September 25

Closing Day At Monmouth

We can officially move into the "Fall Championship Season" now as the summer racing season can be closed as racing on the Jersey Shore comes to an end today.  I made my bets from the hotel room in Philadelphia before we left to come home and then watched the replays after dinner at home.  I had six bets on the final card at Monmouth, the first of which was in the opener, a non-winners of three lifetime sprint where Warp Nine was a the final Monmouth 40% Club play of the meet.  When Kathleen DiMasi gives Jose Ferrer a leg up they have won at club levels and he was on board while dropping in class.  The fact that he'd been on the pace dueling through :21.4 and :45 flat fractions told me he'd be winging it on the front end.  Sure enough, he gunned to the front and was long gone at the furlong pole, but then began to shorten stride.  JUST enough to last to the wire!  

I had doubled the bet and he went off as a very nice 2/1 price, so I cashed for $30 to kick off the Sunday action!  In the third I had Big Yum on the turf but he was checked not once, but twice on the far turn before flying late to grab third.  In the fourth it was another restricted sprint, this one for non-winners of two lifetime.  Scotland Bay was trained by the meet's leading conditioner, Jorge Navarro and it looked like his uncoupled entry would help ensure a lively pace so that Scotland Bay would have a target to close on.  When first claimed, Navarro had won three in a row with this guy before he had his streak snapped by a loose-on-the-lead winner (that I had at a nice price!) and then most recently he'd been in allowance company.  The drop in for a tag AND restricted company along with a best-of-71 bullet work told me he was well meant.  He tracked the leaders to the top of the lane, dueled to the final two hundred yards and edged clear for my second win on the afternoon!  

I had tripled the bet and the 9/5 final odds allowed me to add over $40 to my Xpressbet account.  In the sixth I had the prohibitive 3/5 favorite, Rosie P.  She dueled with my second choice, Runaway Train who was the 6/5 second choice but couldn't keep pace late, second.  But I won again in the eighth with Foxhall Drive.  This was a claiming event on the turf and when I looked over the past performances it was clear to me that if 'Foxhall ran either of his last two turf numbers - where he'd been a just-miss second for $25K and a dominant winner for $20K - then he'd win today.  It was a "duh" selection for considering today he was dropping in for a $16K claiming tag.  Listed at 6/1 in the program was stealing if he went off at even half those odds.  He was given a superb ride as he rallied from off the pace while riding the rail and got a fast front-end set-up.  Drew off as clearly the best through deep stretch for my THIRD winner!  

Almost paid the hoped-for half of the program price as he was 5/2 on the board and paid $7, so I cashed for $35 to ensure a winning day on the final day of racing her in New Jersey.  I was pretty confident I'd win one more as Visionary Ruler was the odds-on 2/5 favorite in the featured second level allowance sprint.  He was cruising on a daylight lead before getting nailed on the wire!  Second, boooo.  But for the day I made over $30 and was 3-for-6.  The final day enabled me to post these final numbers for the Monmouth Handicapping Project:

Monmouth Handicapping Project Highlights

Summer 2016