January 19, 2006

Well, now that I've had eight months to handicap those races....

Actually, I"ve been dodging the burden of keeping a blog, even about a sport I love as much as racing, because of the time commitment it requires. Maybe it's a result of how much I love this great sport, but I didn't want to do a half-ass version of a racing blog; I wanted to wait until I could give the subject the intensity and effort it deserves. It is, after all, the greatest sport in the world, and I'd rather save my comments than give a blog less than my best. Coupled with the effort it takes to satisfactorily handicap races and follow the news, and to go to work and keep up with the real world.... well, the blog took a back seat to all that. Hopefully I'll be able to make up for lost time.

I've seen a few blogs, and even posted on one (I think it's the best racing blog out there; please go to Jessica Chapel's Railbird blog at http://www.jessicachapel.com), but now that I'm starting my own, I guess I should give an overview of what this blog is going to be.

My primary focus on this blog will be my greatest passion, handicapping thoroughbred races (since I moved to the east coast from California, fishing for striped bass has become a rival, but for now it remains secondary). Faithful handicapping requires a commitment to following the news, and the goings on of the racing world will be followed here as well, at least those I feel worthy of commenting on. I plan on avoiding posting links to news stories, as readers of this blog (if any) will either have already read about the news I'm talking about, or will know where to go to read about it. And a corollary of following the news, I think, is a preoccupation with the sport's two great annual bookends -- the Triple Crown and the Breeders' Cup -- and the goings on that lead up to them.

The big news story in racing the last few days is the retirement of Jerry Bailey. I wish Bailey the best, of course, and I'm glad to see him, as he put it, leave the sport "in one piece" -- too many riders leave involuntarily. But his retirement, and the earlier retirement of three riders who were arguably as good as him -- Pat Day, Chris McCarron, and Laffit Pincay -- leads me to thinking about where jockeys belong in the mind of a handicapper.

I will start by saying that I am not a jockey hater. I do not begrudge these gentlemen their success; on the contrary, I root for almost all of them. Let's face it: it's a difficult way to make a living. And that is without having to make weight.

But it is nevertheless true that jockeys are the most overrated factor in racing, especially among the less sophisticated of our handicapping brethren. While there probably isn't a horseplayer alive who hasn't placed a bet because of a jockey -- I'll admit to placing a $2 win flyer on this hopeless longshot, because he's beng ridden by a jockey with a hot hand -- in my handicapping, while I look at who's riding, it is almost never that the jockey is the basis of a wager.

And I thnk that this is because the nature of the jockey's job -- and this may be what makes their job so difficult -- is that they have much more to lose than to win. It's been said enough times that a jockey cannot make a horse run faster, and it is true; it is also, by logical extrapolation, that it is possible for a jockey to make a horse run much worse than he is capable.

This is why, in my handicapping, that I pay serious attention to a jockey's competence, but once they have met my basic standard, I turn my attention to the attributes to the runner, and pay little mind to who's riding.

I cut my handicapping teeth in the late 1990's in Southern California, and I will admit that it's perhaps because of the surfeit of riding talent that was in residence there at the time that I feel this way. Seeing that the riders in a given race were Solis, McCarron, Pincay, Desormeaux, Delahoussey, and Stevens -- and even underrated riders like Omar Berrio and Martin Pedroza -- made it easy for me to disregard the relative merits of individual jockeys. But the point remains the same: give me a basically competent rider on the best horse, and I'll take it. I even learned to appreciate the opportunities when the best horse was ridden by an underrated jockey - someone like Goncalino Almeida or Danny Sorenson - and I'll take it. Every time. Even today, and even with a rider like Jerry Bailey.

And, to repeat, this is not to take anything away from the best riders. When I handicap, I normally don't look at the jockey until I've assessed the relative merits of each horse; I find who I like, and see if the rider is a reason to get off that horse. And when I find the horse I like the most, and I discover it is ridden by someone like Jerry Bailey, it makes me feel more secure in my selection. It also makes me realize that I'm going to get a shorter price, but that's an issue for another time...

I was at Santa Anita Park the day Laffit Pincay took a spill in his last ride. I even had a $10 win bet on his mount in that race; I don't think I'll ever forget that the horse's name was Trampus Too. I'm glad to see that Jerry Bailey is leaving our great game healthy and rich. But I don't think his departure is going to change how I approach the game.

This great sport, after all, is bigger than all of us. And I hope it stays that way.