PTF and JK are back to talk about Thursday’s late pick four at Keeneland and to look ahead to the fall meet: it’s never too early to start making your plans to go to Lexington come October.
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Hello, and welcome to the show and select players podcast. This is show number seven. We are talking about the races at Keeneland on Thursday, April 25th. I’m your host, Peter Thomas foreign, a towel back with you. In the Brooklyn bunker once again, but my heart is in Lexington. I wish I was there to help ring out this meat, but my cohost is in Lexington to help do just that he is the people’s champion, Jonathan kitchen, JK what’s up PTF.
What’s the word. I was feeling a little bit sad this morning. These chemo on select podcast are coming to an end. And I sure do enjoy talking about Caitlin. Hopefully the listeners that have have tuned in via. Uh, Keelan select and, and being interested in, in the meet at, at Caitlin we’ll, uh, we’ll hop on the other show and, and, and, uh, follow us along there if they like what they heard here.
And we’ll. We’ll keep trying to, uh, to direct you in the right direction plan. Anyway, of course, the other shows the end, the money players podcast, and then we have some other enterprises out there as well, one going right now, but with a competitor of Caitlin select. So we won’t give them the name plug, not on this show, but if you listen to the, in the money show, there’s plenty of ways you can follow along with us.
And we hope this is just the beginning of a long and fruitful partnership with our friends at Caitlin select. But it’s not over yet. We’ve got this show today. We’re going to look at the late pick four on Thursday, and then we’ve got a closing show tomorrow, yet to be seen if JK can appear for that one, but hoping to have some combination of J K Sean Borman, Jim Goodman, and get this Kurt Becker, hopefully joining us for the goodbye for now Caitlin select podcast tomorrow.
That should be a lot of fun. Why you a five length lead to take it. We’re going to get the real thing we don’t need. You’re a second rate, imitation JK, and you know, my, he is a terrific caller and my goal it’s so funny. People might have even noticed this with the, you know, we put the theme song on at the beginning here.
The race is on what a classic that is. I left the little room at the end for Kurt Becker saying, yeah. This is the Caitlin select players podcast. Unfortunately it took me this long to schedule the interview so crazy. How have things been? Hopefully we’ll get things going in the fall. Maybe we’ll even expand this.
If you liked this show, if you’d want to hear it every day of the Caitlin meet, um, send a tweet to our friends over at Keeneland and or Caitlin select. Let us know. We’d love to hear it, but we appreciate all the support in our various endeavors. And with that, I think we should dive in to this late. Pick four on Thursday, we got a lot of maidens here.
J K. It’s fun. You don’t usually get the two year old, late in the card. Um, it’s usually a, an early in the card thing and they usually do it, you know, they’d card the first or the second, or maybe the fourth and the fifth things like that. So, um, it’s fun to kind of see them in the late pick for not sure exactly.
Why they did that late in the meat. Maybe it’s something that they’ve done in the past that I missed it, but I’m definitely excited about it. I love these baby racers. They’re a ton of fun. Start off with the sixth. I just thought master of the obvious here, that Kamari for Wesley ward and John Velasquez looked a little bit too tough.
Several of these have run and had trips and I was tempted to take one of them. But looking at the Ward’s stats in these races, looking at this one’s work tab, I thought it wasn’t one that I really wanted to be. Bach. How about you? J K yeah. Buzz around the, the, uh, the city of Lexington is that this is probably one of Wesley’s best.
Obviously lady Pauline was impressive early and, and, uh, but I think that Kumari is one that you want to definitely keep an eye out for. And one that I’ll try to build some things around. Uh, the other Wesley is the other Wesley. Right. It makes sense. And if you, if you feel inclined to use. Feel free. Um, but I’d probably try to beat that one out.
