PEN 8th 1.5.13

[For The Lead]

The race is a $5,000 NW3L, STATE BRED race.

Take a look at the field if you have the file. There is a horse in here that is 1 for 24. Another horse is 2 for 40. Just look over the field. While you are looking it over you will find a horse that is 2 for 5. It is 2 for 5 and it is now 5 years old. Does something seem amiss to you? How come a 5 year old has just 5 races? I mean, I know it just turned 5 a couple of days ago, but nevertheless, like I said, there is a horse in here that has 40 races and it is 6 years old.

The horse I'm talking about is the #6 horse. The PP's for this horse are below. It had it's first race 487 days ago, so it was late making its' first start at the age of 3 and half years old. This in itself tells me the horse may have had some physical problems and that is the reason it got to the races late. Then, after a dismal first start, it was off for 122 days. When it came back at the same class, it was ready to run, going wire to wire. Just 15 days later against NW2L for $5,000 it showed the same early form and won again. Now, something happened that caused the horse to be off 307 days. Again, we can only assume some type of injury was the reason for this excessive time off. This can be the only conclusion. Why else would you take a horse out of training when it has had 2 wins from just 3 starts? When the horse came back again, they brought it back at PRX for $7,500 NW3L. I consider PRX a step "up" from PEN. The thing to look at in this return race is the beaten lengths at each call. Notice they are greater and greater as the race progresses. This is nothing new for this horse, nor would it be anything new for any horse that wants to be on the lead. So what this means is, in its' return race, the horse couldn't break on or with the leaders and the jockey didn't push the horse once that happened because it didn't matter. So now they take the horse back to PEN and drop it down to $5,000 NW3L STATE BRED race. This is a "drop" going from PRX to PEN, a "drop" from $7,500 to $5,000 and a "drop" from an open race to a State Bred race. That's "3" "drops"! Now look at the huge improvement. The horse fights for the lead at the first call....fights on to the second call where it is 2nd by a head and then backs up. When you combine all I just told you, you have to come to the conclusion that this horse is ready to run a good race. Today it is back in the same $5,000 NW3L STATE BRED race. And the last line is the line you want to use. It doesn't matter that it backed up in its' last race and will not show well in the third fraction.....what we want to know is, can it make the lead today. If it can, everything else will fall into place. So along with the #6 horse's PP's I have attached the "segments screen".




One last thing. When we handicap a race, all we have to go on are the PP's. We have to evaluate them the way we see them. Sometimes things don't always work out the way we see them. In this case...the #6 got bumped at the start, taking away any chance of making the lead. Just to show you that there is always a surprise in horse racing, this dedicated front runner came from well off the pace to win....much to my surprise!!

By the way, with a 10/1 ML, this horse paid $73.80!!! And right off a good last line. A "(+)" line.

In this case, "the numbers" CAN'T explain the reason the horse won, not even after the fact. If you don't have horse racing knowledge, this is a play you are going to miss.