Good advice for sure.:tro: I am definitely in the overthinking camp, but I don't know that anyone evolves as a handicapper by doing the same thing over and over, but then again, you can sometimes get too far away from the basics. It seems like I did better just paying attention to Beyers than anything else, but now my game is more complicated. I look at figs, try to determine what the pace will be, riders stats, trainer stats, race track conditions, yada, yada, yada. I have seen the enemy and he is definitely me.

I marveled that a Bill Mott first time starter with the obvious talent of Hidden Scroll could have been kept hidden (pun intended) as well as he was, whether the 12-1 ML was "ruined" down to 8-1 or not (don't you just hate it when bettors knock your price down from the ML?). It is surprising that his ability in workouts and the like wasn't noticed and the word out all over the backside. Ron Nicoletti had some positive things to say about him, but not enough to move the needle very much.

That was a very impressive performance by Hidden Scroll. Kind of reminded me of the way that Pulpit emerged onto the scene in 2001 or so. Scroll seemed to be doing it all on his own and was under wraps for the final 1/16th, yet the final time for the mile was over a second faster than older stakes horse ran in the Fred Hooper later in the day. How long will it take for him to appear on some Derby futures lists?

I don't know about that one for Mott, but I put a couple of dollars in the future wagering on one by the name of Mucho that he trains. I haven't done a future wager in a long time and didn't bet much (or "mucho") this year, but put a few dollars on a couple of Bafferts (but probably the wrong ones) and this one of Mott's. It was probably an overly impulsive thing to do, but who knows, by some miracle, might work out. For all his success in horses racing, I don't know that Mott had ever had a KD
winner, but maybe he is about due.