Since the Alabama and hanging out with the Pace and Cap crowd, my handicapping has improved and I showed a profit of $30 on my top picks last week. Back to reality today as I only won 2 of 11 races but they did pay almost $16 in total.
Skedaddle was supposed to run last Thursday but I got a call from Mike Ferraro at Finger Lakes that the paperwork description did not exactly match the horse. Up to ten days to straighten it out. I expect the horse to run very well his first time out.

Tropical Storm was devastating in the surrounding areas but Saratoga was relatively unscathed. Unbelievably, the track was fast on Monday after 15 or 16 hours of torrential rain. Spent the off day on Tuesday visiting relatives in Massachusetts. Every river we saw was deep, fast and very muddy. Fourteen communities in Vermont still cut off from the outside world because of washed out roads.

Had a great weekend in the Festival tent with some of the Paceandcap and Paceadvantage guys. I spent most of Saturday and Sunday shuttling between my seats and the tent. Brought some people up to the seats so they could see a live race. A highlight of the weekend was getting to see Bill V again. He was able to adjust his schedule enough to spend his down time with us in Saratoga. He left Sunday afternoon to resume his trucking. I got to know Patrick a little bit better and he seems like such a sweet guy who is trying hard to win with RDSS. Another highlight was getting to meet Rich P. in person for the first time along with his lovely girl friend Karen. He really does exist.
Sean Clancy had a funny item in his Sunday column. His column was about things he was wishing for. One of them was that he knew the correct totals for the Special handicappers. So I sent him my figures. Hope they help. I keep a spreadsheet of all the Special handicappers so I was able to send him wins, number of races and total money won by each handicapper.
This public handicapping gig has been a bit of an eye opener. It is a little more nerveracking to put your picks out every morning after picking them at least 36 hours earlier. In the past, when I handicapped for Trackmaster and Equibase, only the paying customers saw them live. Everyone else had to wait until the next day. In addition, I used to list four horses so that I could cover some scratches and still have three horses. I was also able to suggest betting strategies and give some indication of how strong I felt about the race. In the paper, I get to list only three horses and have to live and die by them with each race treated equally.
However, once I got used to it, it has been fun.

Had a good day betting yesterday although only one of my top picks won and that was an even money favorite. Spent the day in the Festival tent with paceandcap.com and paceadvantage.com folks. Had a good time seeing old friends and meeting new people. Looking forward to meeting Steve Stewart today--at the tent. I worked with him many years ago down on Long Island and haven't seen him for several years.
Met with some paceandcap people last nite at the high rock condos in downtown Saratoga. Went over the RDSS2 program and handicapped two races for today. We have pretty much decided that the Alabama will be won by either St John's River or Inglorious with a slight chance to Its Tricky. The first race is tricky as there is a graded stakes runner making his first start in nearly three years.
An added bonus last nite was seeing Bill V. He used to live in New Jersey and came to Saratoga each year. He is now a long distance trucker based in California. He happened to be in the area and will be here until Sunday nite when he has to leave to pick up a load.

Amazing. For the second time in two days, a horse was dq'd from first and one of my top choices was moved up to first place. This one was really a no brainer. In yesterday's 8th race, the three horse, Retire To What, was on the rail and the two horse, Chernobyl's Hero, was on the far outside. That did not keep Retire To What from crossing about 7 or 8 paths under a lefthanded whip to interfere with my horse. What made it even sweeter was the fact that two of my fellow handicappers with me also had bet the horse.
I was in the paddock for the feature yesterday to see a friend's horse. I had a little chat with Sean Clancy, one of the hardworking Clancys who put out the Saratoga Special. Suggested that next year, we keep track of the money and have a battle among the Special handicappers similiar to what the Post and the Daily News do. He didn't sound too thrilled as he appears to be one tired puppy.

