NYRA Bets Show Late Pick 5 (with Nick Tammaro)

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hello and welcome to the NYRA bets late pick five show. I am not your host. Uh, Peter Thomas foreign to, and I’m not back with you from the Brooklyn. Bunker, but I am, uh, the typical co-host of their shows, Jonathan Kenshin I’m here from the planet, Texas. And, uh, Pete is, uh, he’s doing things that are more fun than when we’re doing.

I think he’s in Italy somewhere. His brother’s getting married. So if I know Pete and, you know, Pete, that’s probably got a lot of. A lot of pasta, a lot of wine going on right now. And, and, uh, and, and the rest of us are, you know, eating donuts from the break room. So, uh, to join me for this show is, is a, one of my best friends in the world.

Also one of the best, uh, retired public, public Haiti campers I’ve ever seen one of the best horse players that I know of in this world. And that’s our buddy, Nick tomorrow, Nick, what’s going on. Uh, not too much, Jonathan. Good to be with you. Thanks for the kind introduction. Probably a little, I get a little oversold, but it’s happened before.

Well, no, I, I always tell people, uh, you know, I’ve never seen someone so dedicated to their, to their, uh, to their, to their task, right? When we were, we’d be hanging out on the road, doing contests and stuff, we’d be at dinner and Nick would be on his laptop, uh, typing up his, uh, Is NYRA handicapping sheets that he, that he, that he did for so many years.

And, and, uh, is it a relief Nick to not have to, uh, not have to hit every race of every card all the time? Oh yeah. Yeah. Very, very much so. It’s nice to add it up when you feel like it. Nice to not have a deadline, nice to not have a word count, nice to not have all those things. So it was, it was a lot of fun while I did it, and it was about eight and a half years of, uh, uh, public handicapping for two different companies.

Both of them treated me very well. Uh, both. And whom have very capable public handicappers now that I’m sure are passing along good info and plenty of winters and glad to have done it, and certainly glad to not be doing it anymore. So I think a lot of people, I think it’s kind of an interesting story.

We’ve obviously had you on the show a bunch, but, um, the way that we’ve met is kind of interesting, right? Like I, uh, I, I, my best friend and business partner that lives here in town, Robert Chao and, and Nick actually went to high school together. And I used to listen and still do listen to the Steve Vik show all the time.

And I would hear Nick on it. And my buddy Robert was like, how would the high school with that guy? And I was like, we got to reach out to him. We got to reach out to him. So Robert reached out to him on Facebook, Nick and I exchanged emails and I asked him some, some questions before the first contest I ever played in.

And then, uh, and then we’d be kind of, we kind of signed a contract to, to hang out after I was present for his biggest, uh, handicapping contest when, and, and he was present for mine. And so we, we, uh, we, we were, we were friends ever since and have shared a lot of hotel rooms and snores since then. Uh, it was a match made in heaven quite to quite clearly.

Yeah. That little did I realize sitting across from Robert during lunch, sophomore year in high school, that it would be, uh, an association that lasted another 20 years or so, and, and should for quite some time now beyond this. Yeah. It’s been a lot of fun. We’ve certainly certainly been to a lot of different tracks on a lot of different things.

Had a lot of successes, had some failures and experienced plenty that I don’t think we’ll forget any time soon. Nicole, obviously we, well, we had you on to, to talk about your, your opinion of this late pick five on Saturday. Um, but before we get to that, I wanted to give people an opportunity to, to, to kind of get a sneak peek into your process.

I think that that, uh, uh, you know, as a handicapper, we, we see a lot of people that, that are printing that are using, um, their eye pads that are using time for them. They’re using, you know, sheets, rags, whatever, um, W, you know, let people in a little bit on your process, right? If you decide that you’re going to, you’re going to attack a day at Belmont, uh, on Saturday, obviously the draw happens Wednesday, kind of walk us through the next three to three and a half days on, on what it is that you’re doing.

And then once you, once you get going, some of the specifics of, of your, of your handicapping tricks and trains, Sure. Well, obviously in the, in the public handicapping phase would be Wednesday night draw night, you’d be getting started on that card. And one of the things that I did as a public handicapper was in addition to watching every race alive as it happened, going back on Mondays and Tuesdays during Saratoga, Tuesdays only in watching all of the week’s races kind of compressed into one or two afternoons making notes on whatever happened that was pertinent enough to, to keep moving forward.

And yeah. Trying to determine if there was any real bias and anything that stuck out and, um, and keep those notes moving forward for the next time, those sources ran, certainly make any notes on odd betting patterns, things like that. That way you were just taking a little bit more of a learned perspective when a lot of those horses ran back nowadays.

Uh, I wouldn’t look at a Saturday card probably until Thursday night. Right? Usually, uh, Steve and I talk about whatever’s going on in New York on Friday. So I’ll do that just to be prepared. And the, the elements, I guess, of my handicapping process that are essential are, uh, DRF, TPS, and, and time form U S which I, I use pretty.

Faithfully. Uh, I, I think that, uh, the Craig Murkowski does an excellent job with his figures. I especially like to use a lot of his work to help understand race, shape, race flow, things like that. I I’ve long been a, uh, uh, advocate of something that I know Paul Mattise shared with, uh, with you and Pete numerous times on the podcast, which is that we’re overly focused in racing in general on who.

