Show #5 — Tuesday, January 8

***Please note this was done with AI and likely contains errors and inaccuracies. ***

[00:00:00] Your listening to the, in the money players podcast. Hello and welcome to the DRF players podcast. This is show number five, the Tuesday, January 8th, 2019 edition. I’m your host, Peter Thomas foreign, a towel back with you in the Brooklyn bunker. Once again, Mugsy the handicapping Labrador alongside. It’s a new year.

We’ve got triple crown prep races to talk about very exciting stuff. Special guest later on the show today, we have Joe, Migliori going to be joining us to talk about his role as a partner representative with West point thoroughbreds. But before we get to any of that, I want to bring in my cohost he’s back on the planet, Texas.

He’s the people’s champion, Jonathan kitchen. What’s up my man [00:01:00] PTF. What’s going on. Things are good. Things are good. Have been doing all kinds of podcasting things what’s been going on with you. I’m hanging out. I, uh, I, uh, what did I do? I went to the Texas basketball game this weekend. Uh, we beat West Virginia.

What else did I do? Uh, watch football. I just hung out. I didn’t do a whole lot. My mom came and made spaghetti. Nice. That’s your favorite? Yeah. She like hit me with the childhood recipe. I’d just like sitting on the couch.

We’ve got to get her, uh, hopefully, maybe at the little house on the East side, the summer to make that spaghetti for all of us. You think she’d be game? Absolutely. I just, I’m not, I’m not sure how, uh, Uh, as a, as a new Yorker, uh, with the ethnic background that you do have, um, I don’t want to disappoint you.

Hey man. I just appreciate the opportunity to hang out with family and have some, uh, and have some good times. It reminds me of I’ve actually [00:02:00] been, uh, on one of my flights. I ended up watching like three episodes, the big bang theory, and I never watched the show. And it’s 12 season existence. But now I’ve kind of started and I’m, I’m, uh, three seasons in of a, of a big bang binge, but it reminds me that that Sheldon likes little hot dogs cut up into spaghetti.

So I don’t have any little hot dogs, but I just, you know, it might just be a childhood thing for me. I’m not trying to, you know, we’re not going to bottle it and sell it. I don’t think is Sheldon the character you relate to on that show. No, not at all. Sheldon Reno. Sheldon reminds me of a little bit is our friend, Nick Tamra.

Sheldon’s a lot more like annoying and like, whatever. Nick’s not like that, but Nick’s that guy that has, has some knowledge of everything. And he’s extremely particular about a lot of different things. Like, you know, where he’s at, where you, you know, uh, so, uh, they, they remind me of each other, uh, of each other a little.

That’s brilliant. We’ll have to have Nick on. We’ll ask him about [00:03:00] that. When we have him on soon to talk about some racing somewhere. In the land prop, presumably at his old stomping grounds has continued stopping grounds really, but his old stomping grounds as a public handicapper in the Niara circuit.

So we’ll get that. We’ll get that teed up. I mentioned I’ve been doing all these podcasting things. One little piece of housekeeping. Before we get on with the show, I have created a survey. A lot of people have asked what they can do to help out the show. I’m going to write a whole blog, post detailing, all the little ways, the little things you as listeners can do that will help us along one of them, of course, subscribing to the podcast, feed iTunes, a great place to do that.

Those links are always going to be in the blog. Listening to the shows obviously is a big help, but we’re going to do a little bit of a demographic survey that I believe will help us out with our advertisers. And I’ve created it. It’s 10 questions. It’s really easy. And you can find the link either on.

Either of our Twitters. I’m at looms boldly of course, [00:04:00] J K at UT big hair, but I’m also going to post it on the blog. So go to in the money podcast.com no WW in there, just in the money podcast.com and you can follow the link and answer these 10 simple questions can help us a lot with our sponsorship, just starting to have conversations.

Things are really percolating, JK. I’m very pleased with all the. The industry interest right out of the gate in terms of helping us along and making this into a viable venture you up for coming along for the ride. Absolutely. Absolutely. I look forward to it. It’s always a lot of fun. Excellent. So that URL one more time in the money podcast.com you can find little dribbling for me there as well as links to the shows and this podcast survey, which will help us out tremendously.

If you can take time to fill it out, I would estimate it would take two minutes, nothing. That’s a major commitment and a chance for you to let us know what you think of the show. And let us know something about [00:05:00] you. All right. Let’s move on. We’ve got triple crown prep races to talk about JK. And I feel like the story of this past weekend, the sham and the mucho macho man is less about who did run well.

And more about who didn’t is that on charitable? It’s always interesting in these Derby preps, when odds on favorites get beat, you know that these horses get a lot of attention. They usually have done something pretty impressive prior. And, and they show up here and they kind of throw these clunkers. It usually happens.

