Saturday, July 29, 2006

Update-Results: DRF/NTRA National Handicapping Qualifier

Well it was a mixed day of early elation, tempered by an inability to pick more than one winner and ultimately finishing 51st in a field of over 400 but well out of the money.
I hit my first race of the day, an optional race on Saratoga's first race for a nice $43.60 with Planets Aligned. But I could only manage 3 Places the rest of the day and ultimately my $68.80 total was smashed by a few who hit Like a Gem in the 9th at Woodbine for a $93 win. That catapulted many looking for a late longshot (I was looking but not at Woodbine), ahead of me as I had been hanging around hoping for that 25th spot for a while. Oh well, it was fun, all the handicapping printed material a human could possibly want, banks of montiors with feeds to all of the Challenge tracks every few feet, two buffet lines with a really great lunch, mass quantities of iced tea, and a Keeneland tote bag to stuff all of this into (and ultimately nice swag for my daughter). This was definitely fun and added a different aspect to racing for me as I have never really attempted to play that many tracks in a day. One thing that kind of screwed me up is that right before the third race (I think it was the 3rd--it was early) the skies opened at Saratoga and the track became muddy and the turf yielding in the span of a race! My handicapping I had so carefully prepared last evening, with my focus on Saratoga, quickly became suspect with the change in track conditions and I scrambled from there. I hope that Ruben over at Average Horseplayer has a better showing tomorrow at his Qualifier.

1 comment:

John said...

Not bad for a "maiden" effort off unpublished workouts