This past Saturday was a big day for horse racing and for the greatest jockey in the history of mankind, the Italian-born Lanfranco "Frankie" Dettori.
The on-going global pandemic forced the rescheduling of horse racing meets worldwide. If you're checking your 2020 weekly planner, please note that the First Saturday in May will be observed on the First Saturday in September. The Belmont Stakes, invariably the final jewel in the Triple Crown, was rescheduled for Saturday June 20th and this year is the first jewel in the Triple Crown. Meanwhile, across the pond, the final day of the five-day meet at Royal Ascot was held the same day as the Belmont but without patronage of royalty or anybody else. For horse players, the Royal Ascot-Belmont doubleheader presented a daylong feast of wagering.
Best horse name of the Royal Ascot 2020 meet!
In recent years I've simplified my Royal Ascot wagering strategy. Rather than scour the interwebz for international editions of the TimeForm or Racing Post and past performances (which are not nearly as detailed as the Daily Racing Form #usa #usa #usa), I simply bet exacta boxes on the horses ridden by jockeys Frankie Dettori and Ryan Moore. Dettori and Moore generally have rides on the best horses, at whichever meet they are riding, and are the two most successful jockeys based in the United Kingdom and in Europe. In the instances in which one of the two jocks doesn't have a mount in a given race, I will bet win/place on the entered jockey. In each of the past two years, this has proved to be a winning strategy for me.
On Day 1 of the Royal Ascot meet I cashed an exacta box and a win/place on Ryan Moore for an end-of-day profit of almost $7.00!
On Day 2 I hit the same two tickets as Day 1 and ended the day with almost $5.00 more than I began with!
On Day 3 I again cashed an exacta box and a win/place on Ryan Moore but ended the day down almost $3.00.
On Day 4 and Day 5 I was shut out and lost $12.00 each day.
Royal Ascot 2020 was my first-ever losing week of RA wagering.
Frankie Dettori had a great week and on the last day of the meet he won 3 races in succession which propelled him into the winner's circle as the meet's leading jockey. The 2020 Royal Ascot ride that Dettori will most be remembered for was his win on Stradivarius in the Gold Cup. In the 2020 Gold Cup Stradivarius was bidding to become just the third horse to win 3 successive Gold Cups, an event that has been run at Ascot since 1807. There was concern among the connections for Stradivarius that the heavy rains and soft ground this year would be too-great an obstacle for the firm ground-favoring horse. In a stunning Gold Cup victory, Stradivarius and Frankie Dettori rallied from 10 lengths behind to win by 10 lengths!
No sooner than did the Royal Ascot 2020 meet come to a close on Saturday than did the 2020 Belmont Stakes Day race card begin. The barrel of my wagering gun was warm from my Royal Ascot measured firing. It was about to turn white hot from my indiscriminate rapid firing at the Big Sandy racetrack in Elmont, NY.
My digital wallet having been lightened a bit from Royal Ascot, I was heartened by my fast start at Belmont.
Four races into the Belmont race card and I was well ahead for the day, including my losses from Royal Ascot. That $5 win/place wager in the 2nd race that paid $33.50 was on a Violence-sired horse named No Parole. No Parole demolished the field on Saturday. By now, you know well my deep fondness for A Horse Named Violence! Soon thereafter I began to miss the mark with the empty shell casings quickly piling up around me.
The races making up the middle of the Belmont race card proved elusive to my bets. Sinking back into the red, I kept my finger on the trigger and continued to fire. As the Belmont Day race card segued into the final races, I once again found the target.
Your eyes do not deceive you, I cashed three Pick 3 tickets at Belmont on Saturday.
In the end, a losing Pick 6, two failed Pick 4's (one was live until the final leg) and a myriad of missed trifectas had me and my internet-based wagering account smoking like a 1930's gangster's Thompson submachine gun.
Two full race cards, from two different continents, 40 individual wagers over a 10-hour span. I was down early (and early in the morning, 5 hours behind Ascot), then up, then down again with a late rally (in the evening) to get me back to respectability. Quasi-respectability.
The next day, Sunday, was Father's Day. After some light administrative work, I tuned in that day's horse racing for a few minutes of respite before heading to Mr B's for a steak dinner. The broadcast went immediately to Churchill Downs, with just a few minutes to post time for the 5th race. It was a rainy day in Louisville, KY. The track was sloppy. The 5th race was a sprint. I had no intention to wager, just enjoy a race or two before the celebratory dinner. The post parade was televised as the field entered the main track. The #1 horse was sired by Daredevil, another of my favorite sires of recent vintage. Generally horses breaking from the gate along the rail in a sprint want to get off to a fast start so as to not get buried on the rail behind a wall of horses. This strategy becomes imperative when the track is sloppy. It's often difficult on a sloppy track to get footing secure enough to mount a rally from behind, and there will be a lot of muddy kickback into the faces of increasingly annoyed trailing horses. Immediately I saw an opportunity. I logged into my wagering account and put a win/place wager on the Daredevil horse, odds of 4-1. The post parade continued and the #7 horse named Lizzie B was a longshot at double digit odds sired, I learned, by Violence. Yes, another win/place bet.
The Violence-sired horse won, with the Daredevil-sired horse finishing 2nd. I cashed both tickets. Why didn't I bet the exacta? It paid $130.20.
