By It was an exciting day for racing fans, who followed the Derby Prep races at Tampa Bay Downs, Aqueduct and San Anita. In the Tampa Bay Derby, Quip at 20-1 pulled off the upset in a nail-biter over the gritty Flameaway at 6-1. The Handicap Wizard had predicted World of Trouble to win; however, by re-running the speed results in model, Flameaway could be seen with a speed edge as well, which would have made him the favorite. In any case, the model did have two of the top three finishers in Flameaway and World of Trouble.
Enticed came away surprisingly with the victory in the Gotham, defeating Free Drop Billy, who suffered from a bad trip (and jockeying) to finish 3rd. Enticed had been entered in both the Gotham and Tampa Bay Derby, but its data was not used to factor the model results that were posted before the race.
As predicted, there were fireworks in the San Felipe, or at least sparks flying from the bumping between the two favorites, Bolt d’Oro and McKinzie, which led to a Stewards’ inquiry and jockey objections. Before the results were overturned, which made Bolt d’Oro the winner and McKinzie the second-place finisher through disqualification, the Handicap Wizard had predicted correctly the order of the tri-fecta with McKenzie first, Bolt d’Oro second and Kanthaka third.
Pro-Handicap Analytics 