1:30 pm: Not many 2-year-olds of 2001 are still racing, but one of them won a stakes race today in the first at Saratoga: Mixed Up, the 10-year-old Carnivalay gelding who successfully defended his title in the A. P.Smithwick Memorial for steeplechasers.To do so, Mixed Up had to rally strongly in the final yards to nip an even older guy: the 11-year-old Roanoke gelding Preemptive Strike, who led every step of the way except the last one. The ages of the six Smithwick runners were 6, 8, 8, 9, 10 and 11, an average of 8.7.
Here are Mixed Up's lifetime pp's:
Fast and firm at Saratoga, damp and rainy down here on Long Island. Back later to play the late pick-4.
4:05 pm: Here's the play for the late pick-4, which starts in about 15 minutes:
The thinking:
The first leg, a grass route for 2-year-olds, is pretty much of a guessing game. The good news is that with four A's, two B's and three C's in a field of nine, I'll be alive for at least half an hour.
I honestly think Driven by Success is close to a cinch in leg 2, the Morrissey Stakes, and I'd be surprised if he's as high as his 1-1 morning line. Driven by Success has been dueling for the lead in races such as the Met Mile and the Tom Fool and drops back to statebred company at a comfortable 6.5f distance. He's singled on over 90 percent of my play.
The third and fourth legs are tricky turf sprints, but at least half the field in each looks hopeless, so I split up the contenders in each between A's and B's in order of my preference. This is a sequence where I'll step on the all-A ticket hard, the 3A/1B tickets about half as much, and go for dollar partwheels on the 3A/1C and 1A/3B tickets.
4:35 pm: I'm not so good at guessing games. Scottketh'skitten, Ramsey/Maker third-time starter who showed nothing on poly or dirt, woke up bigtime on grass at 12-1. Like I said, I'm alive for at least half an hour...but down to a pathetic 1x2x2.
5:45 pm: Speaking of Mixed Up, apologies for the confusion over the trainers in the Morrissey that appeared here briefly. I caught the wrong license plates, but the point was that Dr. W pushed 2-5 favorite Driven by Success through insane suicide-mission fractions, which seemed an impossible way for Dr. W to be trying to win the race as opposed to setting things up for his uncoupled entrymate, Premium Wine, who failed to fire and finished fourth, beating only the spent and exhausted Dr. W as Law Enforcement rallied from 14 lengths back to beat the softened-up Driven by Success.
Thanks to all those of you who wrote in so quickly to point out my mixedupedness. Who says there are no editors in the blogosphere? I blame the brainlapse on four days downstate without a Hattie's fried-chicken sandwich.
No live pick-6 tickets into the finale, even with 5-2 Strong Impact winning the 9th, so there's a $42,547 carryover into Friday's card.
