The 143rd running of the Kentucky Derby, held yesterday at historic Churchill Downs, earned its second-highest television viewership in 25 years. NBC's national telecast for the Derby this year drew a 12% increase in viewership over last year's broadcast. The third-greatest telecast market this year was recorded in Cincinnati and the sixth-best market was in Dayton, OH.
Southwest Ohio (aka God's Country) must certainly be a de facto northern extension of the Blue Grass state's horse country.
Wagering from all sources (off-site, out-of-state, internet, etc.) rose above $200 million for the first time ever, a 9% increase from 2016, and was 8% more than the previous all-time record (set previously in 2015). The official attendance figure of 158,070 was the seventh-largest in Kentucky Derby history.
Such are the evident spoils of having a recent Triple Crown winner!
On Friday night I received a few inquiries as to if/when there might have been a post here in the digital pages of Heavy Artillery with Derby picks. Sadly, as I reported back to one inquisitor, my free time this spring was so limited that I had not even so much as watched a single Derby prep race let alone had the opportunity to engage in my usual handicapping pursuits. Until, that is, right that moment late in the evening on Kentucky Oaks Day. I don't recall being so unprepared for a Kentucky Derby since the early 1980s. And so Friday evening I set about my joyful hobby of studying the Daily Racing Form [supplied by Mr B, thanks Pop!] with supplementary references to the BrisNet ("Bloodstock Research Information Services") past performances graciously shared with me from my former source deep within the Reds organization codenamed "Campbell." Beginning with the Derby itself I then worked my way chronologically backwards through the schedule of races until I'd covered the Derby Day Pick Six; crunching numbers, conducting comparisons, reading volumes of analysis, pausing for contemplative reflection, snacking on some cashews until my eyes went bleary. I dreamed that night of, well, never-you-mind of that what I dreamt.
I rose early the morning of Derby Day because when you roll with Mr B you roll early.
Following several decades of Turfway Park being the official Derby Day host site for The B Team Syndicate and despite a handful of Derby Day forays to the racino in scenic Shelbyville, Indiana this year the old dog tried a new trick; Miami Valley Gaming in scenic historic Lebanon (or is it Monroe?), Ohio hard on the concrete banks of I-75 and in sight of the penitentiary. Of course we'd been to the MVG racebook many times before, including - years ago - an infamous Belmont Stakes Day fiasco of egregious technological proportions which nearly drove me to swear off ever returning again, but had never before reserved a table there (we weren't even certain until recently whether MVG provided such amenities for its Derby Day patrons; they do).
I piloted The B Team Syndicate to MVG in the Jeep Main Battle Tank, listening intermittently to trackside coverage live from Churchill Downs on WHAS 840 AM. We arrived at MVG so early that the custodial crew was still vacuuming up detritus from the previous night's race-going patrons, staff had yet to set up the reception area to check-in and escort guests to their reserved tables, nor had the Derby Day decorative centerpieces (fake red roses in a plastic vase) been placed on the tables.
We were there early.
This is how Mr B rolls.
The upside to that maniacal sense of promptness was the ability for me to examine the track conditions, watch/listen to more so-called expert analysis and, crucially, handicap more races on the Derby Day undercard. I did this from our table;
Lucky number... hey! Who was responsible for this travesty of jinxification?! Why do they even have a table numbered 13?
If you'll observe the low angle of sunlight cascading across the table and the dimly-lit background devoid of any human activity you should gain a strong sense of just how early we arrived at MVG.
Yay! Only 9 more hours until the playing of "My Old Kentucky Home."
Various members of Dad's cosa nostra of horse playing pals drifted in, joining us at our table and stirring up the handicapping conversations in advance of the first race (post time, 1030am). With my own focus on handicapping as much as possible, I skipped wagering on the first two races (for which I hadn't yet even glanced at in the DRF), only taking time to watch the races without any personal betting or rooting interest. When the call to the post was made for Race 3, I'd only had enough time to scan the entrants. In scanning the field for Race 3, a horse's name leapt off the pages; Far Right. Two years ago, in 2015, Far Right was a then-three year old colt himself on the Derby Trail. For assorted reasons Far Right did not make the starting Gate for Kentucky Derby 141. His name was a memorable one for me and one that I know most of my loyal subscribers would feel an immediate sense of fondness for. That was sarcasm. I know not the derivation of his name nor to what it is in reference. The track was rated as "Sloppy," I hadn't actually handicapped the race but I knew that at one time he was thought (potentially) to be a Derby-quality horse and he was about to go off at odds of 21-1.