Who actually won races when we need to focus quite a bit more from a handicapping perspective on how those races were run. So really it’s how races were run rather than who actually won, um, and will become overly results oriented. And I always want to. I want to find maybe that slightly more hidden horse that ran against the grain of a, of a very serious bias or withstood a particularly strong pace.

Those are the ones that you kind of want to bet back. And, and so the process for me would be going through PPS, trying to identify, uh, both horses that maybe I’ve seen in the past and made some notes on with my own trip, watching and, and video watching, which I still do. Watch all of the IRA races maybe with not quite as, as, uh, uh, Critical eye.

Um, but certainly do it be because you want to stay involved. You know, you want to stay in the mix and you want to know what’s going on this time of year is always a little bit more exciting as the racing gets better too. So, and then that will also include replay watching. And there are going to be some replays that you want to pay attention to for me, mainly out of town races, or maybe some in-town races that have some, some elements that could be viewed again on a, on another try.

So I will like much like you I’ll try and, and, and sprinkle in as many speed figures as possible. I’m not a huge advocate of the thorough graphs. I’m not a rag as in user, but I will look up. The third graphs. Occasionally, if it looks like a field where it’s pretty hard to separate and there is some, some exposed form, uh, because I mean, anything that you can use to get an edge, you certainly want to try it now.

So there’s a lot of things there that, that, that I wanted to dig a little bit deeper on. Um, As far as replays, uh, just from my perspective, one of my favorite replays, the watch, and I think the most beneficial is when it’s a race in which there’s like two or three or four of the same horses that are running today that are running in that previous race.

Um, I think that you can really narrow down, um, some races cause sometimes. You’ll see four horses that come out of the same race. The figures are gonna always be in line. Cause they kind of came from the same rates. The class is going to be in line. They came from the same race, but if you watch those races, you can really separate horses.

As it comes to trip. You’ll see a horse who got a great trip. First, a horse that got a bad trip and the bad trip horse ran better, finished better and had a better overall performance. I think going onto the new race, the race that’s happening today. Quote unquote, you can, you can make a stronger. Stance against one of those horses.

Cause you’ve actually seen them run on the same surface on the same day in the same group. And I think that can be extremely, uh, helpful. Um, Nick, I, this is something that I picked up from you and I wanted you to kind of explain how many different colors and pins and brightening utensils are you using when you’re marking up, uh, your PPS.

Well now with my, with my PDF expert app, I think I have all the, all the colors under the PDF expert umbrella. So I could probably get to at least 12 to 16 colors. But when I was a paper and pen guy, which you converted me to a, to an electronic, I I’ve become, I guess, a little bit of a green advocate in my older age.

Um, I, I. I probably had a solid seven or eight and I would, I would sprinkle in as many different colors as possible. I have my desk at work. I have a slew of highlighters and different colored pens that I keep on my desk. It’s almost like having, you know, anytime you’ve had an addiction of any sort and you keep those things close at hand because you know that you don’t want it.

But you also don’t want to think that it’s not available. So I have them close by, but I try to stay away as much as I possibly can. Um, but I, you know, you want to, you want to do things with your PPS. You want to prepare yourself for a card, with as much, uh, as much information and as much highlighting as possible highlighting, I guess, pun intended, both physically.

And just the things that, that you’ve noticed on the topic of, of what you’re saying. And this is. Not an altogether accurate comparison, but it’s something I think that, that you want to, you want to touch on in terms of race flow and things like that. And trips and horses coming out of the same race. I thought the Peter pan was an interesting race this year because we had a couple of horses that were coming out of, of triple crown type objectives, horses that were either a little late on the Derby trail, or, you know, maybe, uh, were looking to get themselves to the Belmont and trumpet hard.

One off a big favorite, obviously somewhat unexpectedly federal case was sent to the lead in an effort to, to set things up for Intrepid heart. And what ended up happening was global campaign sat on top of this supersonic pace and ended up going on and winning it. And if you, if you looked around social media or a, I mean, maybe a lot of us have friends that, that texted us afterwards or talked to us afterwards and the race that they were really sort of.

Six on was the one run by sir Winston and Esther Winston came from a mile out. At one point, it looked like he was, could, could basically be East, got about the half mile pole and he made this huge move around the turn, into the stretch and ended up finishing a fast closing. Second, sir, Winston is going to be an underlay in the Belmont and people are going to read into that performance much, too much.

And that’s a great example of what I would, what I’m saying about how races are run, the horse that you always want to get out of. There is. Global campaign. The global campaign was sitting on top of the fast pace. He was, um, a, he always had to do the dirty work. He absolutely very final jeopardy. He crushed federal case.

He never gave Intrepid harder a chance. And when sir Winston even got in the same ballpark, he had plenty to hold them off. So I think it’s just a colossal mistake for them to not run global campaign in the Belmont. I know everybody is completely and totally psyched. By a mile, the mile and a half distance, not understanding as Bob Baffert did very clearly.

