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Track Tracts
No Genius Handicapping Required
by Gordon Pine
I, like most handicappers, enjoy
pulling off a genius handicapping feat in public. But it’s easier to look like a genius when handicapping the Kentucky Derby because the public so consistently screws up and underestimates solid contenders in that race. The Preakness rarely rewards genius handicapping because it’s usually won by a solid contender which everyone knows about and is going off at underlay odds.
The Belmont is often conducive to genius handicapping, though.
Fresh horses, foreign horses and just plain ignored horses come into this race and win it at nice prices: Go and Go, Colonial Affair and Lemon Drop Kid come to mind. But this year’s race
doesn’t look very promising for longshots.
Having said that, you can never entirely disregard quality
three-year-olds, especially a horse like Dynever, who is what I call an "unknown ceiling" horse. That’s a horse who has never really shown himself to be outclassed yet - his
ceiling is unknown, so you can’t really
throw him out completely. Or a three-year-old like Ten Most Wanted could jump up and surprise you with a good performance, even though his record is not that impressive if you think his Illinois Derby Beyer number is suspect, as I do.
But what this Belmont seems to boil down to is a two-horse race:
Funny Cide and Empire Maker. That’s what the public handicappers are saying and I have to agree. Just the fact that the field is so
small this year seems to indicate that most of the trainers with potential three-year-old competitors concur - they don't want any part of these two horses.
So here’s my handicapping procedure. I
start with my standard mechanical contender-selection method. I take the highest two of each horse’s last three Beyer figures and average them. That gives me a contender figure for each horse. (If there are only two races available in the pps, I average them. If there is only one race available, I use that as the number.) I then take the top five horses as my contenders. If anybody is tied for fifth, I include them.
It seems kind of silly to bother
picking the top five contenders in a six horse race, but these contender numbers are useful in pointing out the relative ability of the field. My contenders for the 2003 Belmont Stakes are:
- Empire Maker 108
- Scrimshaw 99.5
- Funny Cide 109
- Dynever 99.5
- Ten Most Wanted 103.5
So, using my contender-picking method I
boldly throw out Supervisor (50/1 morning line). But look at the ability of the remaining horses. Funny Cide and Empire Maker are in their own league here. And using Jim Cramer’s speed
figures, which I prefer over Beyer’s, this difference is accentuated because Ten Most Wanted’s suspect Illinois Derby figure doesn’t bias the numbers.
Funny Cide and Empire Maker both have the
presser running style suitable for winning the Belmont. An early running
style would also be desirable, but nobody seems to fit the bill - Gary Stevens might push Scrimshaw to the lead and try to take it gate-to-wire, but I would be amazed if he pulled it off. I would expect both Funny Cide and Empire Maker to be in the front three entering the stretch. If they’re not, something has gone wrong for them.
Running these contenders through my
handicapping program, The Capper, I get a two-horse betting line with Empire
Maker favored over Funny Cide. But I like to handicap these big races by the seat of my pants, and this is the line I would give the race:
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Horse
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Fair Odds
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Bet Odds
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ML Odds
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Funny Cide
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Even
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3/2
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Even
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Empire Maker
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9/5
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5/2
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6/5
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No genius handicapping here - I don’t expect any surprises in this race.
I think Funny Cide or Empire Maker will probably win. I don’t think either one of them will be worth a bet. The one good betting race in this Triple
Crown was the Derby, and that’s already been run. I will probably buy a $2 souvenir ticket on Funny Cide to win. I really hope he does it. If he
runs the Belmont like he did the Preakness, he’ll go down in history. But I think Empire Maker has a good shot at spoiling the party once again.
Let’s hope not. I love an underdog. It’d drive the Kentucky breeders crazy if a New York bred with no gonads became the first Triple Crown winner in a quarter century.
Copyright ©2001 NetCapper Inc. All rights reserved.
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