Win streak attempt
 

I had argued that I think picking 10 straight winners would be harder than 1,000 straight losers. People disagreed with me -- but I know there are horses everyday who I believe have a 0.00% chance of winning.

There's no such thing as a horse with a 100% chance of winning... outside of Sharp Cat in her walkover maybe. The fact that a lot of stuff can go wrong during a race is only a very small part -- it mostly boils down to the fact that race horses are very fragile animals and rarely stay in peak form for an extended number of starts.

Very few horses at all levels ever go 10 straight races without turning in "Non-efforts" -- horses with a lot of early speed and poor trainers are most likely to turn in dismal races. Horses with excellent trainers who stay off of the early pace are most likely to produce consistent results.

Long win streaks are basically about staying free of injury, in good health, and simply being better than your competition you face.

Anyway, GPK was asking about it in the other thread -- and I'd told him I'd try to see how many winners in a row I could get.

I will take one horse a day who I believe is the most likely winner of the entire day -- and see if I get to 10 winners in a row.

These will not be 'good betting situations' -- a good betting situation is when you believe your chances of winning comfortably exceed the odds you're getting when the betting closes.

Most of these horses will be pounded to a short price because of their obvious dominance. Still, it will be a good test to see how often the days most invincible looking horse fails to win.

Biggest standout of the day for Thursday:

Hoosier Race #2: Julie Darlin

Anyone who thinks picking 10 straight winners is easier than 1000 straight losers needs their head examined.

Though I suppose one could cherry pick over a long period of time, but under the constraint of having to pick one a day? Yikes.

What about the mighty Archwarrior? Not willing to take a chance on a supposed sure thing 2yo?

Nevermind, just saw your other thread.

Won by 13.5 lengths and paid $2.80

1 down, 9 more to go.


Biggest standout of the day for Friday:

Thistle Downs Race #6: Coupled entry of Blazing Bling (#1) and Disappeared (#1A)

Blazing Bling won by 9.75 lengths at monstrous odds of 1/9.

2 down, 8 more to go.


Staying in the Buckeye state, Princess Christine has lost 15 straight races (9 at Beulah Park, 5 at River Downs, and one at that legendary racing oval Mt. Pleasant)

But, Princess Christine has finally "found her friends" in tomorrows 1st race at River Downs and she should help trigger a microscopic daily double.

Opened at 1/9. I must say this is fun to watch.

Paul

Wins by 6 in hand despite being pressed every step of the way.

Paul

According to the result chart -- Princess Christine actually won by 9.5 lengths.

http://www1.drf.com/drfPDFChartRaces...=20120901&RN=1


I was a little bummed out that she went off at 1/5 odds -- she was 5/2 on the morning line.

I was debating between either using her -- or using the 6/5 morning line favorite in the next race ... but I choose Princess Christine because I thought the 15 race losing streak would translate to better odds. It felt like she might be even money and the winner of the 2nd race might be 1/5.

The favorite won the 2nd race by 14 lengths and paid Even money. The Daily Double paid $5.40.

http://www1.drf.com/drfPDFChartRaces...=20120901&RN=2


Ah well. 3 down, 7 more to go.

Yea, but dat .10 supa in the first paid five fiddy.

Standout of the day for Sunday:

Monmouth Park Race #7: Teen Pauline is drawn perfectly and her patient to a fault jockey should sit a very good trip and she buries them with a repeat of her last race.

She opted for the Spinaway.

Looks like she opted for the wrong race...

Paul

Indeed -- the Beyer for the Sorority (6f) was just a 63 and Teen Pauline would have almost certainly sat a perfect stalking trip at 6f...and buried that field.

Instead she dueled going 7f at Saratoga and faltered late in a MUCH tougher (but obviously MUCH more prestigious) spot.

There are a laundry list of horses who appear certain winners today -- pretty close to split anyone of about a dozen who look certain.

Lets go out to Emerald Downs in the Pacific Northwest -- in race #1 Polish Dollar is stretching out for the first time in a long time -- he owns a significant pace advantage and I don't believe the distance will be any problem.

Standout of the day:

EMD race #1: Polish Dollar

$2.60

Had a tease moment as the horse was 3/5 when the gates opened.

4 down, 6 more to go.

Not a whole lot of action to choose from on Tuesday.

Standout of the day for Tuesday:

Hoosier Race #2: Crimson's Roar

There are some things that should turn bettors off with this one: He's been laid up for over a month and a half with no workouts, barn change to a guy who hasn't won off the claim, and just a 5% jockey in 2012 (17 wins from 325 mounts)

However, the absence from racing is because he's been waiting for Ellis Park to end. The absence of any workouts the last seven weeks doesn't bother me, and the human connections don't bother me.

Drugs I had him at 4-5 on Betfair thanks a million :) some lucky lads actually backed him at 6-4 in early trading. Unfortunately, Betfair doesn't take Hoosier Park :o:(

Nice job getting that value on Betfair.

I don't think anyone has ever thanked me for a $2.60 winner before.

Won and paid a monstrous $3.20 -- once again the 5/2 morning line didn't come close to holding up when I thought maybe it might.

5 down, 5 more to go.

To quote Bon Jovi "we're halfway there ... woooo ohhh, livin' on a prayer!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXsmGSnq3lE

There are four probable contenders for today... two of them at Thistle Downs, the Baffert horse plunging in the 1st at Del Mar, and Ron Moquett's Biker Boy at Hoosier.