It was Bob Baffert understands things a lot better than most other trainers that it’s really a half mile race that starts at red around the half mile pole. It’s a race where you Gallop for a mile and then you run for a half mile. And if you have speed, you’re, you’re positioned in a. Terrific spot. So that’s obviously a conversation for a totally different time, but you know, those are, those are the kinds of things.

Look at the gold cup at Santa Anita on Monday, that was a situation where obviously gift box sat on top of a strong pace. Whereas Vino, Rosso sat a little bit off of it and probably got a little bit kinder trip being that. A gift box, engage the pace a little bit sooner. I thought both ran very well. And I think if you look at their PTs, if you look at their buyer figures, it was basically a career.

It was clearly a career best performance. Ravina Rosa was also a very strong performance for gift box, but those are exactly the things I think it, it, it’s a, it’s a pace conversation and a trip conversation in terms of understanding where horses are positioned, how the race develops and, uh, and where the winning move comes from.

Now. I know a lot of listeners are probably familiar with time form us, and I know that that’s a big part. Of your game in my game as well of identifying when a fast pace is actually happening. Um, that’s the easy way. Is there any other tricks to the trade that you, you kind of have of identifying whether a previous race was fast, uh, outside of time, formers time form, pretty much where you’re hanging your hat.

When it comes to a pace situations, I’ll usually make my own notes. If it looks like something that might’ve been pretty. Pretty pronounced and then see if it, if it ends up, uh, sort of going along with it. I mean, I was looking at these, these races on Saturday and there were a handful, um, of forces coming.

It really in the pine Ridge, which we’ll talk about in a little bit, I was kind of, I hadn’t looked at time for them, us charts to see, but, you know, for example, the race that, uh, the Clinton maroon one, the Woodhaven back at aqueduct in April, you. Couldn’t really tell from the fractions themselves, because it was a boggy turf course where I think they only ran one race on it all day, but it felt like a very slow pace.

And then looking at time from us, it was a slow pace. And on the flip side, the American turf on the Derby undercard were, uh, really a threat of blue and social paranoia were sort of involved the entire way. And digital age came and grabbed them late. That was a race that, uh, that according to time from us at a strong pace.

So I’ll, I’ll kind of, I might have some, some. I guess predilections of my own, um, some ways that I’m leaning and then if those you’re usually confirmed by it, occasionally you get surprised when I stood at aqueduct and watch the, the Tom fool this year that do share one from off the pace. And I would have bet every dollar I had access to that that would come up a very strong pace on time from us.

And it didn’t, it actually came up a relatively slow pace and, uh, Most of the horses that were in it have kind of underperformed since. So it was a race where I think DISA the, the eye portion of it was a little bit deceptive and you had to trust the figures and the figures have ended up proving out to be pretty accurate.

I, you know, I think one of the other things you can do is if, if you know, I think a lot of people are skeptical at times about figures because of the fact that they are to a certain extent. Science-based but subjective in the long run when you, when you have to make some decisions. And, uh, that’s why I think we both liked to look at a number of different figures.

Cause you can see if both agree that it’s fast, or if there’s a discrepancy there that you have to dig a little bit deeper to make your own decision. I will say this, that one thing that I, an old school thing that I used to do and I probably should do it more was I would have watched the replay of a race.

And at about the halfway point or even a little bit before that, I would just continue in my head to say over and over as I was watching it, who the three horses closest to the lead war. So essentially I’m watching it. I’m saying to myself, two five seven two five seven two five seven. And then when they cross the wire.

I, I take a mental picture of where the two, five and seven work did they stay on? Did they stay in the mix? The two and the five hit the exact, uh, or did the two, five, seven finish out the back. And sometimes that’s just a very simple way to identify whether or not the race fell apart or held together.

And it’s something that, uh, that then if you’re a person that, that has a hard time trusting the figures, which I don’t think Nick and I are, I think we believe in the science enough. Uh, and we’ll use a subjectivity on our own when necessary, but if you, if you have a problem with it, I think that’s probably, uh, a good way to, uh, to try to try to get over that.

Um, Nick. So when, when, when, how are you, um, taking the, the pace situations that you come across an hour, you. How are you, what are you doing? Are you circling things on your PPS to let you know that it was fast or slow? Are you highlighting a certain race, a certain color? What’s a visual trick that you’re doing to make sure that you don’t miss that because I know we’ve all done that as handicappers.

Well, if you’re a DRF formulator user, you can export your PPS at a formulator with the time form US-based figure line integrated. And so that’s what I’ve started to do. And that, that kind of stands out in terms of what went on in that particular race. And, you know, you’ll see. Uh, race by race, pretty much what happened, pace wise in those.

And it’s just another way for you to a little bit more quickly identify extreme scenarios. And that’s what we’re looking for. That’s really what we’re talking about are extremes. I mean, you could look at an entire card and not find one horse that you felt like was either with or against a very strong pay set up.

Um, and, and, and might, and, and then of course the next. Important thing is you have to project what’s going to happen on that given day. And if you, if you’re talking about a horse that simply always finds himself, him or herself up against a strong pace, because they’re kind of a one run type and then they’re entered in a race where there’s absolutely no speed.

