SCM,

I know what you mean by messing up a great handicapping job with a bad betting strategy. There were 2 occasions this year alone where I missed $900 Trifectas when I had the top 3 and didn’t box them properly.
As Homer Simpson would say – dooh.

I realize that occasional bad trips are part of the game and sometimes even work to my advantage as an aide to my trip handicapping. My big peeve is how often it happens in the Derby. The field is just too damn big with horses that have no business in such an important race. Randy Moss once wrote an excellent article calling for stricter restrictions on getting into the race.
This topic probably deserves it’s own separate thread but the current method of going by lifetime graded stakes earnings is just not doing it. A horse can get into the race by winning a couple of rich 2YO sprints despite showing no ability over a mile or decent recent form. Just off the top of my head I came up with a rule that would limit entries to those placing in the money in a grade 2 or better race of at least a mile as 3YO’s. I did a little research of the last few runnings and found these restrictions would not have excluded deserving long shot winners who were just under-rated. It would have kept out a lot of horses that did nothing but get in the way of the real contenders. In every other sport teams have to qualify for championship play in the regular season and them work their way through the plat-offs. NASCAR drivers have to have a qualifying trial. In Olympic track events, runners have to place in heats before getting into the final.
My big fear is that someday some cheap speed will snap a leg on the lead on the first turn in the race, causing a multi-horse pile-up and we end up with a couple of dead horses, a dead jockey and a couple of quadriplegics to boot. Even excluding this worse-case scenario, I’m sick of seeing deserving Derby and possible TC winners lose their once in a lifetime chance because they are trapped behind a wall of horses or have to go 8 wide around horses that just don’t belong. Losing my bets because of this is not exactly good for my wallet or blood pressure either and it happens too damn often in the Derby. A more sane qualifying process is what we need.

Bob