I have a hard time using two Wesley’s in one race because only one of them can obviously win. Both of them will be bet. One horse that did get my attention that I will give a little push to, uh, was Johnny unleashed. Um, on the rail, uh, for, uh, for that horse on the debut, uh, in a race where Alec and Arthur, who Jan John Hancock trained, who beat to Wesley wards and in that race, Johnny unleashed was, was to clear early, um, showed unbelievable speed and just got kind of beat late.
One of the things that, you know, you have to think about what these young two-year-old is, their talent. Is what’s going to help them find the front Fitness’s what’s going to help them see the wire. And I clearly, this horse is going to be more fit after, after having that really impressive first race coming back pretty quick.
There’s going to be a new level of fitness. So the horse will obviously still have the ability to strike the front. Uh, the way that he broke last time. And, uh, I think that the horse could be interesting at a, at a price while these other horses are going to take a lot of money. You can be honest with us.
JK Johnny unleash, clearly a hunch play based on your efforts on Twitter. The last few days,
I’ve been trying to behave on Twitter. Um, I’m trying to, uh, w the hardest thing in the world for me to do. Is ignore and block. And I’ve been, I’ve been like closing my eyes and doing it and then just like, it, it it’s, it’s hard. Cause the block also gives them a little satisfaction that they’ve got to you.
Yes, that’s right. That’s what I also liked the block because it prevents them. From being able to like, see what you’re doing later to then annoy you again. They have to go through unbelievable, uh, leaps and bounds and try to get to what you’re saying. And then to comment on it, I’ve taken that power away from them.
So anyways, yes, Johnny unleashed on Twitter, Johnny unleashed. Thursday in the sixth, Johnny restrained, I think is more accurate description. And for those who would have no idea what we’re talking about last week, JK was the worst person in the world for promoting a contest where the takeout was too high.
And this week he’s the worst person in the world for promoting a contest that had zero takeout. Of course, the proof is in the pudding folks, the no takeout contests on horseplayers.com this week did some Boku numbers. And we’re hoping to see more of those. No takeout. Feeders in the future. And hopefully by the fall, there’ll be, there’ll be some Caitlin races involved too.
If we, if everything goes right and my 36 years on this earth, I feel like I’ve had some relationships in my life that seemed to have the same kind of a same kind of vibe. I just can’t seem to get it right. I, you do this. You’re wrong. You do that. You’re wrong. HorsePlayers girlfriend. There’s there.
There’s a lot to unpack there, JK in terms of your, your psychology, but we’ll just leave it at that for now. And we’ll move on to the non-male and race in this late pick four sequence. It’s the seventh. It’s an allowance. And Oh my goodness. I’m landing on the favorite. Once again, sensitive for Brad Cox just looked to have the right blend of speed and closing kick against this field.
There are other ways to go, but it was sensitive on top for me sensitive for sure. Um, you know, I’m not gonna tell you anything you don’t know about that horse. The two that kind of caught my attention that I thought deserves some attention. Would be tureen dancer. I’m assuming I’m saying that correctly.
I went in with confidence and hope that it, uh, that it worked out. Tuileries you think that’s right, Pete. I’d already switched it to the next race. So let me take a quick look and I’ll give you my considered opinion. Yeah, that’s gotta be tureen. Okay. So terrain dancer fulfilled the motto. Um, if you’re not familiar with the West coast racing, Phil obviously has shown up here in the last few years.
Um, hasn’t had like a ton of success here at Keeneland, but he does have a ton of success out on the West coast. A very capable trainer, uh, came up under the, uh, famous Mike Mitchell. So he obviously can, can train a nice turf horse. So he’s one to consider here and then sassy little Laila. Who used to be a, uh, a steak Philly at one point now shows up in this allowance rates for Rudolph preset.
Getting her back started, um, was entered last week that came off. Uh, was scratched when, when the surfaces were, uh, had a little give to them and actually, uh, another Brad Cox horse, trust me, I’m not, I’m not upset about it. Another Brad Cox horse wired the field that day after sassy little Lyda lie was scratched.
