[For The Lead]

First things first. I WOULD NOT have had the winner of this race as it was OFF 190 days.

Next, thanks Bill for posting the PP’s.

Ok, on to each horse.

#1 – SCR
#2 – NO LINE. I’m not going back to line 3 off of the horses performance in lines 1 and 2.
#3 – L2, I can’t use line 1 as it was a route race.
#4 – NO LINE. I can’t use line one as it was a route and a poor performance. All the other lines are more than 90 days old.
#5 – L1, I’m not concerned with the -56 track variant. My adjustments would handle that. And I’m certainly not going back to line 5 or 6 even though they are less than 90 days old.
#6 – NO LINE, ML is 20/1.
#7 – L1,
#8 – NO LINE, ML is 20/1
#9 – NO LINE, last 8 races, regardless of class level, are just bad
#10 – NO LINE, OFF 190 days

So let me start with the ML favorite, #10. Being OFF 190 days I would immediately throw the horse out. Just about one year ago, someone claimed this horse for $40,000 which was a drop in class after having run in allowance races with various conditions. The new owner immediately runs the horse back twice in allowance races before finally deciding to drop the horse down to 12,500 (where it ran 2nd) and then dropping it again the next time out to 7,500 where it won. If you following racing at all, it should be clear this is a horse with problems and turned out to be a horrible claim for $40,000. Fortunately, the owner finally lost the horse through the claim box when it won for $7,500 last time out. What happened next confirms what you should have been thinking about the horse a couple of races ago. The horse has problems. The new owner paid $7,500 for an ailing horse. They had no choice but to take the horse out of training and address whatever the issues were with the horse. That took 190 days. Today, the horse is a crap shoot. If it loses, you can understand why. If it wins, again, you can understand why. Not the kind of horse I want to back.

So I have lines for just three horses, #3, #5 and #7.
#5 has a lifetime record of 3 for 27.
#7 has a lifetime record of 3 for 27.
Neither of these horses instill confidence in me, which leaves just the #3 that ran 2nd by a neck at 8.70/1 and is one of two “early” horses in the race….by my standards.

I’m with you, Jeebs, in your decision to pass the race.
Good job.