Well, then it doesn’t matter. You know, you, you want to, you want to find them in a, in a positive scenario and you know, one, one that worked out well for me, Obviously you have to dig hard to find ones that actually do go right sometimes. But last year, for example, still having fun, rallied into a really slow pace in the CIC Lang at Pimlico and Preakness day and materially went wire to wire in that race, the pace was very moderate.

According to time form us. Pace held together pretty well. And now still having fun showed up three weeks later in the Woody Stevens in a race that was absolutely loaded with speed. So, you know, you knew the, between world of trouble and Stripe power and promises fulfilled. It’s kind of insane. Looking back on that race to think about those three, having been in the gate together, they went, uh, just a psychotic half mile, still having fun had Joel Rosario on board.

Who’s the best off the pace jockey in the game. And, uh, and it ended up. That 14 to one was a gift, you know? So there’s the scenario. There’s a horse who had a bad setup. The time before had a lot go against him, was going to get a huge set up that day and it worked out perfectly. So it’s, it’s important.

And I think in the handicapping process to understand how you think and how you were envisioning that particular race unfolding on that day. So one of, one of the. The most important steps for me is drawing my little pace chart and trying to predict where horses are going to be early. That’s why so many of you have probably seen me whine about it on Twitter because I try to anticipate where they’re going to be.

Well, then jockeys intervene, trainers intervene and, and things happen that, uh, that I don’t foresee. And of course we’re all HorsePlayers. We think we’re the smartest people around. So when something happens that we don’t foresee, we blame everybody else. I’m definitely guilty of that. Um, I want to talk a little bit before we get onto these races on Saturday, about, uh, about both of us, like, well, you know, I think we both identify that we have some weaknesses.

So I want to ask about your, what you think your weaknesses in your game. But before we get to that on this same topic, which is it, and this is a, uh, an opinion that I shared with you. So I’m not pointing the finger. Um, it’s also a great, a great lead up to a phenomenal race next weekend. But materially, uh, when you’re looking at his pace figures prior to the Churchill downs sprint, and it was all Ballou, a lot of, a lot of times where he wasn’t, um, really being tested early, but he was finishing w w what do you do about a horse like that, that continues to give you signs that he might not be as good as he is.

And clearly he has proved us all wrong. Um, and, and I’m, I’m thrilled to watch him run and the met mile and, and, uh, and about 10 days, well, you know, w what lessons do you learn from that materially situation? Because I think there’s a few that I did. Yeah, it was a, it’s a great, great one to bring up. And, and it was, uh, exposed a big flaw in being a little too, uh, married, I guess, to the I, the ideology of, of slow paces and horses sitting on top of slow pace and this and that.

And I think one of the horses that we were probably thinking about. Quite a bit it’s Imperial hint. And I know we’d both been critical of Imperial hint in the past because his PPS were loaded with blue time form figures where he kind of got in, in, involved in slow paces or sets low paces. And then when he finally started to see the heavy heads in his division and started to see some faster paces, he was just blown off the map and, and, and quite honestly, he’s not been good enough in most of the big objectives that he’s had the last couple of years.

I kind of envisioned this scenario being similar to that. Materially is obviously, and I think a lot of it having to do with him being capable of rating and really what we probably should have learned from that is that he’s a really fast horse that can switch off. So when you can go 44 and change, and for that given.

Surface variant, things like that when that’s considered slow. It’s probably because you’re just, uh, have a, that, you know, to use a horrible cliche, you have that high cruising speed that can help you switch off, sit outside. And it’s obvious that that Derby weekend, Steve Rasmussens barn was really set up for a big, big weekend.

He had a, he had a great. Couple of days between one, three grade one. So I’m really interested to see what  does at a mile and having a horse like promises fulfilled in. I’m not really sure whether it hurt it helps or hurts him. And I don’t know if maybe having the target is a good thing and he can sit right off of him because I think they’re going to look for, uh, they’re gonna look for a Shackleford type trip with promises fulfilled.

They’re going to look to just bottom everybody out and hope that they force McKinsey to stay closer than, than he wants to be in terms of it being a faster pace. They’re going to hope that they kind of burn Metolius up at a mile given. Fulfilled does have route ability or is it going to, is it going to hurt him?

You know, is it going to, is it it’s going to help him that he’ll have the target is going to hurt and that he might get involved in too fast? The pace I’m fascinated by it. I can’t wait to see, um, you know, with all due respect to the Belmont and I think it’ll be a great Manhattan, a good acorn, good Woody Stevens, et cetera, et cetera.

The race that all of us horse players are looking forward to is that meant by it’s reminds me of, of one of your big, big scores. I think I was actually with you and you had it. Well, not a big score, but, uh, but, but, uh, It was a satisfying score for you. I think when, when honor code one that met my feels like that kind of exciting race where I think Tony Ellis was in there, uh, that horse from California, that Peter ad Kobe’s back.

I think people thought he was going to love the one turn mile. There was a very exciting race. I don’t want to throw around super lives, but I feel like this met mile might be the best one I’ve ever seen in my life. Um, Nikki you’re you’re storing than I am. No. I agree. That was a phenomenal met mile. I went back actually and looked at the chart the other day, you know, buyer and private zone, tonal list, honor code Kobe’s back.