And I happened to miss that scratch home. So I’m a little bit upset about that as well, but I think that those two horses are the alternatives, but I think sensitive, it just lays over this field. Um, if sensitive had Chad Brown next to her name, she’d be, uh, she’d be odds on, I think, in this spot, but since she doesn’t, she’s got Brad Cox, you, you might get even money, a Hora or maybe even two to one.
So I think sensitive the most likely winner here. And I’m going to try to, to try to get skinny with her and I’ll save a little bit with the two and the three. Thank you for reminding me about the Cox wire winner. I think that was on Sunday, a absolute kick in the teeth for me as well. And you’re right.
Maybe the, some of the scratches did play into to what was going on there. But anyway, we move forward as we always like to do, and we will go to the eighth race. We’ve got two year-olds again. And I was thinking, I want to get your opinion on this. That may be, this was the ultra rare spot to just go ahead and fade ward.
I thought merchants of cool. Didn’t take that much money on debut and let’s stay positive. Just looking at the pedigree. We got the first, this is the first palace malice, I believe. And then you’ve got a mineshaft Mayer, maybe the four and a half is just too sharp for this one. I ended up landing on samurai.
Cause for the, as mucin stable, just seemed like a reasonable guess based on the pedigree precocity. And this is obviously a trainer and jockey combo that wins plenty in these spots and keen Linda in general. Am I not JK? No, I kind of agree with you. I’m going to try to beat merchants of cool as well down.
Yeah. On the inside. Obviously not the place that you want, a young horses that are, that are still trying to figure it all out. There’s a lot of things that can go wrong down there. I tried to beat merchants of cool on April 10th. When, uh, when you, like you said, he was six to one ran forth. Um, I’m going to also try to beat let’s stay positive mostly because let’s stay positive.
Um, was, was entered on the eight E in the first start didn’t get to run then was entered again and scratched. There’s just a lot of inconsistency there. I don’t know exactly what to make of that. Um, but like you said, you know, like Saratoga with Todd Saratoga, with Chad Del Mar with, with Bob, you, you got to try to find a way to beat these guys that are going to take a lot of money.
Sometimes you got to try to beat him. Sometimes you got to go with them. I’m going to try to beat him here too. I agree with where you’re at here. One of the horses that I thought was interesting, obviously with samurai, cause that you mentioned. For Steve asked me mucin, but I thought clear destination was interesting as well.
The, uh, the, the, uh, the work from the gate, the bullet work from the gate at keen Lynn on the surface going 47 and two. They’re going four and a half today. It’s essentially the distance that he’s going to be going today. Love to see a workout report to see how he did it, um, or how, but, but doesn’t really make a difference to me.
I think that’s a pretty quick time. So I’ll try to build some things around that one as well, clear destination samurai, because, and then I’ll probably try to mix in, um, uh, tap it on race day. Uh, I, I thought it was a little bit interesting as a sneaky situation, a race day, Colt. We’re a big fans of race day, who our friend, Jake Valdez at black type thoroughbreds was involved with, uh, purchasing that horse for Matt Sharon.
And obviously the horse did, did really well. Race day. Didn’t looking forward to him as a stallion. Very cool. Okay. Let’s talk about this nightcap then we’ll take a minute or two, just a minute or two to talk a little bit about lifestyle stuff with an eye towards the fall race nine. I came up with preacher power JK as my top pick and really pretty much of a figure play coupled with the fact that I just watching those last couple of trips.
Didn’t seem to have the easiest. Time of it. And I thought you might get a hint of value there, Trinity, certainly very reasonable to expect a forward move going from the dearth of Gulf stream back to turf turf, and has some of these on the form book and generally looks good. I was a little surprised to see Trinity as short as five to two on the morning line that made it easier for me to, to swerve and go preach her power.
But those are definitely the top two by my reckoning. How do you see this one? Uh, Trinity, I thought was interesting for eclipse thoroughbreds and, and this is a production meeting inside the show. A good work. We haven’t even talked about how you’ve got Aaron Wellman from eclipse throwback to talk about grey magician on our monster Derby preview podcast.
