Monday Evening Quarterback

Tweet After watching the prep replays today on TVG this afternoon (I'm not a total degenerate, I was babysitting/fathering/transferring wisdom), I'm convinced that Old Fashioned was totally hooked into Silver City's hot pace and Dominguez made a huge mistake taking the bait and not having enough gas to hang on to claim victory. The good news is that this was just a prep and thus, a learning experience. Plus he was still there at the end regardless of the fractions he had to endure. I may have thought twice about my futuracta play (to be discussed later in this post) had I watched the replay more closely yesterday afternoon. Lots are jumping off his bandwagon, but the Derby isn't run in March, so no reason to throw in the towel just yet (Unbridled's Song and all)...Folks are spouting he's a miler...I'm not so sure yet...

After Pioneerof the Nile's ho-hum (my words) win at the San Felipe in regular fashion (90 beyer), I'm wondering what GoGo will do should he ride Dunkirk to victory in the Fla Derby in two weeks and PoTN faces his toughest test with the Mousse on Santa Anita Derby day the week after...high drama indeed. This vote says he'll go with the hype horse Dunkirk should he prevail...

Ok...I made a late futuracta play yesterday with house money (after having a solid Aqueduct day playing chalk on top of trifectas late in the day) with a four horse exacta box. I went with Friesen Fire/The Pamplemousse/Imperial Council/All Others for a buck. FF appears to be the real deal (although the comparisons with Pyro right down to the name factor scares me). The Big Grapefruit will trounce PoTN in three weeks and will be the biggest Cali factor (and Colonel John Travers sold me so I won't totally discount the West Coasters). Imperial Council impressed me in the Gotham with his late run, and I look for him to take the Wood and his price will come way down. Finally the "all others" inclusion is only for the fact that a large number of the horse included in pool 2 won't even be in the gate on 02May and I will pick up a number of horses in my box play that aren't even on the board at present. Oh, and I have a 19-1 Pool one future play at $3 on Friesen Fire to boot. I know it's silly to try and hit something early on the trail, but with house money in hand, why not?

Colin's Ghost had an ironic tweet (to me) tonight basically saying Talamo is the wild card to I Want Revenge's hopes. Ironic, because I email replied to frequent commenter the horse maven earlier in the week after he was touting Talamo as my next Stevie Cauthen on IWR with the following "Talamo is still very green and a loose cannon at times…I think you saw I Want Revenge’s best effort (peaked too early), but that’s IMHO….waiting to see what happens this weekend before wagering on Sunday." Great minds think alike?

Finally learned my lesson...Geno Green ($8.60) won the 3rd at the Big A yesterday....played it hard and heavy.....Geno going on Thursday in the 10th at Fair Ground...will my luck hold up? Stay tuned.

Will be off for a few days concentrating on the NCAA's and the annual calcutta that I run out of my office (more on this in a later post), but my handicapping pal JB will be chiming in with a guest Derby prep post in the near future to fill the gap....happy cinderella hunting and go 'Cuse.

By the way, what ever happened to that Big Chuck horse anyways?