Those were, they were all in that race, defending breeders cup classic champion defending Belmont winter. I mean, it was, it was a really, just a phenomenal group. And, uh, and I had been, I’d been just burning everybody’s ears for a year and a half about how honor code was a one turn miler. And, and then, then of course, that works out the opposite way when he won the Whitney, which we were there for that too.

But, um, it wasn’t, I didn’t look as smart that day. But yeah, it feels like that kind of met mile it’s it’s, it’s been a, it’s been a good race. It’s a great race every year, right? I mean, it’s a super fun race. You, and this year you have what makes them at mile great. Which is the convergence of some super fast speed horses with some classical routers.

I mean, I still think McKinsey is the best older horse around two turns. I just think that a mile is more of his game than a mile and a quarter. And, and the totally is unquestionably the best sprinter alive right now. I know there are some Roy fans out there that are going to disagree with me. I just like to see them both get in the gate.

So, you know, when you’ve got the best of those two groupings, plus you have the globe trotting superstar, like thunder, snow, who’s going to get in there. And don’t sleep on the two mile races that forensic fire has, has run at Belmont. And I know one of them was as a two year old, but take last year’s Dwyer and this year’s, uh, prep that he ran the other day.

I think it was the run happy and, and bet against him at your own risk. I, I know he’s gonna have to step his game up a little bit speed figure wise, but that’s, that’s not a horse that I want to be taking a big stand against. No, I, I completely agree. And you know, and cold front is another one we should probably mention isn’t it.

I mean, right, exactly. Yeah. Let’s talk about a horse. That’s going to be, he’s going to be six to one, probably in that field. I don’t know how he can, he can go off a shorter price and then any of three different horses in that race. It’s it’s, it’s amazing. It’s it’s going to be, it’s going to be very, very good.

I, there was, there’s a Jimmy Jergens horse named candy grim who got a 97 buyer on opening weekend at Belmont and, and ran a very, very good race winning and allowances. It wasn’t opening weekend. It was the second weekend. He’s going to be, he’s a 30 to one. Chatting them at mile. And you’re talking about a horse.

That’s won two in a row that looks good. It’s got a great pattern of descending figures, this and that. He has no chance whatsoever. It’s just that kind of race. Absolutely. Nick, what, what are some of those weaknesses? Some things that you, you wake up every day and when you’re handicapping, are you, you often find yourself, uh, after a bad beat saying, I’ve got to get better at that.

What are some things that, that pop into your head that you want to improve upon? And in some ways you’re going to try to do so. Yeah. From a betting perspective, I have a tendency to. Be a little, I’m not one thing I could definitely gain from, from somebody like you is I need to be willing to take a stand more.

Um, I have a tendency to get a little too, a little too spread heavy, a little too forgiving in terms of making my A’s B’s and C’s and, and I need to just, I need to be willing to, I guess, consciously have to be willing to win less. Overall win, win, win fewer tickets, but win more when you do so. That’s from a betting perspective, from a handicapping perspective.

I still think, I mean, I think I’m a work in progress. Pace wise. I I’ve never been, never been good at identifying who the speed of the speed was in a race. It looked like it was packed with speed. I’ve never been, I can definitely get that. Better at, at some of what I already laid out, which is envisioning what’s going to happen.

Pace wise in a race that may have horses that, that benefited from extreme circumstances in their most recent starts. So taking what’s happened in the past, uh, breaking it down, boiling it down and getting it to where you can use it for that. Given day is a big, uh, big objective. Yeah, I feel like I’m in a job interview and they ask you like, what’s your biggest weakness?

And you say, I try really hard, but I think my, my biggest weakness is like my confidence. I believe in my process. And I believe in what’s in my head so much that I kind of do the opposite of what you had mentioned you needed to work on, which is I take too many stands. I, uh, I, I flex a little bit too hard in situations where I could efficiently and intelligently include another or two horses.

And do it in a way where I can really take advantage of the sequence that I’m attacking. And, and so often, uh, I’m looking for that kind of crush your soul, their souls moment where it, where it sometimes can, can backfire on me. So that’s, that’s one of the biggest ones. And then when it comes to pace, I think the hardest thing with pace is that it’s ever changing and it’s, and it’s, and it’s, and right when you start to get a hold of pace, You switched circuits or you switched racetracks and it’s like, you get used to, to handicapping the turf at Saratoga all summer.

And the next thing you know, you’re, you’re back at Belmont and it’s a completely different situation. And I think that that’s probably the hardest part. And, and, and understanding where you’re handicapping, I think can help with that. But, you know, it’s a, it’s definitely a, uh, it’s definitely a puzzle. It’s hard to, to solve it at all times, but, um, all right.

We’ve got, uh, 15 minutes to, uh, to, to hit this late, pick five and, and, uh, the, the kind of the way we’ve been doing it is if you have a pick, give us the pick, but at the same time, we’re not going to. To hold you to a, uh, to a selection here. And if it’s a race that you’re going to spread by all means, um, let’s, let’s, let’s let the people know and we’ll start and race five on Saturday.

It’s a 40 claimer going six for longs on the, on the inner turf. Uh, who did you like in here, Nick? No, this is an interesting race, and it’s not often in a 40 claimer that you have real pedigree amongst the first time starters. But the four Bellamy nose is actually half to 20  who won the edge would last year over rushing fall at Churchill and now debuts for 40, uh, for Michelle Nevin.