That should be releasing later this week. So a good get for you on that one. Um, I thought Trinity make a lot made a lot of sense for Graham motion. Um, you know, has been training well, it’s you get Johnny, you get all of these things that make you feel good, but I couldn’t really get away from preacher power, but my decision on preacher power will be decided on Wednesday.
I believe in the last race, a horse that I had on the previous podcast, I had talked about St. Denman. I’m pretty sure power was fifth to St. Denman. That day was bet into St. Dedmon that day. And if St. Denman runs good on Wednesday, I believe it’s the nightcap that he’s running in. If St. Denman runs well, then preacher power will get an upgrade for me on Thursday.
I like where he was going there. And then I thought, hell or high water down on the rail. Um, deserved a little bit of an option here, trying the turf for the first time. Missed, missed the break on his first start at Tampa on the dirt then was trying to get on the turf for his second start, but got it was taken off.
Ran pretty good on the dirt for a horse who, who they clearly want to try to get on the turf. I think he could be a little bit dangerous with Jimmy Graham, uh, maybe saving ground to the inside, but a majority of my play will go through preacher power. Uh, obviously Trinity makes a lot of sense to me as well.
Um, and Cardinal kitten is one. I wouldn’t leave off the tickets for Mike maker. We’ve uh, we praise Mike maker very often on here as one of the most underrated horse trainers. In the country, uh, maybe it’s his, his stoic personality that leads people to believe that that, uh, that he might not be as good as he is.
But when he runs one on the grass, I take notice good usage. I think they’re of stoke. I might go with laconic, but an excellent trainer by no matter what vocabulary words you want to use to describe glad you mentioned the monster Derby preview pod JK. I’ve actually decided listening back, doing some cutting on it this morning.
It’s pretty close to ready to go. We got two more interviews to do. I think we’re going to release that tonight. That’ll be in the, you can find it on in the money podcast.com lots of information, 23 HorsePlayers handicappers and 23 entrants in this year’s Kentucky Derby, including the first three on the AEs.
And I think the earlier we release that we might actually give people a chance to listen to the entire two hours and 15 minutes. What do you think. Absolutely not. You left that. You said Haiti cappers, media personalities. Um HorsePlayers but we also got a trainer of a, of a, of a pretty big race. Great, uh, pretty big Derby prep race that was run in beautiful Lexington.
We have a trainer, we also have a jockey. Uh, of a, of a horse who as, uh, has gotten some attention that I think we’ll be running late. So excited to hear about the trip for, for a closer that we might see from the guy who sat in on his back for the last three starts, it’s going to be a lot of fun.
Hopefully you folks are going to enjoy listening to it as much as we enjoyed recording it. Before we get out of here today, JK, I did want to touch on lifestyle stuff for a minute. You are a believer. One of the ways you deal with your depression at the end of the Qianlong spring meet is to already start thinking ahead to the fall.
Tell us how you do that.
Yeah. So one of my favorite things to do, there’s a website and this does not like a ad. This is just like a, I love you guys. I’m trying to help you. There’s a website called Skyscanner. And one of the things you can do on Skyscanner is you can put in a month, you can put in a month in a destination and it will give you all the cheapest tickets.
From different locations. So maybe there’s an airport. That’s three hours away from you in a drive. You can find a ticket for 59 bucks direct flight to Lexington. So hop on Skyscanner and start playing the game ahead of time and try to get something booked for the fall. If you didn’t get to make it to Caitlin for the spring, this fall meet is going to be October four through October 26th.
A lot of highlights of the fall meet, obviously a fall stars day where all of the Derby, or excuse me, the breeders cup perhaps happen. Um, you’ll get a, that’s always fun to QE two for the three-year-old fillies on the turf, always a fun race in the fall. And then, uh, you know, the, the tournament, Jim Goodman has a, I don’t, I don’t, it’s still a great one.