So I loaded up!
With a $5 Show bet. Probably the first Show wager I'd made since 1980. The cosa nostra mocked my lightweight bet.
O! How they would soon come to rue their insolence!
Far Right finished the race exactly in third place, "Show," among a field of eight horses and returned to me $17.00. The cosa nostra then paid due homage to me for my prescient and bold handicapping.
Later in the evening, Battle of Midway would pay more than $20 for a $2 Show wager when running third in the Derby. Show bets can be lucrative given the right opportunity. The right opportunity doesn't often arise.
Promptly I gave back to my fellow parimutuel bettors most of my winnings in the very next race, Race 4, when the horse I backed to Win and Place finished off the board. It was free money and I backed the horse absent any actual handicapping but solely because it was sired by the Hall of Fame thoroughbred Ghostzapper, one of my all-time favorites.
One member of the cosa nostra of horse players at our table fired up his smartphone to give the rest of us access to the live coverage from TVG, a cable/satellite and internet provider of live racing and wagering. One person at our table disinterested in this wonder of technical advancement was The Old Master of the Turf who loathes even his own smartphone, foisted upon him by Lou for work-related purposes. See if you can locate Mr B's smartphone in the photo below:
Did you find it?
Look, there again. Under his coffee cup. Yes, that's right. The Old Master of the Turf used his smartphone - a device with vastly more computing power and speed than the computers which sent Mankind to the Moon and back - as a hot beverage coaster. Whoever said octogenarians can't be impudent?
Dad wants his old skool flip phone back.
Back on planet Earth, my handicapping kicked in with Race 5 and soon I was on a roll! I cashed a sizable Win/Place wager in Race 5 that put me back into positive financial territory, in Race 6 I hit a straight trifecta (not "boxed" in wagering parlance) for a healthy haul of greenbacks and in Race 7 I cashed a winning Pick Three (wagered for the start of Race 5) that paid a modest return. Race 7 also hailed the start of the Pick Six and one of my two selections for the first leg of the Pick Six came in first.
Large and in charge, was I, and up big too.
Then heading into Race 8 and on the precipice of ultimate triumph and obscene riches, wagering disaster struck with a cruel vengeance.
My Race 8 Win/Place horse finished out of the money. Worse yet, I had a "live" Pick Three (begun with Race 6) and a "live" Pick 4 (starting with Race 5) that would have been cashed (and paid off, unquestionably, in the presence of armed guards) had any of my four selected horses won the 8th Race. All I needed was for the #1, #3, #4 or #5 to win. Numbers 1 & 3 failed to fire, with the #4 finishing 3rd and, agonizingly, the #5 finishing 2nd rallying furiously from an absurdly poor start to finish 4 lengths behind the eventual winner. The Equibase trouble line reads in part as follows; ".....[The #5 horse] broke slow, shifted out five wide to be clear, commenced his rally circling nine wide into the stretch...." Even a minimally better start would have put my #5 horse into an easy position to win.
The Pick Three paid $91.40, the Pick Four paid $577.40.
Each of those, now lost, Pick Three and Pick Four wagers cost me a not-insignificant sum. Add to that my losing Race 8 Win/Place, oh and a now-dead Pick Three [$$$] from Race 7, and the now-dead Pick Three which started with Race 8 [yet more $$$] and the pricey Race 8 superfecta box that went down in flames [additional $$$] and my gravity-bending bankroll suddenly dematerialized.
Instead of cashing nearly $700 on Race 8 alone, I was in a deepening hole which was soon to reveal itself as wagering quicksand.
It gets worse, and we're still re-living Race 8. This Race 8 calamity also put a torpedo into the broadside of my "live" Pick Six, as constructed a nearly $100 wager (luckily I persuaded Lou to buy-in for a share before the Pick Six went all RMS Lusitania on me. I mean "us.").
It is without exaggeration to say that Race 8 was the lynch pin to my day of wagering.
Perhaps it wasn't a lynch pin at all but rather a grenade pin. The grenade pin was pulled and I was a dead man walking handicapper wagering.
