Today's Best BetsThe final results are in and the top three handicappers at the 2010 mid-point duked it out right up until the end. In fact it's deja vu all over again as this year's King of the Spa, Bill Taylor of The Saratogian is a back-to-back winner - he tied for the top spot in 2009 with this year's #2, Matt Graves of the Albany Times-Union. In the #3 spot this season is another past champ, 2007 winner Dave Litfin of the Daily Racing Form. A solid Saratoga season from start to finish for each of the top three with a hit-rate around 33% that produced a horse-race among those handicapping the horse races - it wasn't decided until the last day.
We should also note the performance of John Shapazian of The Saratoga Special. John finished with 115 winners - but only handicapped 339 races [there were 395 races run in 2010] due to the Special's publishing schedule which skips most Mondays during the meet. Given John's 34% strike-rate we can extrapolate that he also would have battled for top honors if he had a crack at those fifty-six other races.
Also putting up solid numbers, the group in the 109-120 range - and near the top of that group was Mark Hoffman of The Recorder [Amsterdam, NY] who tallied the highest ROI among the handicappers that keep track of those totals. He was the only one among those recording ROI numbers to 'beat the meet' and show a flat-bet profit.
Final meet totals for the past few seasons can be found here: 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004 and 2003.
Mid-season scorecards: 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005 and 2004.
Note: Discrepancies in total number of races played is due to some handicappers losing races due to scratches.
*** The Saratoga Special doesn't publish on some Mondays during the meet.
|
Bill Taylor Saratogian |
131-394 |
|
Matt Graves Albany Times Union |
130-394 ... $752.00 |
|
Dave Litfin Daily Racing Form |
128-395 |
|
Mark Cusano Daily [Schenectady] Gazette |
120-395 |
|
Mark Hoffman The [Amsterdam] Recorder |
119-393 ... $812.00 |
|
Bill Heller Daily [Schenectady] Gazette |
118-395 |
|
Kyle Brownell Post-Star [Glens Fall, NY] |
116-395 ... $706.50 |
|
John Shapazian Saratoga Special |
115-339 *** |
|
Daniel Feiss Saratogian |
115-392 |
|
Jerry Bossert NY Daily News |
115-394 ... $645.50 |
|
Tim Wilkin Albany Times Union |
115-395 ... $770.10 |
|
Tom Cavanagh NY Daily News |
114-395 ... $645.60 |
|
Dave Little NY Daily News |
113-392 ... $671.00 |
|
Laim Durbin Saratogian |
112-370 |
|
Vic C NY Post |
111-393 ... $781.20 |
|
Ed Fountaine NY Post |
109-394 ... $732.10 |
|
Tom Law Saratogian |
107-393 |
|
Nick Kling Troy Record/Saratogian |
102-385 ... $636.00 |
|
Guest 'capper [different each day] Albany Times Union |
101-395 ... $745.60 |
|
Gaile Fitzgerald Saratoga Special |
99-339 *** |
|
John DaSilva NY Post |
99-394 ... $756.60 |
|
Debbie L NY Post |
99-394 ... $575.40 |
|
Seth Merrow Best Bets - equidaily.com |
98-395 ... $606.00 |
|
Dan Lauletta NY Daily News |
97-391 ... $606.90 |
|
Mike Jarboe Albany Times Union |
95-392 ... $647.70 |
|
Mike Lipack NY Daily News |
91-393 ... $657.30 |
|
Trackman NY Daily News |
89-394 ... $679.50 |
|
Affrunti NY Post |
88-394 ... $668.40 |
|
John Panagot Saratoga Special |
87-339 *** |
|
Dean Keppler Saratoga Special |
84-339 *** |
|
Brian Nadeau Saratoga Special |
75-339 *** |
We stunk up the joint.
When the meet was thirty-six days we wanted to at least hit the century-mark, 100 winners for the season, and hopefully click up from there to the 110-112 range. With an added four days our bottom-end benchmark was 110. Heck, we couldn't even get to the old benchmark!
We stunk up the joint.
We're getting too far away from our three-year run of 'beating the meet' [2003-05], where our top picks returned a flat-bet profit for each of those seasons. So it's time for us to sit down and do some 'reverse-engineering' and figure out what went wrong this year. We'll be taking a close look at the turf and 2YO races, which are usually our bread-and-butter, but didn't provide much oomph this year. The speed bias on the turf might have played into that to some degree - but we're scratching our heads as to what we missed in the baby races. Followers of our weekly Coast-to-Coast 'Best Bets' can attest to the fact that the handicapping over there has been pretty solid -- going back quite some time and continuing this year right up until the Saratoga meet -- and very often with turf and 2YO plays.
So, it was a disappointing Spa season.
Yesterday
2-11. Winners in the 4th [$6.90], and 5th [$5.90]. Also, a C-A exacta in the 1st [$46.60/$2]. In the 5th it was an A-B-C finish for a cold exacta [$47.00] and tri [$175.00]. The photo showed D-B-C in a tight 8th race finish for the tri [$314.00]. In the 10th a B-C-A-D finish for the exacta [$63.50], tri [$122.50] and super [$558.00].And in the 11th, the season's finale it was a generous B-C exacta [$95.50].
25,296 attended and enjoyed some nice late-summer weather.
Dark day. End of season. See you next year...
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