 1990 for trainer Carl Nafzger and owner Francis Genter, and Swale in 1984 for Claiborne Farm.

So with this in mind, I have rated this year's Derby field based on "Deservingness" - a purely arbitrary ranking based on my own perspective:

Archarcharch - Local favorite for 70 year old trainer Jinks Fires making his Derby debut with son-in-law Jon Court in the irons and owners who rejected selling a top 3 year old to "foreigners". This is a very worthy team.

Brilliant Speed - Charlotte Weber has one of the finest homebred racing operations in the country running Live Oak Plantation since 1995.

Watch Me Go - Gilbert Campbell is a longtime Florida breeder who also has a solid homebred racing operation.

Dialed In - Robert LaPenta has been building his top-notch racing stable for a decade and has suffered 3 year old disappointment in the past with War Pass.

Derby Kitten - Ken and Sarah Ramsey are long-time racing benefactors and homebred owners

Animal Kingdom - Barry Irwin - chief honcho of Team Valor - maybe an arrogant, abrasive individual but he has been involved in racing for over 20 years.

Master of the Hounds - Coolmore already has one Derby winner with Thunder Gulch in 1995.

Johnny Come Latelys - Arnold Zetcher, Mike Repole, Lori and George Hall and Ahmad Zayat can all be included in this category. They are not worthy of Derby Glory yet.

Jerry's Thoughts

As always, Jerry Brown provides his informative opinion on Derby-Oaks 137. His key contenders:

Derby - Archarcharch, Soldat, Mucho Macho Man, Pants On Fire

Oaks - Joyful Victory, Zazu, Kathmanblu & Her Smile (who Bobby Flay purchased based on Thoro-Graph recommendation)

Jerry doesn't think much of Dialed In or Uncle Mo.

Jerry and The Derby

Always enjoy listening to Thoro-Graph's Jerry Brown's comments on Derby and Breeders Cup days via his annual online audiovisual seminars. Derby/Oaks seminar is not up yet.

I'm going to forecast which horses Jerry will look favorably on in each race:

Derby - Santiva, Soldat, Stay Thirsty, Pants on Fire

Oaks - Daisy Devine, St. John's River, Kathmanblu

Alan Shuback Dismissed from DRF

The global correspondent for Daily Racing Form since 1993 - Alan Shuback - has parted ways with the publication. Shuback often had controversial views towards American horses vis-a-vis their European counterparts (voting for Goldikova for 2010 Horse of the Year for example) but he obviously knew the racing world very well and I will miss his writing in the Form and DRF.com.

Daily Racing Form continues to match the decline of the industry they are covering - dismissing a quality writer like Shuback and no longer printing the entries for smaller racetracks in the Form.

Prairie Meadows Opens Tonight

Prairie Meadows opens their 22nd season of racing this evening. Perennial leading rider Terry Thompson returns (after a year hiatus riding at Delaware Park) and young Jenna Joubert has also moved her tack there from Oaklawn. Des Moines Register has a good article on the top races in history run at Prairie:

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20110421/SPORTS/110421034/0/SPORTS/?odyssey=nav%7Chead

Keeneland Grade I Stakes Results on Polytrack

Jeremy Plonk has a nice article in the Keeneland spring program with headline of "Don't let the big races fool you" with a smaller secondary headline under stating "Longshots in Grade 1 races belie true picture of winners on Polytrack".

Obviously since this is written for the Keeneland program, no bad word on Polytrack would be expected in the article. The main argument is that Polytrack is a very formful surface with favorites winning 31% of races (stats through last Fall's meeting) since the Polytrack Era began at the Fall 2006 meeting. Favorites won 41% of races on the Polytrack at the 2010 Fall meeting but currently (through April 17) winning only 20.7% at the Spring meeting.

There is prominent attention paid to the great exception of all this - the results of Grade 1 races on Polytrack. Here are the stats for Grade I races on Polytrack at Keeneland through the Blue Grass last Saturday:

Total Races - 27

Winning Favorites - 1

Percentage of Winning Favorites - 3.7%

2011 Grade I winners on Polytrack at Keeneland

Ashland - Lilacs and Lace paid $99.40

Madison - Shotgun Gulch paid $25.40

Blue Grass - Brilliant Speed paid $40.20

The only favorite to win Grade I on Polytrack at Keeneland was Wickedly Perfect winning the 2010 Alcibiades last fall.