[As an aside, did I mention that Lou ate my lunch? No, literally he ate my lunch. We went for burgers and fries at noon. The casino commissary kindly boxed them up for us - mine the BBQ Bacon Cheeseburger, his the Cheesiest of All Cheeseburgers - and we returned to our lucky Table #13. Before eating I went to make a wager. I returned to find Lou, three big bites into a burger with thick pieces of bacon sticking out the sides and him asking me Did they put bacon on your sandwich too? I looked to find a three-cheese burger in my box. Lou had BBQ sauce on his chin.]
After Race 8, it all went to hell in the paddock. Horses were winning in the 9th, 10th and 11th races, mostly longshots, that I hadn't given any serious chance. A horse named Limousine Liberal won the 10th. You know I didn't put any Reserve Bank de-valued greenbacks on it. All the while, the quicksand was rapidly pulling me to the bottom.
As the Derby itself nears, the time between races stretches to impossible dimensions that even Doctor Who has never visited. Flipping through my DRF I saw a former Derby horse entered in a race that afternoon at Belmont so I took a closer look at the field. The former Derby horse was entered as the #3. Listed directly above this former Derby horse in the DRF was, of course, the #2 horse - a longshot sired by a horse named Drosselmeyer, himself a former upset winner of the Belmont Stakes.
I loaded up!
With $2 to Win and Place.
My #2 horse at Belmont finished 2nd and paid $7.60. A far cry from the almost $700 I nearly cashed on Race 8 at Churchill but it represented the only ticket I cashed following my hot streak that ended abruptly back in Race 7 at Churchill.
Back at Churchill Downs, it was time for the 143rd Run for the Roses. The Old Master of the Turf, as he always does, stands for the playing of "My Old Kentucky Home."
I remained seated, begging off with a fractured foot.
Dad is not from Kentucky. However, virtually all of his horse playing cosa nostra - both living and otherwise - drew their first breaths in the Blue Grass. I think Dad stands as much out of respect for them than for any other purpose one might ascribe.
As far back as December 2016, The Old Master had his Derby horse, Gunnevera.
Gunnevera drew a lot of betting interest for the Derby, bet down from his morning line odds of 15-1 down to 9-1 at post time. The Old Master knows something about horse racing!
As for Mr Heavy Artillery, here were my picks:
Truth be told, I liked the #14 & #15 more than the #16. But the #16 had the longest odds of the three (going off at odds of 26-1) and neck-deep in quicksand I was swinging for the fences.
The #16 finished 6th.
The #15 ran 8th.
The #14 nosed into the superfecta pool in 4th place.
All in all, considering the surface (rated officially at post time as "Sloppy"), the uncertain development of three-year old colts in May and the too-large size of the Derby field with its resultant traffic problems, having horses finish 4th, 6th and 8th is fairly satisfactory handicapping even if I do say so myself.
If you examine my cryptic notations at the top of the DRF page (pictured above), you'll see that I was prepared to back the #11 and/or the #19 had late developments (scratches, etc) necessitated an alternate course of wagering. The #11 finished in the money in 3rd place and the #19 crossed the line in 5th.
Of the five horses I was prepared to wager on in the 20-horse Kentucky Derby Slop-fest, none ran worse than 8th.
In fact, if one reviews the Equibase trouble lines, or the following day's reportage in The Blood-Horse, a more clear picture emerges illustrating that, had the three horses upon which I wagered had a better trip, they could have had a better - perhaps winning - finish:
"Classic Empire [the #14]...soon after the break... was hammered off stride between rivals when forced down... picked up steam leaving the far turn, swung five wide for the drive, had his run briefly interrupted when bumped and carried out mid stretch, regrouped and churned on."
"McCracken [the #15] was jostled hard soon after the break, recovered and settled four wide, gained quickly when put to pressure leaving the half mile marker... was bumped and carried out mid stretch...."
Having a good break from the starting gate and getting a good, relatively trouble-free trip are critical to winning the Kentucky Derby. My three horses didn't get that because the #17 (Irish War Cry, above) bolted from the gate and then veered hard left toward the rail, sequentially blowing up my #16, #15, and #14 in the process.
That's horse racing.
I may not have cashed a ticket on the Derby, and I certainly didn't pick the first- or second-place finishers but my Derby handicapping crushed it after that. For whatever that's worth.
"Zero."
Roll the credits!
