Sunday Morning Notes - Nov 13

- Just hung around the house yesterday and thought I would have an active day of horseplaying, but by the time I finally got settled down, it was already the late double at the Big A. I thought King’s Drama was as much of a sure thing as a race could be, didn’t you? 3-5 was more than a fair price in my opinion. Prado said "This was a free grade two....A nice paid workout. I kept after him because he was looking around, looking at the board." [Bloodhorse] Perhaps he was checking out the double prices like I was. King's Drama is now headed for the Japan Cup.

The ninth race, the second leg of the double, was the kind of race that makes my eyes light up – a favorite being bet on what to me was a totally false basis. Power Link was coming off two turf routes in which he showed good speed and earned figures clearly superior to the rest of the field. However, this was a six furlong race on the dirt, and in two fast track dirt sprints, he’d finished 7th each time by a combined 24 lengths (he did have a win on a muddy track). I still see frequent examples of bettors projecting turf figures onto a dirt race; as well as making the assumption that a horse with the early lead in a route will benefit from the turnback in distance. Opportunities like this when you can identify a truly false favorite are the kind that a really patient bettor would weed out through all the races available to bet on each day and really focus in on. There’s gotta be a couple of those somewhere in that thick Racing Form every day, doncha think? Power Link was as sure of a favorite throwout as I could ever see.

Of course, it’s easy for me to write this because Power Link finished last at 5-2 (and a paltry $12 in the double); and we know that it doesn’t always work that way. I was alive with a couple of horses in the double at nice payoffs, and my Christian X. (10-1, $33) fell a neck short to second choice Cool Days, who completed at $14.80 payoff that was far too small for a horse that I didn’t really like anyway.

- While King’s Drama is a gelding and a horse for his trainer Bobby Frankel to look forward to, the retirement of Leroidesanimaux sucks, and Frankel thought so too. "He was a very, very good horse who was 100% sound ....In fact, I would have loved to have kept him in training another year." [Bloodhorse] That’s a real shame. He’ll stand for $30,000 and it will be interesting to see how much business he does for that price. He doesn’t seem to have the most fashionable pedigree as far as Kentucky stallions go.