A VIEW FROM THE BOTTOM
13 April 2021 Edition 6
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Before we get a look at last weekend's hoopties, an emailer posed the question, “how important is it to have the best last Equibase/Beyer number in Maiden races?”
Since we only use Equibase numbers, cumulatively, of the 447 races we have tracked, 111 of those that won had the best last Equibase number or 25%. 53 of the races tracked, were won by first time starters. 18 of those were in the msw class, 14 in the mcl class, 12 in the smsw, 8 in smcl and 1 in mocl.
Digging further with the best last Equibase number….
By Class:
27% - 24/88 msw
36% - 16/45 smsw
24% - 59/245 mcl
15% - 10/68 smcl
0/14 mocl (do not bet that)
12% - 2/17 wmcl
Extrapolating that further….
Dropping for a tag from msw is 8/28 or 29%
Maiden claimers who have dropped in price are 20/49 or 41%
From an open msw to a smcl, 2/16 or 13%
From a state msw to a state mcl, 10/49 or 20%
From a state mcl to lower state mcl, 6/14 or 43%
Summarily, yes, the last best is important, and, in some cases, the entrant should always be included in your horizontals, yet like everything else, there is no sure-fire silver bullet.
Moving on with this weekend’s past races…
Our first race is the 2nd at Oaklawn on Friday, April 9. This was a $10,000 maiden claiming race going six furlongs on a muddy track. The winner of this race was the odds on favorite #3 Clearly Mad, and the 2nd place finisher was #1 Toil And Trouble. What made this interesting was the jockey, Ramon Vazquez on Toil And Trouble, gave up trying to win on him at the 1/16th pole. As the maxim goes, “when two or more horses are in a race, one or two of them will quit,” and although the jockey quit on the horse, Clearly Mad never quit on himself or claimed defeat. He’s a game fighter and worth looking out for next time.
In the 3rd at Mahoning Valley on Saturday, April 10, this was a race, that after seeing the Equibase rating of 36, you thought to yourself...” how low can you go?” believe it or not, this was a $27,000 maiden special weight division. Of course, it was for Ohio Breds only, and we all know that Ohio is not the Mecca of breeding. The winner of this was #6 Pinky’s Point as he went off at 1/5. The #9 The Gospel Of Mark, was a full nine lengths back at the turn, swung five wide and made up a whole ton of ground and collected a place check being 2.5 lengths behind. The final time for this was 1:17.15 for six furlongs, so there is no fear in a track record being broken just about anywhere in N. America. Look for The Gospel Of Mark next time under similar circumstances and the third place finisher, I’mma Natural, who put up a determined fight.
The bottom fell out as a screaming rain hailed down on Gulfstream late Sunday and Ramon Vazquez pulled a Ron Turcotte wondering where the rest of the field went. The winner, #5 Playera, came three wide around the turn and crushed the stretch. It's as if the horse said, “I’m chilly, nasty, wet and tired of running in this slop, let’s take it to the house.” His stretch performance was no fluke for this $12,500 maiden claiming level as he finished the final furlong in just a little over 13 seconds.
The grand finale is from Charles Town on Saturday night. This was a six and a half furlong, $27,000 maiden special weight race. The second place finisher, #2 Political Decision, came five wide around the turn, slipped a little in the stretch, got spooked and ran green until Carlos Delgado got his head back in the game. Once righted, he made up a length and a half on the odds on winner, #3 Grey Invasion. This was Political Decision’s third start and as written before, third time starters in maiden events are a bad betting proposition, so in his next race, he will show improvement from the past three and will be a sound betting choice.