While Forte failed as the favorite in the Travers, the 4.2 Grey program had the winner, Archangelo, and place finisher, Disarm, as its second and third selections. The $1 exacta paid $36.25. Besides this result, the program had the correct order of the tri-fecta with its top three selections in the G1 Balerina in the 10th with #6 Echo Zulu, #7 Goodnight Olive and #2 Matareya.
On Saturday is the $1.25 G1 Travers Stakes at Saratoga, run at 1 ¼ mi. on the dirt for three-year-olds. The race features #1 Forte, winner of the Jim Dandy Stakes in his last start, #2 Arcangelo, winner of the Belmont Stakes, and #4 Mage, winner of the Kentucky Derby. The model is favoring #1 Forte, who projects best in terms of final speed with a 41.0% win estimate and has the 2nd highest in win percentage at 23.08%. Forte’s total win probability is 30.86%, which would make him an underlay at 7-5 on the M/L. The second selection is #2 Arcangelo, who is just below Forte in final speed at 39.2% and has a win percentage of 13.8%. His total win probability of 21.05% makes Arcangelo, too, an underlay at 5/2. The third selection is #6 Disarm with a total win probability of 16.40%, which would make his fair value 6-1 compared to 8-1 on the money line. Fourth is #4 Mage with a 14.94% total win probability. Mage has the highest win percentage in the field at 29.3% because of his Kentucky Derby win but projects poorly against the field with final speed of just 0.4%. It may be that the horse has already peaked after coming in second and third in his last two races. The final selections are #1 Forte, #2 Arcangelo, #6 Disarm and # 4 Mage.
Here is a truly excellent result by the PHW Grey program today at Monmouth in the 6th, a $12.5K claiming race on the dirt for three or four-year olds. The first two selections were #8 Dreaming of Smarty with a total win probability of 22.36% and #3 Kabod with a win probability of 21.85%. Kabod was being heavily discounted with final odds of 19-1 (versus approx. 4-1 fair value according to the program) while Dreaming of Smarty was about fairly valued at 4-1. With Kabod’s high COMP value of 62.3% (fair value less than 1-1), the horse took the early lead and held on to win by a length, fighting off a tough challenge by Dreaming of Smarty down the stretch. The $2 exacta paid $219.40. Wow!
Here are the projection for tomorrow’s $1 mil. G1 Haskell Stakes at Monmouth. The race is for three-year olds at 1 1/8 mi. on the dirt. It looks to be a duel between #4 Mage’s class and #5 Tapit Trice’s projected speed, who is coming into the race in top form after posting a field best 109 final speed figure in his last race in the Belmont Stakes. #8 Arabian Knight should not be ignored as the 3rd choice, who has the second best final speed estimate and win percentage at 23% and 21.6% and the highest COMP at 57.9%, suggesting strength at the component level in comparison to the other horses. However, the horse last raced 175 days ago and has only had two starts, albeit, both wins, including winning the Southwest Stakes at Oaklawn at the end of January. At 3-1 on the M/L, Mage is fairly valued while Tapit Trice is slightly over valued at the same odds. Arabian Knight could be well undervalued, at 5-2, if the 57.9% COMP value is believable. We saw something similar with National Treasure in the Preakness with the strong COMP, who pulled off the upset against Mage.
The program had excellent results at Belmont today. It had winners with its first selections in the G2 Suburban in the 5th with #4 Charge It, in the G1 Belmont Derby in the 10th with #5 Far Bridge and in the G3 Victory Ride in the 11th with #5 Maple Leaf Mel. It nearly had the winner in the Belmont Oaks in the 8th, too, with #5 Prerequisite, but that horse was beaten at the wire by #9 Aspen Grove—an Irish horse that had no data. Among the non-graded stakes races, the program had the winner with its first selection in the 4th with #6 Bouncer and in the 7th with #6 Dot’s Dollar. For the nine races on the card that were non-maiden, the program would have had a total profit of $30.80 with first selections versus a cost of $18 or a 71.1% ROI. The Turf Program was used for the 8th and 10th.
Race 4 – $95K Allowance
Race 5 – $350K G2 Suburban
Race 7 – $62.5K Optional Claiming
Race 8 – $500K G1 Belmont Oaks
Race 10 – $750K G1 Belmont Derby
Race 11 – $175K G3 Victory Ride
Pro-Handicap Analytics 