Gamble. It, they don’t call it the grade one gamble. Maybe it’s the grade to gamble. I don’t know, but it’s a great event. The same setup, same hospitality. Same fun contest, same great racing to bet on. So there’s a lot of opportunities in October between the fourth and the 26th to get here to Lexington, go ahead and book that now, you know, at least you can lock up the hotel before, uh, that goes and gets high.
You can also try to get a little Airbnb situation. I’ve heard a lot of people with success stories, Airbnb, um, in the Lexington area. And, uh, and just try to lock down a, that trip. Now, it, it always helps me. To know something fun that I have coming in the near future. It’s like a mental trick that I do to myself to get through the daily grind.
It helps at the end of things, and Caitlin meets Saratoga meet, especially it’s good to start planning those fun excursions for coming up. Let’s talk a little bit more about some lifestyle stuff. Just a few things I’ll throw out there. No trip to Lexington, no trip to Keeneland is complete without doing some.
Farm touring. We’ll give a shout out to our friends at horse country. They’re arranging tours of farms, large and small throughout the area. That’s where I would go to get that stuff booked. You should really make sure to put that on your list. You’ve also got the option of going to check out old friends.
Up in Georgetown. Hey, while in Georgetown, I’ll give a shout out to one of my favorite restaurants in the area, local feed in Georgetown. So good. Our friend Jenny works there. They helped us out contributing that gift card when we did the 50, 50 raffle at Bell’s and it’s well worth it so much. Good stuff there.
Have you even been yet? I have never been, I’ve driven through Georgetown getting to Cincinnati. That’s, that’s the extent of my, my trips up to, to Georgetown. So, uh, um, uh, Jeff Ruby’s opened this week, um, that ought to be a very scenic vibe. I would imagine it’s going to be a little bit of an overflow from Tony’s see, who wins the battle between Tony’s and Jeff Ruby’s.
It’ll be fun to watch that unfold. I had this great marketing idea. If I was Jeff Ruby’s. I was like, I would get like a van and I would wrap it with Jeff Ruby and I would park it in front of Tony’s and I’ll just leave it there for like the two weeks leading up. Um, I need those guys to be a little bit more, a little bit bigger feud here so that the city can enjoy watching that unfold.
But, uh, um, a lot of fun stuff to do in Lexington, if you’ve never been you’re missing out. Um, people told me for years that I was missing out on Saratoga and they were absolutely right now, I can’t miss it. People also told me I was missing out on Keene Lynn and I was fortunate enough maybe four or five years ago to get here.
And I’ve been here probably. 200 times since for other reasons, besides Lexington and Keelan, but, but also it’s a great place. I love it. We could call it that bluegrass steak Wars and, but we’ll spell steak, you know, like the, like the Jeff Ruby steak, how they do the thing up North in, uh, in Kentucky, I think, I think we could have something here, JK and whatever you do, if you do end up consulting for Jeffery BC of he’ll let you borrow a few choice pieces from his wardrobe.
I think they’d fit nicely on you. That’s what I hear. I’ve seen him on a couple of interviews and seems like a very. Interesting gentlemen. So I, I, uh, never had the pleasure of meeting him, but, uh, uh, anyone who dresses like that as a fan, I’m a fan of that person. I haven’t seen it’s somewhere between a ring master and a professional wrestling manager from the 1980s.
And I say that that’s a huge compliment coming from me. We’ve seen some of the stuff that I bust out there less than anybody think that I’m, uh, I’m, uh, messing with the man. It’s cool. It’s cool stuff. And I think JK would dig it as well. Give us another lifestyle thought or two, before we go, obviously we’ll shout out our friends at bells.
We did that wonderful kickoff party at the beginning of this meet with Caitlin select anywhere else you’ve been hanging out. I’m just going to throw out, like, try to keep these in sentences as I can. My favorite breakfast spot is Josie’s, uh, it’s uh, over in, uh, Chevy chase, which is a great spot. I love Josie’s.