Who’s not, not really the greatest in terms of, of. Turf turf sprints are, I guess, more of her game than anything else. I thought Shannon’s girl, or got a get mother earth when this race got mother Rose is one of those horses that fits well with it. What we’ve been talking about in that she was, was right on top of a very strong pace last time that, uh, that ultimately came apart a bit and, and the winner appreciate came from off of it in order to get the job done.

So she looks like she’s going to be in a pretty good spot early. Forwardly placed pushing it and is able to, uh, to get control and dictate it terms under, uh, Javier Castellano. I think she could be very, very tough. So I kind of expected one of those two to get the job done. Yeah, I agree. I thought it was one of the three outside horses.

Um, uh, you know, I, I thought Shannon girl was interesting with the two year old figures. When we talk about that on the show all the time is these horses that run fast numbers as two year olds. They come back as three-year-olds of the national with a natural progression with maturity. Um, it’s, I’m not encouraged by the fact that she’s running for a tag after having so many pretty, you know, nice efforts at two and then, and then shows up here for a tag, which is a little bit concerning, but.

Maybe they’re just trying to sneak one by, with the a 13 link defeat last time in the slot. Uh, but the, the outside three of the ones for me, I do have a quick question. There’s probably a, a pedigree, a podcast question, but it, I mean, isn’t this Bellamy nose, isn’t she worth more as a half to Twana than she is for the 40 tags she’s running for.

Uh, yeah, she is. And, and, and I wouldn’t be surprised actually to see her get claimed simply because the person that’s going to flame her probably figures that, that she can just be bread. Um, yeah, the, the, the 3000 that they bought her for it. Kaitlin, January 17 obviously came before 20. It really was anything.

Um, it was long before that. So she was purchased very, very early, I guess, as a weanling. Um, but yeah, to answer your question, she should be obviously you and I would, would probably sound we’d make complete fools of ourselves trying to get into a lengthy pedigree or breeding conversation. But yeah, I mean, I would definitely ask a guy like Sean to Google that.

And, um, I, I, we, we have a mutual friend that loves to claim fillies that have some pedigree, and this is not only a. This horse is not only a half to 28, but her damn I bet Tony knows actually was a turf stake winner. Sprinting at Belmont was horse trained by Eric Reed. About five years ago, one, uh, one of the New York stallion races.

So there is some real pedigree here. The top side is just okay. But, uh, yeah, she seems like she would be worth, I don’t know. I mean, it seems like she’d be worth 40,000 as a broodmare. Yeah, my, my prediction is my prediction. My uneducated prediction is scratch, right? Like, let’s see if we can sneaker by, let’s see what the, what the chatter is and see if we can, if anyone else is going to notice.

And I, I would imagine that they would get back to them that she’s going to get glammed and maybe they’ll try to keep her protected a little bit longer, but what do I know? I’m onto Ray six to 25 claimer going a mile on the turf. I thought this race was, was pretty tough. If not impossible. I, uh, I find these turf races to be the races where I see myself spreading the most often, just because it’s not so much about.

The actual horse, the best horse winning the race. It’s the, a good horse. Getting the best trip, winning the race. Uh, how did you see this one, Nick? Yeah, this is a super tough race. And I think, uh, one of the challenges of dealing with a mile and the tariff at Belmont is that you, you want to identify who the speed is and you want to be careful about relying on it too much, because then it’s very, very tough to go wire to wire on the Weidner turf.

I know the rail is going to be out quite a bit, right. Because of, uh, the protection of the inner part of the course for Belmont weekend. And that might help speed to some extent, I guess, Campania was the horse to beat Tom Morley’s quietly having a good meet. And he, this horse is dropping out of an allowance race where he certainly didn’t embarrass himself, um, and, and gets to a claiming level.

That seems like it’s pretty reasonable. He didn’t run poorly too back at six for a long cause that’s not really what he wants. So this, this just seems to set up as a little bit more of a reasonable spot. I certainly wouldn’t want to have to make the morning line for this race. I wouldn’t really want to have to make a selection because it feels like you could go a number of different ways.

You have a horse like Sycamore lane who ran against a good field. Most recently for 40 for, for David Dugan, didn’t really do much running, but unquestionably faces a much weaker group here for 25 and, and, and gets Rosario in a situation where. He’ll probably lay back and make one run. So I thought you could make a case for him.

I’d probably use indebted on the outside. Who’s got some races going back. That would be, that would make him a pretty tough. And I know that  and John Morrison have been kind of the sneaky combo in the past the prices. So I’d probably be interested in going as wide as possible in this race. Yeah, I, I, this is one of those where I would hit as many as I possibly could.

Um, you know, I, I thought that mills was a little bit interesting just from the back class perspective, maybe, uh, mills isn’t really interested in being a race horse anymore. But, uh, I thought that the pace was slow enough in the, in the, in the 40 claimer that he was in last on to suggest that with a little bit of a setup, he could come running late.

Um, and then I thought TIS a chance was interesting, uh, with the, uh, with the, the, kind of the poor slop race off the turf when he was beaten 17. And then, and then the race before that, which was actually, it was better than it looked. I mean, he was on a fairly honest pace at 51 to one and, and was beaten three links in the long run.

