A weekly recap of the Saratoga Summer Meet from my perspective
Kevin Gazzale
Friday started another Saratoga meet, another extended Saratoga meet. Being from NJ and having spent many hours at Saratoga over the years this is always a cherished time when the Saratoga meet begins. It’s unique in the sense that it does feel like a sports season between the stakes, the preps for those stakes. It ends up being a lot of the same horses and trainers squaring off against eachother throughout the summer. I tropically focus all of my attention to Saratoga and sprinkle when I can at Del Mar. I plan to write weekly diary style thoughts recapping my weekend at Saratoga and Del Mar. What worked, what didn’t, bad beats, good calls and everything in between. Let’s get into it.
Friday 7/3
Best Call
7/11 exacta in the Wild Applause was probably only call of the day that paid off. It’s hard to take credit for this being my best call when half the field was involved in a scary incident in the final turn, luckily all the horses and jockeys came away mostly unscathed. To a Flame had middling form coming in but was working well, and the horse got bet like crazy. Personal friend Alex Bregman (I have his phone number from when we went to college together and text him periodically, he has no idea who I am) got his first win of the summer meet. I really liked this 11 Pillar of Beauty, she ran her guts out for second. I will certainly look to play Portnoy’s horse Lovely Grey back when she returns along with I Love Giraffes, who I thought was going to struggle without Lasix as her form seems to suggest but I was impressed prior to her falling.
Worst Call
5, Dividend Recap this horse was bet like crazy, she was listed as an upgrade on Trip Note Pros coming off a bad trip last out. I had her singled in a couple multi’s, it didn’t really matter because of Heere’s Johnny in the race prior but I’ll get to that in my next section. Anyway, man oh man does this horse just plod along. She runs the same race every time which is clunking up for 2nd or 3rd with no actual threat of ever winning. I added her to my virtual stable purely to fade her next out.
Bad Beat
At the time I was alive in the Pick 5 and Pick 3’s going into the Saranac, I spread a decent amount in here as it was a wide open race. 9 Blinging It Back didn’t really match up on figures but did have a significant class advantage as he has been running against monsters all spring. He ran his eyeballs out and hit the front I thought I was going to be sitting on a huge will pay. Heere’s Johnny came flying and that was that. The worst part was I had poor cell service during this race and watched in 3 second spurts while it buffered. Disaster.
Saturday 7/4
Best Call
Eponine/Shelzawa straight double in race 2 and 3. Eponine jumped off the page in the PPs as sitting on a huge race, she went from 2nd choice to favored in will pays and the win pool. Shelzawa was coming off a troubled trip and was pegged by both Jon on Tracking Trips and Trip Note Pros as a major upgrade, along with 2nd race in North America, 2nd time Lasix this horse was sitting on a major effort and she did. They both sat perfect trips and dominated. Little did I know it would pretty much all go downhill from this race on.
Worst Call
Flip flopping on my top picks and looking too much at the tote prior to the Belmont Derby. Initially I settled on Title Role for my win bet and my vertical key. When the tote opened following the Suburban Remember Mamba was absolutely crushed in every pool. Title Role who I was expected to vie for favoritism was floating up. That made me over think and think that something was up with this horse. So I laid off and played some verticals through Remember Mamba, moron.
Bad Beat
The downfall of my day came in the Belmont Oaks, I, as many others, was loaded into Abashiri. Typically I don’t like betting Euros that come over to Saratoga that are ridden by European jockeys. I just feel like the tight turns and the unfamiliarity with the track often leaves these horses behind the 8 ball. William Buick however has won some big races at Saratoga so I trusted him as he was clearly on the best horse. The bad beat comes in the form of this horse just completely blowing the break. You can tell that Abashiri and Kensington Lane, the eventual winner, were going with similar tactics which was we are just going to blitz this field. Abashiri missed the break, rushed like 5 wide into the first turn to take over the lead and then faded. I had many many wagers running through Abashiri, all of my verticals included Kensington Lane at a huge price but with Abashiri keyed, and maybe that’s my fault for just not betting it correctly.
Sunday 7/5
Best Call
8 Capricious Outcome in the 5th race, yes this horse was favored and an obvious choice so it’s not exactly a best call but anytime you can start a Pick 5 with a free square you have to take credit for it. Last year I was looking for trends through DRF Formulator and discovered that Chad Brown/Klaravich horses entered in Maiden Claiming races at Saratoga and go off favored win upwards of 80% of the time. It sounds like a very specific useless stat but the sample was fairly large over the past 5 years or so. So any time I see this angle line up I make sure I get down where I can.
Worst Call
Leaving off Mi Bago on my Pick 5 ticket. Everybody knows that front end speed plays well on NYRA turf races, especially at Saratoga. I should have easily identified Mi Bago as one that could hold his own on the front end, I mean for fucks sake he did it a month ago in a State bred stake. I ignored it, probably subconciously because I bet him like crazy in the Kilroe at Santa Anita back in March and he looked like he was going to hang on and faded. By pure luck Echo Zulu was able to get a nose in the photo and claim a portion of the dead heat which kept me alive in the Pick 5 that I eventually did hit for a modest $500 or so, not much but a good feeling heading into next weekend.
Final Weekend Thoughts
This is more just for me to keep reminding myself that betting and formulating your bets is so much more important than handicapping it’s crazy. So many times I identified a horse that could win at a price, I put my bets in, race goes off, price wins, I look down and I have nothing. That’s was really was separates people who are good at this and who are not good at this. And in my current form I can’t say I’m good at the betting side, but I’m working on it. I do think that my handicapping has improved significantly over the past few years, especially in turf races but who cares if I have nothing to show for it.
PS: It feels like Miguel Clement’s horses just don’t have the same punch lately that they had last summer and into the fall. Don’t get me wrong he’s a great trainer and his top end horses are elite but lately it feels hard to lean on his horses as a single or a keyed horse. All that being said I cashed the P5 Sunday with his horse in the finale so thank you for that!
