Florida Derby Day Selections

12:55 1-Gulfstream 6f Claiming 10 – Bidham 8/1
A very suspect group of claimers going in the opener today. Several have proven that they are not good enough to win at the $25K level, and several have proven they aren’t good enough to win…..period. In Bidham you get an interesting horse – here is a guy that through last December was in high end allowance races and an occasional stakes effort; and none of those were bad efforts. Well, he’s five now, and probably a tad slower, so they dropped in for a $40K tag and he ran evenly against some quality runners. Another drop to the $25K level and he had trouble and was well beaten. Off those two efforts I’d probably toss him as a contender, until you note that he was claimed by a new barn that day. He has worked twice since then, and this outfit wins nearly 20% of the time with “first off the claim” runners. Doesn’t hurt that the leading rider, J.J. Castellano is on board today. And at a nice price…..I’m going for a nice upset at double the investment! Whoo Hoo…..come on Bidham!

1:25 2-Gulfstream 6f Maiden Special 2 – Ice Cream Man 10/1
There are two “angles” that when they appear in the Daily Racing Form’s past performances for Gulfstream Park, they are an “automatic” bet for me. It doesn’t matter about the class level, the distance, the surface, prior racing experiences….nothing. One of them is here  when trainer Todd Pletcher sends out a 3-year-old in a Maiden Special race at Gulfstream Park, and John Velazquez is on board….end of story. That’s the play. They win a very high percentage of these, and are usually the favorite. But sometimes, if you are lucky (like today) you find a runner that appears to be going off at a really juicy price.

1:55 3-Gulfstream 7f Grade 2 Swale Stakes 6 – Travellin Man 2/1
I looked….I really looked for someone to beat Travellin Man. I did NOT want to go with the favorite in here. But in spite of my questions about Travellin Man, the others have even more questions to answer. If he even remotely approaches that debut win, then he is so far in front you’ll be able to go get a hot dog after he crosses the wire and STILL see the rest of the field finish the race! And if he does win – with authority – it will confirm my selection for today’s feature race, the Grade 1 Florida Derby! Double the investment and take the short price.

2:25 4-Gulfstream 8f Maiden Special 9 – Hammersmith 9/2
Maiden 3-year-olds…..Gulfstream Park……Trainer: Todd Pletcher……Jockey: John Velazquez. What did I tell you? Were you listening earlier? Did we all get Ice Cream? It doesn’t matter if he won or not – this is a “tried and true” angle. As if this angle in and of itself isn’t enough, how about this. Two races back, in his debut he ran second to Heron Lake, and finishing third that day was Arch Traveller. So….??? Well Arch Traveller came back to win with a BIG number, and then won in allowance company and is running today in the Florida Derby! Here we go!

2:56 5-Gulfstream 8f AOC 8 – Christmas For Liam 4/1 *
Oh come all ye faithful…..MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!! Who’s Liam?  Today is our lucky day. Christmas For Liam looks like a solid contender today for win honors, and we might be lucky enough to get 2/1 on him. One handicapping key at a very select number of tracks – one of them being Gulfstream – is when races are run at the distance of one mile. At nearly all North American tracks a one mile race starts in front of the grandstand and the horses go around twice. But at Gulfstream (and at Belmont Park in New York, Churchill Downs in Louisville, and Arlington Park in Chicago) the track is configured in such a way that a one mile race starts W-A-Y back down the backstretch and the race is like a super-long sprint….it’s called a “one-turn mile.” Well, it is a statistical fact, and a very solid handicapping angle that horses who have proven to be able to win one-turn mile races, often do so again. Check out the past record of Christmas For Liam. He’s run at a one-turn mile twice…..both times BIG WINS! He comes from mid-pack to rally with an electric turn of foot on the turns….today there are four horse who will battle on the lead and set up his late run. He’s trained by Todd Pletcher and ridden by Johnny Velzaquez. WOW. Anything else – YES….since his scintillating win in late February he has had sparkling workouts – bullet works (fastest workout of the morning) not once, not twice, not three times, but four times. And finally – there’s more? YES! That last big win…..the horse that ran second came right back to win his next race, making that what’s called a “KEY RACE” – another solid handicapping angle! TRIPLE the investment here.