It seems like a lot in these early races with these horses that are coming in off of breaks. And you don’t know if they’ve kind of grown and matured. You just remember what you saw when they were to code of honor, obviously would be a good example of that Coliseum. Not so much. Uh, he’s the little bit more lightly raced, but, uh, it’s always interesting when one of those even money shot or odds on shot runs off, uh, yeah, there was, there was plenty of that going on.

Let’s start East and work our way West. We’ll talk about the mucho macho man. Be [00:06:00] hosts gets the job done a one 15 time form USB figure, trophy chaser. One of our listener, Ryan Flanders, his favorite horses actually earns the higher time form figure with a one 17 for being on that pace. But, uh, like I said, maybe the story is more about.

Who didn’t run. And in this case, it’s code of honor. I don’t have a Derby list, but had I had a Derby list, this is the horse who would have been a topic. I think coming into the season, though, I did, as I mentioned on the last show, have some reservations about the whole, will he won’t he run in the Remsen situation, um, where you watching live J K.

I wasn’t watching live. I think I was actually like getting there. I don’t know something I’m saying I need a, probably in between here. I actually missed that. I had to come back and watch the replay. Um, I was dead in, in, in the multi-racial bets that were happening there on the replay. He looks, he looks terrible.

He never looks like he’s even really in the race at all. I got bumped a little bit on the back [00:07:00] stretch, but I don’t think it was an excuse from the runoff, the board, it was bad. It doesn’t feel like he’s the type that’s going to just like. Suddenly rebound and start running really well. But I guess if you had to pick one conditioner that could figure out what happened with a good horse and make him run well again, uh, you know, sugar is one of those guys, you know, maybe he gave him a little bit of time.

Maybe he didn’t have him fully cranked. We talked about that before, you know, this is not, you know, it’s obviously not a Chaudes goal with code of honor is the, when the Mo mutual macho man. No, but this effort was too bad to put it down to a conditioning race. Don’t you agree? Not necessarily. I mean, You know, they might be trying to teach the horse to run a mile and a quarter.

And so they haven’t really, you know, now they’re running that sharp one turn mile and he’s off the brake and I kind of had him. I just, I agree with you, but I’m saying there’s still a little bit of hope. Uh, I won’t be betting the horse next time. Yeah. Yeah. You agree. But you disagree. It’s one of those, but the, the, but despite what you’re saying, you’re allowing room for the possibility that he improves, but you [00:08:00] are taking a skeptical view with your money, which puts us in the same boat.

Really. Yeah, I’d love to bet the horse is six to one in his next start, but he’s still going to be three to one. And then, uh, you know, or five to two, depending on who shows up that’s, that’s not enough. That’s not enough value to try to figure out if he’s in a, but if he’s going to rebound from that poor effort, enough juice in the odds is likely to be on hand.

I would agree with you there. And we’ll do a little bit more research. We’ll be talking more about him. And if there are any, uh, potential excuses that came up after the race that maybe we haven’t heard yet, we’ve heard an awful lot about the excuse of the big favorite out West, who didn’t fire talking of course, about Coliseum in the sham, the sham one by gunmetal gray.

Well, West point owned gunmetal gray. We mentioned before it will have Joe Migliori on a little bit later in the show to talk about him and some others, one Oh one the time form U S speed figure. So that will need to improve [00:09:00] as the preps go on it also to be fair, should probably be pointed out that he was.

The beneficiary, it seemed of a, uh, of a pretty hot pace. He got a good trip, but, uh, certainly a horse to keep an eye on going forward. And we’ll see, we’ll definitely appear on more of these Derby lists than he has so far. For sure. For sure. Absolutely. And you know, he’s, he’s always going to be, uh, over bet and we’ll, we’ll, we’ll talk a little bit about that later, later in the show, you’re going to ask Joe about that.

No. Absolutely. Absolutely. It’s a, it’s a, it’s a phenomenon at the racetrack. I need to know a little bit more about it. He’s a good horse. And I thought he was gonna get a good setup that day. I’ve played the horse prior. Um, we had mentioned when we had Chris leek on Friday, we were talking about how Coliseum on paper looked like he laid over the field.

Um, but I expressed my concern about some of the mental issues that sometimes come with some of those tablets, especially the talented ones. And it seems like, uh, th th that, that probably is an issue. Baffert horses typically don’t have gait issues. He [00:10:00] didn’t break well in that race. And it’s tough with a horse like him that is kind of head strong, like that.

