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July 26, 2008

In This Issue...

Last Weekend to Save...

Time ticks down. This is the final full weekend to save. Your last six days to take advantage of the special. A week from now, and the online retail prices go up permanently...

We are pleased to announce the latest and greatest 2008 updates to the Quick & Dirty Guide to Trainer Subtleties will be out and shipping on or before Aug. 1, 2008.

During this month of July, take advantage of our special prepublication offer and save off the final retail price, which goes into effect beginning in August.

If you already have enjoyed and profited from these fantastic guides, your pent-up demand is real and foaming. After a year's hiatus (o man!), they're back — and more incisive than ever. Click here to order now and reserve your copies.

If you have yet to experience these one-of-a-kind handicapping resources, you are in for a treat. Take the snappy, engaging writing found in 2008 PARS PLUS, apply it to the top 100 or so trainers on the New York circuit and another 100 or so trainers on the Southern California circuit, add a six-plus-year heap of unique research and tuck it into a handy format and — voila! — you're getting a fantastic mix of predictable winners and healthy longshots, all courtesy of a single factor: the horse's trainer.

These guides are a fine complement to any existing handicapping approach, and they absolutely fill in the blanks when it comes to those notoriously inscrutable baby races, not to mention first tries on the grass or over a distance of ground. In short, any situation that finds a horse attempting something new is precisely where these guides are indispensible. When traditional numbers-based methodologies come up short, your Quick & Dirty Guide to Trainer Subtleties will come up long on both vital and decisive information and potential boxcar mutuels.

Order now and you're guaranteed to bolster your handicapping knowledge base for the heart of the all-important Del Mar and Saratoga race meets this August. Best of all, you'll save some nice bucks when you order now during our limited-time prepublication special.

Del Mar Deception!

As the WMF boyz have been noting on the main page here, "Less wax, more water, same rally." And they are not wrong! For the most part, anyway.

A quick comparison of the WMFs from 2007, the first year of the slow Polytrack, to 2008, the first year of the not-as-slow (timewise, at least) Polytrack, suggests it's synthetic business as usual.

At this time, the second Saturday of the meet, last year, the 6f WMF at Del Mar was WMF 62. Fast-forward 52 weeks, to 2008, and your 6f WMF at Del Mar is — lo and behold — WMF 40. Fair track? We report, you decide! (More like unfair and imbalanced, eh?)

In 2007, your 6½f WMF at Del Mar was WMF 80. This time around, the 6½f clocks in at WMF 0. Nothing, zero, nada, zip: the big squadoosh!

At 1m in 2007, your WMF here was WMF 20. Nowadays, it's WMF 14.

The anomaly is at the outsider 1 1/16m distance, where this year's WMF is WMF 1000. OK.

So much for all that hocus-pocus (for really, that's what it is; after all, do you think you could monkey around with a real-dirt surface on the order of 30 or 40 lengths? Unlikely!) with the wax and the water. In this day and age of quote-unquote better racing through chemicals, it remains loud and clear: rally, boys, rally 'round the starting-gate flag!

End rant here. Well, not yet. One more thing: As for the actual running-times, well, it seems that they've fixed that malfunctioning TeleTimer from last year. Miracle of miracles! This cannot be admitted publically by anyone in horseracing, but the facts are the facts: You can tamper with a synthetic surface infinitely worse than you can mess with Mother Nature. So much for the uniformity and the consistency of this artificial surface. The fake stuff is no less subject to the whims of the management. Indeed, it's even more so! You could not get away with putting down used tires and candles on the real sandy loam soil of Temecula or any other venue, for that matter.

And now that they're not averse to sprinkling (or perhaps dousing) the main track again with H2O, there goes one of the cost-savings arguments for Polytrack.

To recap: So far at Del Mar 2008, the track is not fairer than last year; if anything, the ralliers actually are doing better. And that's saying something. As for the running times coming back to reality (a deux ex machina contrivance involving a repaired TeleTimer, some magic water and a sack of enchanted wax!), we'll address that at the start of Week 3, with a Del Mar par-times patch. Watch out for it on Aug. 6 or so, OK?

Del Mar Fightback!

Wow! That was pretty sarcastic. Sometimes you just have to let it fly. At any rate, that sort of vitriol means little if the shots aren't coming in.

It's always challenging to tackle Del Mar, where the turf meets the PolyTurf™. The last two days have seen a good rally for the players in search of a decipherable price.

Last race on Thursday, All-In-One V6 had Gloria Goodbody in a co-choices race with 19-10 favored Threat. Yet Gloria Goodbody got away at 16-1. She laid her best body part (her nostrils) down at just the right time (read: the wire) and returned $34.80 to her backers.

After a 22½f-hour break, the very next race at Del Mar (in truth, Friday's opener) found Quarter Moon riding the off-pace express into the upset at 18-1, or a $38.80 straight-mutuel. V6 second-pick Lunch Time, the 13-10 public selection, completed the winning $134 exacta, a healthy overlay.

A couple of races later, Dashwood was a playable second-choice at 5-1 in the face of an underlaid top horse (Got Alot Going). And in the race after that, 5-1 America's Friend and 8-1 Exquisite combined for a gettable contentious-race exacta verging on a $100 payoff.

As always, best wishes for a prosperous Saturday.

Our Sponsors

As always, we'll provide fantastically high-concept (huh?) Live Longshot issues today, tomorrow and each day of the Saratoga and Del Mar summer stands on our Pick of the Day page.

Track-trends as they develop on the main page.

Catch your own longshot wave via use of the Cynthia Publishing Company software or 2008 PARS PLUS materials of your choice.

Fire up the HDW account for this wonderful time of year. (Don't forget Saratoga kicking-in next Wednesday.) Call the boys at (502) 570-0333.

And if you like the fish served to you (as opposed to angling for it yourself), don't forget the delectable selection of Pay-Per-View Live Longshots for weekday or weekend (or both!) play. To wit, the boys in the backroom released an $80 stunner in the finale at Ellis Park on Friday. This would be good enough if they were putting out three horses per race in every race. But when they do it with a much smaller margin for greatness (as in laying down just four runners — not 27! — for the entire card), well, hey...it could just lead to excellence — or serious injury! But one thing is for certain: They do honest, genuine pickin' for you each and every day.

We appreciate your comments about this newsletter. Please send them to our staff. Thank you!

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