FROM- http://live.drf.com/events/drf-live

With 10 hours before post; American Pharoah is 2-5



At 8:25 a.m., a mere 10 hours, 35 minutes before post, and with $291,296 in the win pool, here are the Belmont Stakes odds:

1 MUBTAAHIJ 17-1

2 TALE OF VERVE 20-1

3 MADEFROMLUCKY 14-1

4 FRAMMENTO 24-1

5 AMERICAN PHAROAH 2-5

6 FROSTED 6-1

7 KEEN ICE 21-1

8 MATERIALITY 7-1

says the jockey knows the track very well.

I know or care next to nothing about horse racing but since today might make history I'll watch it. Two minutes out of my life won't kill me...

longest tail and white feet. I don't think American Pharaoh has either.

my grandmother always put her money on the grey horse in a race. there was a grey in the Derby, but dunno if there's one in the Belmont.

The old saying is:

One white foot - buy him
Two white feet - try him
Three white feet - deny him
Four white feet - give him away
Four white feet and a white nose - knock him in the head and feed him to the crows.

White feet tend to be weaker and to bruise easier so the horse has a harder time staying sound. I've bred horses with four white feet but it never ended well. My best horses have been those with no white feet or only one.

Got chopped off.

I had a retired race horse once. No one liked her but me. I'm not much of a horse rider, but I always knew what she would do. Run fast and go left.

Colts will do that - they are very mouthy and will chew on each other's tails.

I had one horse that I sent to the track - he was bred to race, but was no good at it. Racing quarter horse. He started twice. Once he dumped the jockey, the other time he bashed his knee in the starting gate. I spent less than $1000 on my entire racing venture, decided it was not for me and sold the gelding as a hunter prospect. He liked jumping a lot better than he liked racing.

There's a reason it's the last.

I wish American Pharoah the best. But this is a damn hard track.

in 1973

Who remarked that when he galloped his gate was almost like the spokes on a wheel.

What an exceptional animal he was

was 110 degrees. He covered so much ground each stride.

American Pharaoh is that once in a generation monster horse. Made the Derby and Preakness look easy. Overcame a terrible post position in the Derby and made a believer out of me. Then he wired the Preakness in the rain. Gorgeous run -- in control the whole time.
Pulls away when asked:

That said -- this is a terrible race to bet on. Like betting on a coin flip and getting 20% if you win. Likely AP will be bet down to 1 to 5 or lower (Secretariat paid 1 to 9). I like to bet against favorites, especially in the Preakness, but not this horse. He CAN do it. Any hiccups for AP and Materialty would be my choice.

Mumbai is actually a big horse racing city, so there's a lot of interest in it here.

The hair on my arms literally stood on end. Pure magic.

You could Espinoza holding him back earlier so you knew he had horse. Incredible.

And good for Espinoza ! Wow.

I own a TB whose sire was a Belmont winner ages ago; my guy is almost 20 now. He raced three time, came in dead last each time. I can picture him moseying down the track stopping and smelling the flowers along the way. He's that kind of horse. I guess he didn't really see the point of all the rushing around in a circle. So, there's another thought on the value of offspring winning races, or, in my case, not.

More winners are produced in the second generation - the daughters of the famous stallions tend to produce a lot of winners. But mares cannot produce the number of offspring that stallions can so they are not tracked as closely.

At 3:5, it's not worth it anyway. AP will probably go off at 1:5 or something ridiculous like that.

Playing horses is not about betting on the horse that's going to win the race. It's about betting on horses whose probability of winning is greater than the opinion of everyone else betting on the race.

Back when I spent an inordinate amount of time on handicapping, I used to love major stakes races and the entire Breeder's Cup card, since there was just so much money in the pools based on nothing other than hype.

Here are the payouts from the last several Belmont Stakes races:

2010 $20.40
2011 $29.60
2012 $7.50
2011 $51.50
2010 $28.99
2009 $25.80
2008 $79.00

Remarkably, the Belmont Stakes is an outlier from the iron law of handicapping - the favorite wins 1/3 of the time. That's remarkably consistent and, of course, you have to consider the normal reasons why the favorite *is* the favorite, and keep that in mind in exotics, which are less efficient markets than straight bets, but often better informed. In major stakes races you can often spot combinations on an exacta grid where the payouts are not consistent with the combined win odds of the same combinations. In other words if you ranked the horses by win odds, and then ranked the horses by payout on the exacta table combined with the favorite, you'll frequently get dramatically different rankings.

Why? Because so much dumb money comes into the pools for these things, which is great. When you can spot a large inefficiency between the win pool and the exacta pool, you can play those against each other without actually handicapping the race. It'll eventually drive you crazy, though, and I had to decide whether my actual job was less demanding at one point years ago.

Here's how badly these things skew (I added the post time win odds to the payouts):

Preakness:

American Pharoah $3.80 $3.40 $2.80 4:5
Tale of Verve $19.00 $8.80 30:1
Divining Rod $5.20 12:1

Kentucky Derby:

American Pharoah $7.80 $5.80 $4.20 5:2
Firing Line $8.40 $5.40 30:1
Dortmund $4.20 3:1


Why, why, why would any sane individual risk two hard-earned dollars to win a buck eighty when - and this is indisputable - there is no horse in an eight horse elite race that should be going off at double digits in the first place. This isn't a $2,500 maiden claimer at the local racino. They didn't fill out this card with giraffes.