And that was off the long layoff. So. If he can kind of improve off of that race, he’s forwardly placed tactical blahblahblahblahblah. I think he could make a little bit of sense. I I’m going to try to use as many as I possibly can in this spot. Um, onto Ray seven. So 40 claim are going six furlongs on the dirt.

Uh, T loves a fight, which, uh, which I remember getting a. Uh, hooking up, uh, clay Sanders and Theresa Gennaro to, you know, this horse was named after Theresa. And so she was obviously following this one’s career. And I assured her that when 10 strike claimed the horse, that, uh, he was going to be in, in, in, in, in good health.

But, uh, now they don’t have them anymore. He’s been, he’s been claimed again, who you like in this spot? Yeah, pretty aggressive move on that. Sila was a fight claim for 10 run for 40. Um, good luck with that. I don’t, this is a tough race. A it boils down to me really to which horse is going to be written to adjust to the likely scenario and here, which looks like it’s going to be read Ken and they’re still crazy.

Pushing the pace as much as possible. This, this feels like a very Iran and Jason service kind of situation. To me, happy farmers, a horse that can rate, he can be taken just a little bit off, but he’s not exactly a wind machine, but he’s a horse that’s run well at Belmont. And, uh, I think the, the, he comes out of.

Was a very solid missile bomb is just a lunch pale horse. That’s run a number of good races over the last couple of years, and then he wore him down late. So I felt like happy farm. Second off the claim was pretty much the horse to beat. I’m going to use, take your place as well, because if there, if for some reason we get a pace battle, which is always a big gift between happy farm and Reed, Ken, and still crazy.

Um, and he loves to fight you on a little bit more speed lately. Really. It doesn’t look like he can keep up with them early in here, if that happens, the beneficiary figures to be taking your place. So I think that would, uh, that would make, that would increase his chances, but in all likelihood, I think happy farm’s going to get the right trip.

I agree with happy farm. Um, now you mentioned earlier, Joel Rosario, Joel Rosario shows up on, uh, take your place. Um, what, what is it about? I, for me, Joelle is sometimes puzzling. I feel like he has absolutely brilliant rides at times. And then sometimes he does things that are a little bit puzzling. I know you watch a lot of races.

Nick, do you have a, a, a, an explanation or a thought about Joelle and why it comes off in consistent? Do you think it’s inconsistency or do you think it’s just his style and, and kind of a winter run out type of deals? He’s inconsistent. There’s no question about it. And, and he’s one of the, one of those, like a lot of other writers where he will he’ll struggle when his continence is down.

And then when he’s not winning, he’s going to have some problems. Um, I, I consider him to be the best off the pace rider in the game. Him and I are at, or are the best off the pace riders in the game to me. Both have a really good, I think an internal clock and concept of pace. They know when to move. They also don’t ha Joelle has a little bit more of a tendency to lose ground on, off the pace horses than, than I would like.

Whereas I read my, try to tonight through a little bit tighter spot. Look at last year’s breeders’ cup, filly, and mare sprint is a great example. I mean, that was one of IRA’s best rides of his career. So really. To me, those, those two are, are at their best in those scenarios. Now, that being said, Rosario’s an incredible speed rider when he gets to the front, he’s very, very good dictating terms out there and he just needs to do it a little bit more often.

Um, but I, I like him from, from that standpoint, I think when he’s got one like this, where the likelihood is that this horse is going to be taken back to make one run in a race where the pace could heat up a little bit. They’re both going to be at that they’re most comfortable. All right under race eight, the, uh, for three-year-olds a grade 3.9 Ridge.

This is a race that obviously we’ll set up for the Belmont, uh, uh, excuse me, Derby. That’s coming up the mile and a quarter, um, when stars and stripes weekend, um, you know, look, if I was, if I needed. To bet this race and my life depended on it. One of the first people I would call cause I respect your opinion so much when it comes to these three-year-olds and the turf.

And I would call you Nick. So, uh, where are we going here? This is a very, very complicated race, in my opinion, with a lot of horses that I’ve, I’ve bet on it doesn’t always happen where you get, you know, six horses in a race where I’ve been on all of them to win, and now they show up against one another.

Yeah, this is tough. I mean, it’s, it’s, uh, you got a lot going on here too, and you’ve you’ve, you’ve got social paranoia who backed up his good maiden wind with a solid performance in the American turf. And he figures to be forwardly placed. The interesting thing about that is that you’ve got two Pletcher horses that both have speed and they’re each being written by an Ortiz.

So it’s almost as if they might control exactly how this race is run. And then you, you can’t talk about this race without talking about value propositions. Uh, Debut when it was sensational, it was, it was as strong a debut performance as we’ve seen from any three-year-olds this year, um, turf for dirt air, maybe, maybe dirt, not withstanding pitons scrawl.

Um, but I mean, it was, it was silky smooth. The, the, the whip never came out. He got to the front and the top of the stretch and, uh, he. I was confronted by another rival and then just spurted away. He was a little green, it looked like there was a lot there. And he’s the one horse in this race that you could say, okay, if he duplicates that, or if heaven forbid he takes a step forward, he’s going to be too much for these horses.

