Wednesday Saratoga Race 1

[Jeebs]

We've got ourselves $20k beaten claimers going the full tour of Saratoga's main oval, and this race looks to serve as a prep for a 2-mile claimer on 8/9 for the neat distance runner Ea. Assuming that Ea runs here, his entrymate Irish Lion - entered in tomorrow's 8th at 7F - would scratch, leaving pre-scratch, a 7-horse field to go and in my mind, Jacobson holding the cards in this particular race.

Having had the chance to try RDSS the past month, I have essentially settled on a paceline strategy that seems to work best for me, and basically involves using Total Energy to gauge the Pace of the Race. Without trying to preach on a soapbox, I tend to be a bit on the liberal side with choosing/matching pacelines, especially with layoff runners. I know that this may go against the teachings of astute guys like FTL and Bill V. (and I consider them astute practicioners of the Methodology!) but for me, it seems to be effective. As Ted has reminded myself and others, consistency in the application of the Methodology is paramount to success.

Screenshots and Analysis:


Let's look for the pace of this race:


Off 47 days, Sovereign Default's past two outs were over off-tracks going one-turn routes at BEL. His most recent two-turn outing on the AQU IDT was also over an "off" course. However, his recent "fast" track two turn routes showed some true ability, scoring TE of 164.8 and 165.2 respectively. He could be the Early in here, but has shown some E/P tendencies. The other horse that could fight for "E" supremacy, is Jet Set Cat. While his best two-turn races showed ability to shoot for/fight for the lead, the TE scores for his 12/31 and 1/19 races would get swallowed up whole by the favorite. Also, his most recent two-turn dirt route, a "O" effort on 3/15, was first off a claim. He has shown nothing in his grass efforts leading up to this. If he somehow upsets the apple cart, I won't lose any sleep over it. The target PoR for this race is in the neighborhood of 164.8.