Biker Boy makes the most sense -- but I hate his trainer.

Lets go Race #2 at Thistle Downs -- Angel''s Rock is a Calder shipper who is facing a bunch of bums at Thistle Downs. The outside horse is going 1st time dirt -- but everything else looks hopeless.


Standout of the day:

Thistle Race #2: Angel's Rock

$2.60 to win. Keep up the good work Doug.

Biker Boy also paid $2.60 -- the other standout at Thistle paid $2.80 as jockey Seabury tried her best to be a human anchor -- the Baffert scratched.

6 down, 4 to go.

Lets go to Finger Lakes in search of the 7th straight day with a winner.

You normally want Henny Hughes offspring 1st time out and sprinting -- but Teahupoo plunges down and catches a field of complete bums. The only horse with even a remote looking chance is the #2 horse -- and I don't like the trainer change on that one.

Standout of the day:

Finger Lakes Race #1: Teahupoo

!!!!

It was a great ride. He got him left at the gate, trapped behind a 50 and change pace, and had him everywhere but the ladies bathroom.

As Gloria Gaynor said...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keN2pW8qFQc

Make it 7-for-7 and at a stellar $2.20 win mutual no less. I will survive.

7 down, 3 more to go.

Doug his Betfair starting price was 1.26 but I managed to get him at 1.7 - this is brilliant! If I had enough funds in my Betfair account I'd also be laying all your losers!!!

Betting exchanges are great for a wide variety of reasons. In a lot of cases, laying the bums to place would be the way to go.

In terms of how draconian the game is setup against the bettor, Horse Racing in the United States is an absolute pathetic embarrassment. We are 50 years behind the year 1890. Our glorioust of glory years, the 1890's.

There are several horses scattered throughout the country who have the look of sure thing standouts.

A few of them look like types who'll flirt hard with even money or better. This one won't.

I hate to do it, but Gantry in the 3rd race at Louisiana Downs is facing just four rivals ... one of which (the only capable of applying pace pressure) is cross entered in a richer stake race at Kentucky Downs and figures to scratch.

Gantry has won 5 of his last 6 starts -- the lone defeat was a 3rd to Shackleford and Amazombie on the Kentucky Derby undercard. He won the Grade 2 Smile by 5 lengths last time out at Calder -- and drops in to a 50K stake here for trainer Ron Faucheux -- who is winning 53% at the meet and 30% for the year.

Standout of the day: Louisiana Race #3: Gantry

Delaunay scratched at KD. Looks like he is staying in this race.

Yep -- and he got to absolutely walk on a 23 2/5 loose lead while clear early -- Gantry was very passively ridden and that allowed Jake MO's rider to rush up, pin him down, and trap him.

Final furlong in 11 and change on dirt.

This is a case where if you had in-race wagering -- you'd have bet your lungs on the winner halfway through the race.

Of course the ride on Gantry was a very stupid one, by allowing him to get trapped he would have had to come home in mind-boggling fast time to win. He simply never had a chance.

Streak ends in the 8th race.

Soundly beaten second at 1/5. You were right when you started this quest. It is so much harder to pick ten winners in a row than to pick any number of losers. Still, I hope you try again as this was great fun to follow.

Paul

Thanks. Yeah, a lot can go wrong.

I made an error in assuming that horse would scratch for the richer race.

As good as Gantry is -- he only has a late pace figure of 54 on CJ's numbers -- once he got trapped -- he had absolutely no chance in the world to run an 11 final 1/8th and win the race. He just has never finished like that ever before.

The final quarter mile was run in 22.60 seconds. Races never come home that fast on dirt.

After being trapped and rating off of the winners heels, he had to wheel out under 124lbs, and make up a 2-length cushion into the teeth of a 22.60 final quarter when his late pace figure is no better than that of a good alw horse.

The funny part is, I bet the jockey probably believed the horse was capable of doing it.

But that's the thing. A million things can happen in a race. Bad breaks, equipment issues, deal rails, etc. that are impossible to predict. Bad rides are also far too commonplace to take 1/5 on anything. I give you a lot of credit for trying this. If you couldn't pull it off, it really shows just how hard this is.

On the other hand, isolating horses with no chance is certainly easier as all the breaks in the world will not make a hopelessly slow horse fast.

Paul

I think it certainly can be done -- it's just VERY hard to do on one attempt.

You really need 10 healthy horses (I got them in every race this challenge. They all fired. It may not look it, but Gantry ran to his par today)

If I had to do it over -- I'd put more emphasis on taking horses with superior late pace.

The only two horses that didn't win with ease -- were both ridden very passively, trapped inside until the stretch, and didn't have the best late pace rating in the field going into their races.

This one scared me when I saw the other horse was still in. You could have found an easier one if you thought the other wouldn't scratch, but you know that I'm sure.

The thing with jockeys is that they are far more likely to help your horse lose than they are to help your horse win.

I should have stuck with just picking Presque Isle Downs today.

My Best Bet in the paper won and paid $6.80 and my "Best Value of the day" won the last race as the top pick and paid $14.60 to win.



Also had a cold exacta that paid $104.20 in the last race -- and the 2nd place finisher was 9.5 lengths clear of the third horse.


http://www1.drf.com/drfPDFChartRaces...=20120908&RN=8


Good day of betting locally. The Master has produced the Breeders Cup Filly and Mare sprint winner the last 3 years -- and Groupie Doll will probably make it the 4th year in a row.