and then I’m moving on.
On thing that’s made me feel somewhat better about not covering my bets with the winning combo is that of all the experts and bloggers I read, no one predicted the winning combo (although I still should have done a $20 tri box with the three favs, dammit!).
As I’ve noted before, I’m a big fan of biases and I watch them closely. On the day before the Preakness and day of, front runners and stalkers were favored to closers. Only one closer had won the day before, and with the exception of the 4 & 5th races that I didn’t see (because I was in transit to the “office”) front runners and stalkers were winning. Interesting to note because biases, like all other handicapping tools, are not to be taken as the only factor… and as most will tell you, a good horse can overcome anything.
I was re-reading a few of my posts because I was thinking about things I wanted to see about a few of the horses before I became a believer.
From my Derby Futures Wagers post:
“The things that I don’t like about Curlin are that he hasn’t raced against tough competition and we have no idea if he’s got the heart for a fight. Could he hold his own against Street Sense in the stretch?”
Answered: Yes!
I still want to see Street Sense go 3 or 4 wide and weave in and out of horses.
Here’s a gripe… the Pimlico simulcast didn’t have split screen so you couldn’t see what the back of the pack was doing. This is one of most helpful things ever, I felt like I didn’t know what was going on in the race because it was just focused on the front runners. Is this a Magna entertainment thing? I’ll have to look at this more closely. It’s one thing for NBC to not have the split screen, but an OTB simulcast? That’s ridiculous!
Now for the moving on part… rematch! The distance in the Belmont will be very interesting. Swifty thinks Hard Spun won’t run, and he’s probably right. A few interesting additions are going to be Tiago, Imawildandcrazyguy and hopefully Rags to Riches! Tiago & Imawildandcrazyguy will do much better at that distance for sure. I would love to see Rags to Riches win the Belmont!!