Thursday, May 20, 2010

Full meet fever

Monmouth Park opens Saturday, and plenty of media outlets, including Thoroughbred Times, have already addressed the fanfare surrounding its purse structure, but in addition to horsemen, horseplayers should be excited too.

The opening day card has an average field size of 10+ with two pick 4s and a pick 5 featuring $.50 minimums and takeout of just 15% each bet. Variance will be high, but it will be worth it when you connect (a $1 pick four that would pay $1,000 at NYRA would pay $1,148 at Monmouth)

Because of the nature of the Monmouth meet--high-profile outfits shipping horses of varying class and pedigree to the Jersey Shore from throughout the country--I think it will behoove those betting the product to pay attention to every race, every day. With only three days of racing per week, this is a lot easier than at other marquee meets such as Saratoga's six-days-a-week stand or five days at Del Mar or Keeneland.

In order to help me to follow the meet and handicap as I go, I will be resurrecting my race-by-race spreadsheet that I used to use to follow Kentucky racing (especially the April-August action from Keeneland to Churchill to Ellis). The linked sheet is to the entire 2006 spring meet at Keeneland.

This sheet helps me identify a few things: Track biases in terms of either running style or post position, the class of shippers, how trainers might be prepping horses for a top performance, and expected pace for races of similar class.

If anyone has any ideas for improving the spreadsheet in terms of things to add or subtract or zero in on, I'd love to hear them. I'm excited about supporting the New Jersey Sports & Exposition Authority in its Monmouth "experiment" and low takeout.
_ came correct at 3:17:00 PM

5 soothsayers:

  1. Nice spreadsheet! Did you have to manually input all the fixed race information (cols A-F) or were you able to grab the data from somewhere?
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  2. I have to manually input all columns, but once I get in the groove I can move through it pretty quickly.

    The key to me is uniformity for each data point. That makes sorting and using the information a lot easier.
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  3. Indeed the upside of manually inputting the data is standardizing to your own preferences. A three day week isn't to hideous in terms of set up time.
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  4. Yeah, the 3-day week will be a huge plus to doing this. I tried it at Saratoga one year and that 6-day week became a bear to the point where it wasn't fun.

    Five days isn't ideal but that used to be the norm so I dealt with it.
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  5. hi Ed -

    I'm big on using underused information such as Trainer/Jockey combos. In the spreadsheet you will have the benefit of Trainer/Owner combos also.

    It pays to keep track of the developing trends early on. If there is one thing that I would add would be a column for when/where they last raced. Perhaps a simple column for denoting the last workout.

    I believe you will find certain trainers like Mike Hushion and Bruce Levine firing with their sprinters off the shelf with some sparse workout lines. But they usually are live - especially if they are shipping in from New York. But you only know that by keeping tabs of where their final work took place.

    If you do that, you will be sure to find a group of trainers who will ship down with success from Saratoga's Oklahoma track. You'd be on to the "smell" before anything else.

    I was on the Monmouth Park backside yesterday and I've got some pics at my blog.

    http://theknightskyracing.blogspot.com/2010/05/my-magical-mystery-tour-at-monmouth.html

    Everyone seems to be excited and for the most part the horse players are ready to support the full fields that we've seen at the entry box on opening weekend. The weather will be a key to the meet's success.

    This is a great experiment for racing and the locals (Bartles and James and myself) we ask you for your support. ;-)
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