And I’m beginning to think that he’s going to go off a shorter price than he should, because a lot of people are going to feel similarly to the way I do. We know how Chad Brown horses. I tend to get a lot of support. So I think he’s the horse to beat. I think you, you have to use social paranoia who I thought ran very well.

Last time. I’ll take a more critical approach of Clinton maroon, who beat a weak field with, uh, a very friendly pay setup. And, and you’ll have to make a decision on the Marshall EA who was wide last time. Um, got the benefit benefit of award winner, making the first move. And then he grabbed award winner.

Late award winner did come back and win, uh, a race. It. A Churchill on the 19th of May, uh, clearing that one other than condition. So he’s a horse that looks like he’s got some potential to move forward, but it just feels a little bit like value proposition may be in a slightly different level. This is a tough, I mean the only horse I feel like I could toss is swamp rat and I don’t even feel like I can toss swamp rat.

Like I like. I mean, they all have a story. Henleys joy obviously had the bad ride in at Keeneland. And I know that the turf is listed as from at Churchill, but there was a little bit of give in that turf, obviously. Um, so Henley’s joy obviously was one who had poor performances on soft ground horse makes a ton of sense.

Seismic wave, uh, Brandon had ran huge last time and the American turf magnificent man. Cool. Finally, back to the grass with the switch to ask me. So, and I don’t think that was a switch that like Doug O’Neill did wrong. Phoenix, thoroughbreds sins, horses to both operations. And I have a feeling they just wanted to get magnificent and cool out here on the East coast.

To attack some of these East coast turf races that are going to be showing up for three-year-olds and it just made sense to get him to ask me since barn unbelievably difficult race. I will tell you one of my favorite things about this race is it just reminds me of a fun point. Look, Nick, and I will both tell you that I can’t looking at a workout and tell you too much.

The only thing that I can confidently tell you is when there’s horses that are working in company, I can usually tell who’s going better. You can tell who’s going better by just looking at them next to each other. You can tell who’s going better by the jockeys hands. Are they being asked, encouraged the good thing about, uh, about this race and other races that ex VTV.

Is taping. A lot of these turf works and, and especially with Chad Brown in the mix, a lot of his horses and almost all of his horses will work together. So you can get some clues about how they’re going. And even if you can’t get a clue about how they’re going, you can get a clue by who they’re going with.

I look at a horse like value proposition and you look back through his ex VTV stuff. You know, he’s working with some really nice horses. He worked with digital age with Allmand or who want a steak at Monmouth last weekend. So there’s some, some hints there about the quality of these horses. If you’re trying to dig a little bit deeper, uh, hop on SBTV and watch some of those workouts and see who they’re, who they’re working against.

All right. The pay leg, the, the, the will pay creator, right? We, we love we’ll pay. This is my favorite thing in racing. It’s an allowance race for fillies and mares three-year and up going six on the turf. Uh, Nick, who did you like in the last leg of the sequence? You know, another one where I think you, you want to if possible, have as much bankroll as you can, um, in order to get here.

But the tricky thing about these races that you, you often are left with a lot of horses that have not been running on the tariff over the winter are now getting back to it. You’ve got some layoffs to sort through. So it’s, it’s a real challenge at times I felt like something joyful was the one off the layoff that you probably could trust the most.

Uh, Jeremiah angle. Heart’s very, very good in tariff sprints. That being said, Sadie lady was close to a fast paced last time in a productive race. Merlin’s muse came back and won. This is a, now second off the layoff. I felt like she was a must use. I thought the towards the inside short pour showed some ability as a, as a two year old.

And now comes back off a briefly off from Mark Hennig. This used to be a very strong angle from our County coming back off of any type of layoffs. So those were the main ones for me. Uh, but there were, there were a number of horses in here that you could see jumping up and being very dangerous. She’s dreaming his run races at Belmont and, and included.

And her last start that make her a very, very dangerous horse. So do what you can in the, along the way in the sequence to get to the point where you can throw some extra horses on. Cause you certainly need it. Yeah. Um, to wrap up, I’m gonna use quest deck a little bit. I, um, I don’t like the six to seven.

Uh, 600 loans or seven for longs that the change had Belmont do like the seven to six, especially when there were speed shown going seven, um, quest deck obviously showed speed. Last time had a, has one red fraction. If you look at time, form us for setting a pretty quick pace and held on respectably enough to run fifth.

But if you could drop back to races prior to that, uh, the horse ran really well, beaten the net going sick. So I I’m looking for maybe the shorter distance to help this one out a little bit. Um, but I agree with, with the other ones that you had mentioned. So that is it for this edition of the NYRA late pick five show.

I appreciate you guys joining. And, um, and Pete wraps, these shows up a lot better than I do boss, man. I appreciate Nikki the boss, the nickname. If you didn’t know that, uh, you can follow Nick on Twitter in Tam one, two, one, five. You can also send him a birthday present on December 15th. That’s what the one-to-one five stands for.

Um, Nick, I appreciate you coming along for my maiden, uh, hosting voyage. Anytime my friend enjoyed it. Thanks for having me. All right, until next week. Man you want all your photos?

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