Searching For Value in the Southwest Stakes

J. Scott

This Saturday’s Derby Prep at Oaklawn Park will be a two horse battle between Breeders Cup Juvenile Winner, Essential Quality and fourth place finisher, Jackie’s Warrior.

Essential Quality seems slightly better placed to take this one after a pristine record as a two-year-old and white-hot training by Brad Cox. Essential Quality’s form in the Southwest Stakes may well be a preview of a Kentucky Derby front runner.

Jackie’s Warrior will be close contender to Essential Quality after an aggressive two-year-old campaign and a career best 101 Beyer in the Champagne Stakes. 

Jackie’s Warrior may appear over matched until you do a deep-read of the race chart. The colt raced two-wide with Essential Quality and was neck and neck until the final furlong, then ran out of steam and dropped to fourth, completing the Superfecta. After three months of rest, may be fresh enough to surpass Essential Quality in their rematch today.

But me I look for value, and although these two will be battling it out for the top spot, there is another contender that provides not only value, but an interesting outsiders possibility of getting in the money for a sweet payoff. 

Woodhouse is currently sitting at 8/1 and is one of the two most recently raced in this group, coming in 3rd after being stuck in traffic in his last start. 

Breaking his Maiden in a four-wide drive to victory, Woodhouse seems like he has the innate ability to overcome adversity and the will to win. Woodhouse by Speightstown is entering his third race in the form cycle and the Southwest Stakes could be a big move forward for the young colt. 

If Woodhouse can get up in front of Jackie’s Warrior or even Essential Quality, it is going to be a good day for your wallet.

I will take the chance Woodhouse gets involved for at least a taste.

Good Luck!

Essential Quality

Jackies Warrior w/ Woodhouse

Jackies Warrior w/ Woodhouse

Both ways. 

The Southwest (G3)

How To Play a Broken Record/Belmont Stakes 2011

THAT ONE HURT.

Well they all hurt a little it's just a matter of degrees. Does it smart a little, like you cracked your funny bone on the coffee table looking for your keys pain, or is this a "carry the boiling cauldron with your wrists out into the snow pain, ala Kung Fu?" I'm going to put this up there with "unexpected gut punch that knocks the wind of you and have to take a knee pain". It's quite possible I have a black eye, I just haven't been able to crawl to the mirror and face myself yet.

We set a couple records today on our roller coaster parlay ride to absolute dismal failure, and not the kind you want to brag about.

Belmont Stakes 2011 will go down in history for Ray Chi as:
1.) The highest total amount wagered in a single day 2.) The largest single day losses.
And I gotta tell you that I wasn't really looking to break #2....

Oh well I'm having an overwhelming feeling of Deja Vu from last years Belmont Stakes Blow Out, but let's press on.

It's possible the scorching heat this week, followed by the sealed track, and then the torrential down pours that soaked Belmont today had something to do with it, or maybe it just wasn't my day, but the string of out of the clouds long shots killed every ticket I made today.
These are the kind of days that make you question just what the hell your doing. Even the Plan B's got left out on most of the races, no one is going to pick every winner every time, but to have all the reasonable contenders miss the Super repeatedly? WOW.

Should I have just put together a crazy hail mary Trifecta box leaving out the favorites and hoping the slop produced some sort of ridiculous improbable out come, like well what happened? (By the way as idiotic as that sounds the $2 ticket excluding ANY of the probable Superfecta finishers Shackleford, Animal Kingdom, Mucho Macho Man, and Master of Hounds would have cost only $672 and cashed for $8,268.00 a tidy return on your investment and a higher return than most money market managers could hope for) but you can't expect total chaos every time, or can you? 

I can't deal with the post-race analysis right now I've got a hangover to start, but suffice it to say that:
A.) I'm not too happy
B.) Ruler On Ice? ARE YOU KIDDING ME! 

Alright I better knock the dust off and pick myself up off the floor cause now there's a $1.3M Carryover on Wednesday to crush, since I'm a glutton for punishment.

Today's Hourly Rate: (brace yourselves but this is total including Parlay dollars)
-$263.66hr


That's all I got,
raychihasspoken

Belmont Stakes 2011

Good Morning Race Fans,
6:30am isn't when Ray Chi normally wakes up, but today's special....

It's Belmont Stakes Day 2011 and we've got a full day of hard core wagering ahead of us, (as well as my body weight in caffeine and booze-not sure in which order.) We're STILL working on the parlay of parlays and are planning a MASSIVE onslaught on the 1M Pick 6 and 1M Pick 4, (of course peppered in with multiple Superfectas, Tri's and Exactas for good measure!) A couple HUGE prices came in yesterday so theres a double carryover of $144,003 just to make it interesting.

I'm pretty bummed I can't be kicking it with my homeys in our usual crappy booth at my North Office swilling Crown Royal like theres going to be a drought, and cashing tickets together, but I'll have to do this solo via the interweb....just know I'm with you in spirit and please remember I'M IN ON ALL PARLAYS!

Let's Do This Shit. (Masterful Insight and Tickets to Follow...)

Preakness Play by Play

Wow I'm not sure what time it is there, but here it's pretty damn early!
I decided to skip the Pick 5 after looking at past years pay outs and concentrate on the late Pick 4's, and inter race exotics.

Here's my action so far, I'll exclude the losing tickets for now (I'll post total action later)
Race#8
$2 Superfecta 5,7w/3,5,6,7w/3,5,6,7w/3,5,6,7 ($24) = +$1,304
.10 SFBX 3,5,6,7 ($2.40) = +$64.01
$10 Ex 5 W/6,7 ($20) = +$439

this is just the beginning.....

PREAKNESS PARLAY 2011

What's up race fans?

Sorry for the long gap in posts but "THE MAN" has his boot firmly on my neck and I've been gasping for air and trying to claw my way out from under it. Who knew moving to a tropical paradise could be so god damn stressful?

Anyway I'm waaayyy behind on posts and I'll be putting up an out of order retrospective in the next few days, (it'll be all Tarantino-esque where the end is first and then you go back to the beginning and everyone dies.) No not like that, but some cool crazy shit happens, so stay tuned.

Let's get down to whats important, and that's money.

The 2nd leg of the Triple Crown the Preakness Stakes is tomorrow and Ray Chi and his homey's are on a POWER HOUSE RE-PARLAY AND ARE GOING TO PRESS IT THE WHOLE WAY!
After our modest Derby win ( please see "a win is a win") I managed to hammer the Post Derby Carryover Day at Churchill and we are flush with cash and ready to parlay our way to fame, fortune, and a bath tub full of Bourbon! Trust me in that this will be the biggest day of action yet.

Even though the math on the re-parlay took 17 emails and enough math to make a M.E.N.S.A member recoil in shock and horror, I think we've ( and by we I mean A-Dog) got it figured out and I'm now ready to build a mountain of tickets with enough R.O.I to make us call Geneva and fuel the jet.

Stay tuned for tomorrows expert selections from Ray Chi, my well diversified betting menu, colorful play by play action, and as always well placed profanity...

But here is Ray Chi's teaser Superfecta prediction, pre-scratches, crazy calculations and last minute Hail -Mary's

Mucho Macho Man, Sway Away, Animal Kingdom, Dialed In/King Congie

That's all I got, good luck.
raychihasspoken