But, you say, what if American Pharoah wins? Well, sure, the horse could win. And after handing over a whole two US dollars to the tender mercies of the New York Racing Association for for a gut wrenching two and a half minutes while having your view blocked by a guy in a greasy track suit with a five hour old unlit cigar in his mouth frantically whipping himself with a rolled up program shouting "Come on! Come On!".... you'll get your two dollars back along with two quarters and a dime. All I can say to that is "Don't spend it all in one place."

So, look, this race only comes around once a year, and it's happening today. It's no time to go small. Maybe your kid will win a scholarship to college, and that's a long way off. Mortgage rates are low. Go look under the sofa cushions. Whatever you have to do, as long as you pay it back before your spouse finds out, which will be first thing tomorrow morning, right?

Get that bankroll together, send me a PM, and for a mere 10% of your stake by Paypal by post time, I'll let you in on a sure thing.

I love "Day at the Races". It is hilarious. And the Tootsi Fruitsi scene is classic Groucho. He really gets Tootsi Fruitsi'd.

BTW, jberryhill, did you buy the breeder's guide?

I absolutely love Guys and Dolls....one of my favorite musicals. Brigadoon is another...

Late 70's a grocery store - Big Star? - had scratch tickets with each purchase. Once a week they showed old races at 7 pm. No names just horse numbers. If your number won you got $5 off the next purchase or something. Anyway I used to watch with our one weekly card but I got really good at sizing up the horses going to the gate.

What about the specialists and horses that skip one or more of the other 2 races? Does that skew the Belmont or not make a difference?

But so have many other very good horses in the last 40 years.

Eventually, it's going to happen.

I doubt he's following the press about now, although he "denied" using the whip too much, and the second (girlfriend?)/"lucky charm" said she is "not confirming or denying." On second thought, I guess they *are* following the press.

You can fit most other tracks inside Belmont. It is such a huge track with a long stretch. None of the horses are trained to go the distance and they'll likely never run this far again. Usually the "best" horse doesn't win this race. It would be nice to see American Pharoah win, but only if they race him the whole year. If they retire the horse today and skip the rest of the racing year... I'm not sure I give a crap about them.

I'm sorry if that is a dumb question...

He sees all the horses run. They usually place the workouts in the program, but he knows how they look compared to all the horses that have trained... Typically no one does a 1.5 half workout, hard, on the Belmont surface or any surface. A lot of people like to see a horse run at a track first before a race. Some tracks are bigger than others, which effects how much time is spent turning verses straightaways. The Belmont is huge. Everyone has an opinion on how the Belmont will run, particularly if its wet, but its hard to know. If AP gets in a speed duel early it is usually the kiss of death, but then if no one sets the pace and they all run moderate times then the best distance horse is going to blow horses away down the stretch. If I were insane enough to bet against the 3/5 horse I think I'd go with Irad Ortiz, Jr. The Ortiz brothers were on fire earlier in the year, but all the good jockeys are there today and Castellano is good at the Belmont too ...

heh, I've got a 50/50 chance of being right!



Honestly though, the grooms and trainer say he's fit and uninjured. Assuming that's true, he looks set to win today. His last race in the rain was so decisive I like his chances today.

A runaway.

Dang; my M8B has never been this expressive.

After soooo many heartbreaking losses since Affirmed in '78, I finally don't freaking give a shit. And since I don't give a shit....we'll finally get the 12th Triple Crown Champion.

neck and neck with Affirmed in all three races. His Wiki page said he was the most famous horse who never won.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alydar

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Hard task - I wish him luck.

Command Performance - that was awesome.

He has. Just came through

He seemed to have stamina...he lasted during the whole race and was in the lead all of the time, even tho some horses were deemed "faster". It's interesting...

Before and after, say, a mile race among humans, they can tell you how they feel that day.

Horses love to run, but they run because they like to, and when they like to. They like to run with other horses, too. They do it with each other in the wild all of the time.

What's crazy is that some horses really like to run by chasing other horses. Sucks when it's a race horse, though, but it happens. It can be really fast, but only if there is another horse in front of it.

The thing is, these horses don't know they are athletes. And for most race horses, life is not all that good - it's not heated horse spas and two mares a day for practically all thoroughbreds at your local track. Far from it.

Also, unlike human athletes, there is something like 30 pharmaceuticals that can be injected into that horse. The number and dose varies by state. But, for the horses, racing is not "doping free".

Race horses know when it's race day. They've been through the routine, can sense the build up, and know what's coming - some little guy is going to make them run after they get into a little stall that makes a big crash with a ringing bell.

But nobody knows if the horse is thinking "oh fuck, not this shit today". While they like to run, they like to run on their own terms and when they want to. It's not easy on them to be expected to do it on demand.

There was another race on the card today where the horse had to be euthanized on the track.

http://www.newsday.com/sports/horseracing/belmont-stakes/helwan-euthanized-after-breakdown-at-belmont-park-1.10515360

"Helwan was taken off the track in a van after a screen had been raised to block views of the horse as it was being attended to and subsequently euthanized."

Yeah, they'll kill the horse right there on the track if it can't get in the van.

And don't get me started on disability coverage for jockeys. That's one of those things about racing that everyone sweeps under the rug too.

Watch the top of the stretch. Frosted makes his move and most race horses get past right there. He instead kicked and pulled away from a really good horse. That's something you can't know until they run the Belmont. I was wondering why some more distance horses didn't enter the race now I can see why.

I can't imagine they'll run him at Saratoga although winning the Travers is unheard of for triple crown horses. Only Whirlaway has won all four races.