I love, uh, uh, Dudley’s is really cool. Got a bunch of cool racing memorabilia on the wall. Nice restaurant. Good vibe downtown. Uh, Tony’s I’m obviously a fan of crab cake. We had Gabby GoDaddy on a Maryland, uh, Maryland, uh, uh, girl who swears by the crab cake at, at Tony. So I think that’s pretty impressive.
Uh, Deauville is a French restaurant, has a great happy hour. Really cool vibes, small, uh, very nice food. Um, where else do I like to hang out? Uh, the, this new area called the summit. It’s kind of like an outdoor mall situation. They got a place called world of beers has got like over a hundred beers on top cool spot.
Um, There’s a lot of cool places. This city is, is, is really kind of opening up quite a bit. I would say it’s, it’s got a lot of good food, a lot of good stuff to do and hang out, uh, the middle fork areas. Great. God Goodfellas pizza. They got this really cool, like distillery bar situation. They’ve got going.
So breweries all over the place. It’s a fun, fun city to hang out country. Boy, is that the brewery in Lexington that I dug? Does that sound right? Or my country country, boy is one. Yeah. Um, mirror twin, one of my favorite places to hang out the Prince of Caitlin gets very excited about that. A lot of teeth, a lot of TV’s really good beer, kind of like a garage vibe where they open up the doors.
So when it’s nice outside. So mirror twin, um, I believe West six, uh, has there’s a brewery West six tech, which is actually a fun tour to go on. Um, there are a lot of there’s a lot. There’s a, there’s a, there’s a lot of things going on here in Lexington. Uh, Keelan, obviously the highlight of those things, more restaurant shout out.
I’ll give for a place. I believe it’s just called middle fork, had a great meal there in the fall. So good that I liked it so much. I went back the next night. That doesn’t happen very often. When you like a place so much, you just go back the next night. That place was that darn good. Actually, maybe it was last spring already, the time flies, but middle fork is a place that I haven’t been to in a while that I need to get back to.
It’s just a great place to visit. And I agree with everything JK said about Kaitlin being the centerpiece of your visit. And hopefully we’ll be back talking about it this fall and beyond. And I think that’s going to do it for this edition. JK, do you have a quick closing thought? No looking forward to, uh, looking forward to doing our last show and, and, and highlighting what a, what a great meet this is looking forward to, uh, the Derby in a few weeks, like we talked about earlier, make sure you listened to that.
Uh, Monster preview, you know, like I said, 23 people talking about 23 horses. The fun thing about that I’m excited about Pete is that if, if I were to talk about 23 horses, I already have an opinion. I like three horses. I clearly don’t like 20. So for the other 20, I’m going to give you all the bad stuff about those 20, essentially to make my three look correct.
It’s nice to have different perspective so that you can actually get an honest assessment from people because we assign these people pretty much just to talk about this whole, this one or so. Um, I’m looking forward to the, uh, to the finished product. There is a lot of positivity, but that’s okay.
Especially when you’re just looking to shape your own opinion and you’re playing these USA style exotics, check it out. Tweet at us. He’s at UT big hair. I’m at looms boldly, and that’s going to do it for this show. We’ll be back with one more tomorrow. Thank you J K most of all want to thank all the listeners.
Who’ve made this new venture, a success right out of the gate. Very much appreciated. This show has been a production of in the money media in the money media manager of business development is drew Kotani. I’m Peter Thomas foreign Italian. Mayo in all your photos.
Hey everybody. Peter Thomas for Nitel back with you one last time, just to remind you, if you use the promo code ITM 19, you can get some great promotions from Keelan select, including an opportunity to bet 300 and get 100. And then again, to bet, 500 and get 50 back, two separate times over the course of the meet.
Make sure to check it out@caitlinselect.com. Use that promo code ITM 19.