A few final comments on this article - which is very good and there should be more like it that are statistically based:

1) The fact favorites are winning at a greater rate on the Polytrack is very likely due to handicappers becoming more familiar with the surface and it's similarity closer to turf racing than dirt racing.

2) Keeneland has taken their greatest race - the Blue Grass - and made it irreverent as a prep for the Derby due to Polytrack.

3) Every track should have a Polycapping database like Keeneland has on their website.

4) It would be interesting to see a similar study on other Polytrack sites like Arlington, Del Mar and Woodbine.

Final Day at Oaklawn

Arkansas Derby Day ends the 85th racing season at Oaklawn Park today. The usual throng of 50,000 plus will storm the gates of the old Central Avenue plant making Hot Springs temporarily the second most populated city in Arkansas after Little Rock.

Favorites are winning approximately 31% of the races this season at the Spa - down from 41% of favorites in 2003 according to the Arkansas Gazette-Democrat website. Oaklawn is my favorite track to bet especially in the opening two months of the season with full fields and horses running from all parts of the country.

Oaklawn to me means racing consistency. The season will begin in mid-late January, it will end three weeks prior to the Kentucky Derby, Terry Wallace will always be at the mike and will put a goofy hat on at least once during the meet. He will pause prior to announcing the track condition and wear a tuxedo on Arkansas Derby Day. There is always a Cella running the track and usually running horses there too. Oaklawn and Keeneland are the only tracks I know that on the first day of the meeting show the replays from the previous meeting (for Oaklawn, these are races nine months previous). The weather in the final six weeks of the meeting is usually beautiful springtime weather. Stanley Roberts, Don Von Hemel, Gary Hartlage, Scooter Dickey, Lynn Whiting, Jinks Fires and Bob Holthus always have a winner during the meeting. The racing surface during the Racing Festival of the South will be lightning fast favoring speed. The exotica wagering menu will drive you crazy with only a few races with superfectas - I discussed this with Mel Brooks in a Vegas racebook once who couldn't believe they didn't have more supers.

Keeneland's consistency ended with Polytrack. They have ruined a great American race - the Blue Grass Stakes. I don't enjoy wagering on Keeneland nearly as much as I once did.

The Oaklawn simulcast feed is showing the crowd ontrack today - that's another great thing about Hot Springs - the area supports the track throughout the meeting ending with today's huge crowd.

Turf Publicists of America

Racetracks need turf publicists. There are virtually no newspaper dedicated turf writers anymore (i.e. reporters who cover racing exclusively) outside of the newspapers in Lexington and Louisville (I'm not even sure about Louisville). When you have two declining industries together - newspapers and horse racing - this is what results.

I find this very sad since without turf writers covers the racing scene on a daily basis, we only have racetrack turf publicists to rely on to dig up and generate interesting stories on horse racing. NYRA and the California tracks post regular turf notes on their websites and they provide a daily glimpse into the racetracks and upcoming stakes races. It is inconceivable that a daily sport like baseball would be in a similar situation - no one covering the sport on a regular basis to provide human and equine interest stories and report on milestone events in the sport.

Robert Holthus' win with Fifth Avenue South in the first race at Oaklawn Park last week had to be a milestone of some sort - allowing Holthus to continue with saddling a winner at Oaklawn since sometime in the 1960's (probably 1964). The only media mention of this that I have found is on Arkansas Online - the website of the Arkansas Democrat Gazette of Little Rock. Even the Oaklawn website had no mention of this milestone. Incredible. Holthus has been a fixture at the track for decades and deserves better recognition for continuing to saddle winners amidst health issues at the age of 76.

www.turfpublicists.com

Uncle Mo is Not Out of the Derby

DRF has latest status of the 2 year old champion and winter book favorite for the Derby:

http://www.drf.com/news/uncle-mo-have-blood-tests-remains-kentucky-derby-trail