Author: handicapwizard

On the whole, the Handicap Wizard performed well on the Belmont card on Saturday by posting three winners, including Disco Partner in the $150K Belmont Turf Sprint and Complexity (in above photo) in the $500K Champaign Stakes for two-year olds. It picked the tri-fecta straight in the 4th race with Breaking the Rules, Classic Covey and Krewe Chief. In the 5th, 8th and 11th races, the HW’s second selection won. Of particular note was the 11th race, in which Saratoga won at 7-1 odds. The model’s first selection, Spa Treatment, came in second at 13-1. Only 0.50% separated the two in winning percentage in 23.55% versus 23.02% (see fourth row down). The $2 exacta paid $134.50. Among the eight non maiden races on the card, the HW had winners with 1st and 2nd selections in 6 out of 8. Dark Tricks won the first race at 37-1 and Have At It won the 9th at 11-1.

In keeping with Bob Baffert’s praise of him, McKinzie showed today that he is still one of the best three-year olds by winning the Pennsylvania Derby in no contest fashion. The top three horses in the model by winning estimate went off as the three live odds favorites, with McKinzie being the biggest underlay at 2-1, followed by Hofburg a close second at 5-2. Bravazo’s price was near fair value at 9-2. The final order was McKinzie 1st, Axelrod 2nd, Trigger Warning 3rd and Hofburg 4th.

After a six month lay-off due to an unspecified leg-injury, McKinzie out of the Baffert barn makes his long awaited return in the $1 million Pennsylania Derby for three-year olds at Parx this afternoon. Featuring a field of ten, including show finisher in the G1 Traverse and place finisher in the G1 Haskell, Bravazo, the Handicap Wizard has the race a close contest between Hofburg, who was winner of the $100K Curlin at Saratago in late July, McKinzie and Bravazo.

Commenting on McKinzie, Baffert said this week, “He was like, the best 3-year-old in the country. He has shown me how good a horse he is in the mornings. We are still very high on him. Hopefully, he will break well and we will see if he still has it.” For his part, Wayne Lukas, the trainer of Bravazo, had the following to say about his horse: “If one horse is going to travel he’d be the one, he’s traveled more than anybody. He’s traveled a lot. He’s been a picture of consistency really, looking at his races he’s danced every dance, but he’s gotten stronger and heavier and I think more focused. I think he’ll run a big one. We’re going through the same thing like Will Take Charge. He made all the dances too. I look for him to run a bang up race, but I don’t by any means think this is an easy race for him. It’s very competitive. It turned out tough, but every time you put up a million dollars they’ll show up.”

The model is giving a slight edge to Hofburg because of speed, while Bravazo has the highest winning percentage coming in.

Saratoga was in focus for horse players last Saturday, featuring seven G1 races, including the $1.25 mil. Travers stakes for three-year-olds over 1 1/4 mi. on dirt. Unlike the previous Breeders Cup Qualifying race for three-year-olds in the Haskell, where the Handicap Wizard predicted the winner in Good Magic, the model ranked Gronkowski best this time. The horse did not win, and it is important to know why in order to understand the limitations of the model. Gronkowski had only one speed figure from its last race, which happened to be the highest in the field at 107. Consequently, there was no data to simulate with the horse; and unless the other horses had simulated speed figures that exceeded 107, a number that appeared dubious on its face because of the low E1 and LP figures that factored into it, Gronkowski would have had a 100% speed estimate, which is exactly what happened. This is a rare occurence and shows the pitfalls of applying the HW to a race with scant data, as there was with Gronkowski and Mendelsohn with three data points, who ended up placing 2nd. Even so, Catholic Boy’s win was not improbable, as the program rated his winning percentage fourth best at 10.26%, which was in-line with his post-time odds of 8-1. The other two top-three finishers, Mendelsohn and Bravazo, the HW rated in the top six according to WP.

Woodbine is a track where the Handicap Wizard has generally performed well. The results of Saturday’s races were no different, with the program picking winners in five of eight non-maiden races (e.g. races 2,3,4,7,8) including in the $175K G2 Play King Stakes over 7f on turf. According to the model, it was a close contest between #4 Mr. Havercamp, #5 Hording Gold and #2 La Sardane, with only 2.0% percentage points separating the top three. Mr. Havercamp prevailed, paying $3.80.

The big score was in the 7th race, a $16K claiming race over 6f on dirt, in which the program had #7 Majesic Slew heavily favored with a 42.61% winning estimate,  despite having long odds of 7-1. The reason the horse was an underdog in the public’s view was due to the horse posting sub-par or even poor final speed figures in its last two races, the last being just 60 compared to a field average in the high 70s. Through its simulation approach, the Handicap Wizard is able to measure a horse’s potential speed versus other horses in the field, where a bad speed figure in the last race does not automatically disqualify it. Going back four races, Majestic Slew had posted a final speed figure of 90 and five plus 90 figures before that, which the program took into account. In this case, the HW nailed it, with Majestic Slew paying $14.90 for the win. It also had the tri-fecta horses in the top four, with the $2 tri-fecta paying $220.00.

As a note, among the three other non-maiden races on Saturday at Woodbine, two of them had scant data, specifically, the 6th with 0 data integrity and the 10th with only 0.5 data integrity. These are races where the program has little or nothing to assess and therefore, should not be applied. Excluding these two, the HW success rate at Woodbine on Saturday was 5/6 or 83%.