Had a great dinner last night at the Ripe Tomato with Ted Craven and his mother. They are visiting from Canada and he is the programming brains behind RDSS which is the latest program implementation of the late Dr Howard Sartin's handicapping ideas.
Interesting card yesterday. I had very little confidence in my selections in the first half of the day but I felt better about the second half. Turns out I was right. Had wins in the 6th, 9th and 10th. Yesterday just goes to show that usually it all evens out in the end. In the 8th race, I scratched down to just one horse, My Man Nell. Coming out of the chute on the backstretch, the horse appears to stumble or clip heels after Cap The Thunder came in on him. Tosses the rider, Irad Ortiz Jr., who lies on the track for about five minutes and then is loaded on a stretcher and then put in the ambulance. Appears to be seriously hurt. However, he returns to ride the 10th race and wins the race but is disqualified. The second horse who is moved up to the win was my top choice, Pure Home Brew.
Gave up my usual seats this weekend so that I can hang out with the Pace and Cap people and the Pace Advantage people in the Festival tent. Should be a lot of fun as they usually crush the races.

Today concluded the third week of the meet. My early tenure has been marked by a lack of confidence. I have 27 wins after 14 handicapping days. The Saratoga Special does not publish on Monday except for today because of the sales starting tonite. I had 3 wins today and I have been very disappointed with my handicapping so far. I am missing too many long shot horses. I don't really care if I don't hit any favorites on top.

Today, I went to watch the races from the backstretch. As soon as the horses hit the track for the first race, a monsoon hit and they ran the first race in a driving rainstorm. By the start of the 2nd race, the sun was shining. I drove home to Long Island after the second race. I ran into a 10minute thunderstorm with the sun shining the entire time. Weird.

Fairly formful day at the Spa yesterday. Unfortunately, I was able to come up with only one winner on top. However, I had several live longshots and my choices in the first race ran 1-2-3 but not in that order. Tiznow ran a bang up race and it was nice to see James Bond win a big race at the spa again. He has come a long way since his days at Finger Lakes. There was an inquiry in the last race which lasted a while. If the winner had been taken down, there would have been a carryover of some $800,000 into today. Congratulations to the 8 or 9 winners of the pick-6 who collected some $87,000.
I spoke to two breeders in the paddock yesterday whose horses are making their Saratoga debuts today. Both breed on a small scale and are both thrilled to have horses at Saratoga. Mad Fast in the second is bred by the Zwirns and is owned and trained by Linda Rice and is making her debut. The other one, Silver Squaw, has been running at Finger Lakes and Suffolk without much success. She has been known to put on a show while being saddled and should be interesting to watch in the paddock.

Whitney day

Well back to reality. Dean had two winners in the Special and the other four handicappers (including me) had no winners at all. Strange thing though, when I went over the races that night I should have had three winners on top. I don't know what I was thinking when I handicapped the races. Anyway, for good or bad, today is another day. Today is Whitney day. There are probably six or seven horses who can win the Whitney. Four of them have won Grade I races already. I settled on Apart, Tizway and Flat Out. I debated a long time on whether to use Rail Trip so that horse will feature in my betting. Good luck to all and enjoy a great day of racing at the Spaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

Yesterday was my second strong day in a row. Four winners on top and showed another net profit on the day. As I said previously, I try to handicap for a profit not necessarily for winners. I think it is easy to pick winners but much more difficult to show a profit. That is why the meet that John Dasilva of the New York Post is having so far is so impressive. His profits are showing a net profit to date. That is my goal.

All around good day

Handicapping wise I had my best day of the meet so far. Five winners on top, a cold pick-3 and two cold doubles. I also had a cold exacta but I pretty much ignore them.That is nine winners in the last three handicapping days so I may be coming alive.

Skedaddletoseattle had a half mile work yesterday at Finger Lakes. He was the sixth best out of sixteen horses who worked. In addition, he worked in company and he handled that just fine. As trainer Michael Ferraro says repeatedly the horse does everything he is asked and does it well. One more work out of the gate. That will get him a gate card and he will be ready for his first start--probably in two or three weeks at the latest.