Oh crap, I thought it opened today sometime. Whoops.

noon eastern I think.

well according to some "pedigree experts" like stich LOL smarty couldnt get the distance. hilarious how a 10yo girl writes in to bloodhorse and is more competent than stich.................how some of these people get jobs and are allowed to publish books is beyond me

YouBet isn't taking bets on it today. That's weird. Someone is not doing their job at YouBet or Churchill or both.

--Dunbar

Hard Spun is down to around 10-1, Nobiz is at around 2-1 as of this second.

That is the only reason I might place a bet on this. I think Hard Spun is extremely overrated and am not sold on Nobiz. If those two keep getting hammered I'll consider placing a bet.

That's with a very small amount of money placed in the pool. Nobiz, Hard Spun, a couple others, those are your horses taking a ton of money.

I don't understand why people doubted Smarty's ability to get a distance... his female family had a lot of distance and classic winners.

At this exact moment in time, you can also get 99 and 96-1, respectively, for Notional and Liquidity. That's with like 7,000 in the pool. That's your average Charles Town Wednesday night claimer pool.

I don't bet futures, but Liquidity is the 2007 Kentucky Derby winner if he enters the gate. :p

You can watch the odds, here.

http://www.kentuckyderby.com/2007/future-wager/realtime

You do have to smile at people putting money on Circular Quay and others that are racing this weekend, even though they could wait to bet after the horse's race and get the same odds they would get by betting today.

--Dunbar

If Any Given Saturday stays in the 20-1 range, I might have to make my way to Rosecroft...

Ravel is already down to 6-1.
Great Hunter 27-1

Odds can fluctuate hugely at this point in the game though. Only like 10k bet, a $500 bet could swing things a ton.

Would not mind grabbing Forefathers at 99-1 or Lawrence the Roman at 32-1. You know if LTR wins tomorrow that will plummet and both have shot to at least make gate on Derby day.

I'm thinking in the end Liquidity may wind up the best bargain. This is a horse that went into the Sham as the favorite and only lost by a length to Ravel yet should close with significantly higher odds than Ravel. He's also one of only three horses in the field to have a triple digit Beyer beyond 6.5 furlongs.

Here's some more info, 1st_Sat. Of the 5 lowest odds horses from Pool 1 each year, 60% have made it to the starting gate (21 of a possible 35). Of the next 5 lowest odds horses, 43% have started (15 of a possible 35).

Combining those figs with your 62 of 161, it looks like the "bottom 13" have just 26 of 91 possible starters, 29%.

--Dunbar

My husband was all over Fusaichi Pegasus in an early pool and the horse was double-digit odds at the time. It was our ONLY good future bet ever. Most of ours never even make the race, whether it is the Derby/Oaks or a BC race. I think it is a bad bet. I am really tempted to bet Ravel(Fupeg/Grade I winning A.P. Indy mare Let by A.P. Indy). I shall stop myself, however.

A crude way to use these figs would be to simply discount the future odds by the estimate of the horse not making it to the starting gate. You'd discount the favs' odds by 40%; the longshots' odds by 60-70%. So, if a horse looks like it's going to be 10-1 in the future pool, it would be the very rough equivalent of 6-1 on Derby day. A 50-1 longshot discounted 70% would be worth 15-1 on Derby day. That would just give you a ballpark way of accounting for the chance your horse would not start. It also helps keep us from getting overly excited by 30-1 or 50-1.

--Dunbar

These current odds are about as useful as morning line odds. Just dont want anyone to get their hopes up. 7K bet, by Sunday at 6pm, there will be over 100K in this pool, so these arent exactly a good barometer. Most people will wait until Sunday to bet.