3:38 6-Gulfstream 6.5f Sir Shackleton H’Cap 2 – D’Funnybone 5/1
On last year’s Florida Derby card D’Funnybone was my “BEST” of the Day. I’ve won several times with him – one other notable win was with Mr. Jeff Nelson playing along on Graduation set-up day last spring. But after tailing off in his last two starts of 2010 D’Funnybone was given a long break. His works seem to indicate he will run well today. His last workout was at six furlongs, and the time of the work – 1:11 – would be fast enough to win most sprint races at most tracks…..that’s a sharp work. Three back the five furlong work in :59.4 is dazzling. He’s ready. He’s the class of the field. He will sit off the pace to the turn, make his move three wide, and like last year will draw off through the lane…..double the bet.

4:00 7-Gulfstream Turf 8f Allowance 7 – Hilarous 7/2
Turf races are won by horses who have won on the turf; “Class tells on the grass” is the racing adage. If you looked at the records of this field of eleven, the TEN horses other than the selection have a COMBINED turf record of 8 wins from 55 starts – Hilarous, alone, has 4 wins from 19 starts. The field has a combined record on the turf AT GULFSTREAM of 2 wins in 16 tries; Hilarous: 2 wins in 5 starts. Strong human connections – and you can toss the last race that most racing fans will be looking at – it was on the main track….Hilarous runs best on grass.

4:33 8-Gulfstream Turf 8f Grade 3 Appleton Stk 1 – Little Mike 3/1
TODAY’S BEST BET
Little Mike has done little wrong over the last six months. Over that period of time he’s raced on the turf eight times and has collected the winner’s share of the purse SIX times! He has won two stakes races, and finished second in another. In races at about one mile over that span he’s been ridden by Joe Bravo in all six of them, and he’s won all of them! What is truly amazing is that he has won at BIG prices in spite of this record. Just look three races back when he won the Grade 3 Fort Lauderdale HERE and paid $27.80….even I did not have him that day….bad decision Mark! And here is the REALLY scary part – in all of the eight races he has set the pace from the gate to the stretch. In the one race where he ran second, it appears he was held back from running freely by the one rider who rode him besides Joe Bravo; in the other race he was going 1 1/8th mile in Grade 1 company – too far, and against too good of competition…but even then he led to mid-stretch before giving way grudgingly. And even scarier – the two times he wired the fields (in stakes races) here at Gulfstream this winter – he set the pace when breaking from a far outside post. The Gr 3 Fort Lauderdale – he was in the 11 slot…..at Gulfstream this winter there have been one mile turf races with a horse starting in post 9 or wider 203 times – only 12 of them have won (specifically from post 11 only 4 of 47)……today Little Mike has the rail and will easily get to the front. He is L-O-N-G gone as today’s best bet.

5:06 9-Gulfstream 9.5f Grade 3 Skip Away 11 – Jackson Bend 12/1
UPSET SPECIAL!
If you read my stakes analysis you’ll know I’ve been a big fan of this guy for two years. I truly believe he is a better horse than his past performances show, and I believe that he will win some big races now that he is back to his original trainer and rider. His last race was a sneaky good race. But, the good news for us today is that it does not APPEAR to be a good race on paper. His best effort last year was at this distance; he improves today with a race under his belt. All the stars are aligned, and if today truly is his day, we may be dancing down the sidewalks of the Villages of Gulfstream today!


5:42 10-Gulfstream 9f Grade 1 Florida Derby 8 – Flashpoint 5/1
I’ll be the first to admit, this race puzzles me. I don’t like Soldat; I’ve never liked Soldat; and after he won both his last races in impressive fashion, I STILL don’t like Soldat. To Honor and Serve would not surprise me, but I think he’s a better gamble in his next race or even the Kentucky Derby. Arch Traveller shouldn’t win – but hey, that’s horse racing. Bowman’s Causeway, Shackleford both don’t deserve to be here today. Stay Thirsty SHOULD be in New York for next week’s Wood Memorial, and he would have been a “best” bet for me there….but his works for this have been discouraging. Do you really think his trainer would be experimenting with blinkers today if he had confidence in his ability? Me either. Dialed In – so many people are big fans. I wasn’t the day he won the Holy Bull, in fact in my recap video I remarked that he wasn’t nearly as impressive as it appeared. So that brings us to Flashpoint. Three-year-olds are notorious, especially at this time of year for running races that leave the racing public saying, “Huh….go figure!” In his debut he was let go at 4/1 and dominated the race – the runner-up came back to win. In his first start against winners, here in the Grade 2 Hutcheson he was allowed to go off at nearly 7/1 and he dominated the race. The runner-up is the favorite in the Swale (race 3) – a score by Travellin Man there, especially an impressive win and I’ll be upping my investment. Flashpoint has been dominant in both his starts. He’s never lost, and I don’t have nearly as many questions about him as all the others. At least double the investment…..