Re: Belmont possibles (480 Views)
Posted by:
toppled (IP Logged)
Date: May 19, 2015 03:17PM
The way I understand the game, they only run a race once. Not over & over again to give the losers another shot. In the race they ran, American Pharoah won 100% of the time. That's the real world. As P-Dub put more eloquently than I did, the 95% was just hyperbole.
Materiality was 11.5-1. Since you brought up the math, Pletcher 1 for 41 going in. That's a 2.44% win % and considering how bad his record is on tops before the Derby that go negative, anyone taking 11.5/1 will die a quick paramutual death betting horses like that. As far as faster on all numbers, since this is a TG board I won't get into others, but let's just say Vito wouldn't agree with you. So Materiality had a top a point faster than AP, AP had a much stronger foundation to run another negative going in. I don't read a 4, 0.75, -2 as a horse whose 11.5/1 odds in an 18 horse field with a bad inside post are all that great especially with his trainer's history of big last Derby prep & fizzle in the Derby factored in. I got suckered into Bandini in 2005-never again on a Pletcher Derby horse with the last big fig.
As far as Upstart, we couldn't know until he ran what effect the illness 3 weeks earlier had. It's much easier to say Materiality was a bad bet than Upstart, since the X before the race wasn't clear. But in hindsight, knowing what he did after says that there was no way he was running his race that day. Anyone who in his dreams wants the race run over again certainly wouldn't want to back Upstart on 5/2/15. Now after that, with more recovery time and further away from the illness, I can understand someone wanting to race him ASAP off the non effort.
BTW: You post some very good stuff & I enjoy reading what you write, but defending a Materiality bet isn't your top notch stuff.