Naturally, and immediately, I called Mr B.
When Dad answers the phone, or when I answer his call, if no one is around to hear me I say "Hey ya Big Guy!" If somebody is within earshot who isn't family, I'll say "Yes sir!" when answering. But when there is racing on the television, he and I both cut to the chase. The question one will first ask when the other answers - in this case me asking Dad when he answered; "Did you see that last race?!" Of course, this is what we ask the other when we have a winning ticket. "Did you see the sire of that #7 horse?" I asked. Mr B replied "Yes! Violence!" The Old Master of the Turf knows.
Roll the credits!
Here is a selection of snow photographs in and around The Ranch from 2019.
Next, below, a snowy Curve Rd.
Snowflake bombardment on the hood of the Jeep Main Battle Tank.
Cruising westbound along Interstate 70, directly into the falling snow and rapidly reducing visibility.
When is a snowplow not just a snowplow? When it's a snowplow that rolled out of the Lamborghini workshop in Sant'Agata Bolognese, Italy.
[Photo credit: Lou. Oxville, USA. January 16, 2018.]
Roll the credits!
While the world burned last week, I found a quiet corner of peaceful bucolic solitude.
With rioting and looting the national mood I did a double take when I saw the state of collapse that is the erstwhile Attractions. "No quarter beers, no peace!"
My inside source in the volatile real estate market informs me that this is simply a long-overdue renovation.
OPD patrolled High Street while I enjoyed two dips of Graeter's double chocolate chip in the West Park uptown.
When the calendar turned to June and the hoped-for announcement regarding the return of Major League Baseball failed to materialize, longtime HA subscriber Kuertz sent me an exasperated text message on the subject.
It's been a difficult 2018, 2019 and 2020 for Joey Votto and his Hall of Fame credentials. Let's hope MLB and the Players Union can agree on an 82-game season for 2020 and that Votto bats .360/.485/.600.
The Incomparable Joe Wilhelm expressed the sentiment of Abraham Lincoln's first inaugural address (March 4, 1861):
"We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."
I Want Revenge!
Roll the credits!
In this modern era thoroughbred race horses might have a 3- or 4-year professional career, retiring for the breeding shed at about age 5 or 6. From there, in-demand sires might spend a decade or more hard a work at the business end of business. Thus it came as a shock to the world of horse racing this week when the 7-year old champion race horse Arrogate was euthanized following a difficult weeklong fight with a neurological illness.
You can read The Bloodhorse news report here.
The Bloodhorse columnist Steve Haskins remembers Arrogate in his latest posting "Arrogate The Four-Race Phenom." Haskins runs down the roster of accomplished horses Arrogate defeated in just a 4-race span:
As a 3-year old colt facing older horses in the 2016 Breeders' Cup Classic Arrogate rallied into soft fractions to overtake two-time Horse of the Year award winner California Chrome near the wire for a great victory. You can re-read my brief account of this race by clicking here. Generally speaking, when a horse is able to set the pace with relatively slow fractional times at the quarter mile, half mile and/or three quarter mile intervals, that pace-setting horse is difficult to overtake simply because there is still energy in reserve that wasn't expended earlier that can propel the pace-setter home to victory. If you watch the 2016 BC Classic race replay, note half way around the far turn that jockey Mike Smith navigates Arrogate - then running third - to the inside of the horse running second to overtake and then when turning for home Mike Smith moves Arrogate to the outside of California Chrome. The burst of speed Arrogate unleashes nearing the finish to surge past California Chrome was visually impressive.
Five months later, in winning the 2017 Dubai World Cup, Arrogate ran what is to this point the greatest horse race run so far this century. Not the fastest race, not the most important race, but the difficulties Arrogate overcame and the effort required to win against a field of tremendous horses produced a triumphant result that exemplifies the gritty determination of a champion.
That dark March night in Dubai a strong wind was blowing a pelting rain nearly horizontal. Uncharacteristically Arrogate broke out of the gate last. Just strides out of the gate a hole closed on Arrogate and jockey Mike Smith had to check (or pull back hard on the reins to dramatically slow the progress). As the field passes the grandstand for the first time, Arrogate is dead last and about a dozen lengths behind the leader. For most horses, with so much distance to make up and a blizzard of dirt being kicked in the face, at this point their race is already over. Racing down the backstretch, with more than a half-mile to go, Arrogate is swung 8-wide (losing ground in the process) in order to find a clear path to rally. Entering the far turn Arrogate is still near the back of the field. Turning for home Arrogate launches an explosive move, accelerating in a flash to begin inhaling the horses in front of him. At the top of the homestretch, now running in 4th, the 3rd place horse drifts out and bumps Arrogate. Arrogate shakes off that contact and begins rolling like an out of control locomotive, blowing past the leader and cruising to a victory that appeared easy (see if you can catch jockey Mike Smith go to the whip more than twice) but wasn't.
The race, the effort, was so incredible - almost unbelievable - that in the aftermath I immediately began texting my fellow horseplayers to see if they were watching and urging them to watch the replay if they were not. I've never found myself as excited about a race result in which I didn't have a wagering interest than I did on that day.
Arrogate didn't have a sustained career on the track. But for a brief span of approximately 7 months from August of 2016 to March of 2017 Arrogate as great a thoroughbred race horse as any that ever lived.
Hail and farewell, Arrogate!