That’s kind of the worst thing that can happen to a horse like that. Um, breaking poorly. Absolutely. Exactly. Yeah. Breaking poorly like that. And then just kind of having, not only are you trying to, it’s hard to wrangle those horses, energy and enthusiasm. When they are in the clear traveling at a speed, they want to be traveling at it’s even more difficult when you pile them in behind horses while they’re getting kickback in, they’re going much slower than they’d like to be going.

And I think that that’s probably why he ran so bad. It was just everything that could’ve gone wrong. Went wrong. And, and, and I would expect there to be a better performance out of him and maybe he learned something from the rice. Interesting. So you’re taking a little bit more of a positive view, I think, than I am.

I just always have a question. Yes. Sometimes not braking is just bad luck. Just something went wrong. Other times it can be a sign of [00:11:00] declining form as we’ve discussed, I guess, arrogant being the most recent example at the sort of end of what you might call his. Imperial period when he stopped getting away from there.

And, uh, it was a sign that all was not well. And I worry in such a professional outfit with a horse that had whatever it was, six gate works prior to the w that the still having gate issues is some subtle way of saying. I’m not happy in a way where I don’t know that the potential is going to be delivered upon.

And again, all the attendant hype makes it feel unlikely that the value will be there next time. Obviously, by the time he shows up, we’ll know a lot more and can speak more intelligently about it. But is your gut just gut feeling? No. Don’t think about it too much to be pro or anti Coliseum when he returns to the races.

Pro, obviously with the workouts going in the right direction, he still seems to be progressing to your point that you [00:12:00] made about the breaking and the declining form. You know, I think you actually might be one of the people that’s pointed that out to me now. I’m sure you got it from someone. And I think that that applies more.

Two older horses who, um, and especially older female horses as a real indicator of declining form. I try not to apply that to two year olds, especially two year olds making like their second, third, first start. You know, he’s clearly got an excuse to, to, to be quote unquote, still learning. And, and I think maybe that’s probably what was going on with him.

He clearly has some things he has to clear up in between his ears. And, uh, I think if he can get that done, he’s shown some pretty, some pretty nice talent. And, uh, I’ll give him another shot for me. It’s about the barn in those instances, when I’m making those assessments, the super professional. Uh, drill the horses into being professional operations.

When I think of Baffert, I think of Todd Pletcher I’m I find it much harder to be forgiving [00:13:00] in the more old school hands, old world approach. Shugg McGeehee we mentioned before. I’m more willing to put it down to. Okay. The horse is still developing. He’s letting the horse develop in their own time.

Baffert, it’s a little bit different to me because I just feel like there’s such an emphasis on this stuff. I don’t feel like he lets a horse get away with being so immature at the racing stage. Anyway, we’ll see, it’s going to be interesting to see what, uh, what happens as far as that goes. Any other thoughts of horses you wanted to discuss JK coming out of these triple crown prep races.

Uh, no, nothing, nothing that really grabbed my attention. I mean, obviously trophy trophy chaser ran well, uh, one that you probably want to consider, uh, as he goes on, he had some really nice format, too. He ran well in that race time form us actually gave him a better [00:14:00] figure than the winner. Based on the pace that, that he was kind of involved in.

So, you know, trophy chasers, one that if he, you know, at the next step up and added distance, if he can kind of get loose, there’s always seemed to be a horse down there that gets loose. And one of these races, uh, last year it was promises fulfilled who, who got loose on a day. And so do you keep an eye on him, but, uh, I don’t think he’s one that you want to, you know, fly out to Vegas and put a future wager on.

That’s an interesting thing that you just mentioned. JK. Maybe we should do a second of buy sell hold. We’re going to look at the top five in the market. Best prices only here. JK. Just curious if anything jumps out at you one way or the other. Actually, I should probably hold your feet to the fire and make you answer the question.

Buy, sell, hold on these five, we’ll start with game winner available at nine to one in places. So I was even the best. Uh Baffert so I think you could actually probably sucker some people in, uh, with the two year old champion at nine to one. I think they might think they’re onto something there. Uh, I, I definitely would sell that one.

[00:15:00] How about improbable at 12 to one? That’s our, our friends at Windstar, isn’t it? It is. I mean, I think he’s probably one of the Baffert, that’s better, um, than game winner, but I just don’t, I just can’t get excited about 12 to one on a horse, five months out. And it’s just tough at that price. Yeah, I think I’d probably just try to make that 12 to one on improbable if I think he’s that good somewhere along the way in, in various pools.

But I don’t think I’ll do that. I think I’d think I’d just hold. Agreed. How about Instagram at 20 to one controversial training regimen? Presumably do back at the races soon. I would buy this one, but not for V you know, just more to be cheeky, just to say that I have it not so much as like a, this is a great wager.

Um, but I, I think there’s a little bit of value there. If you, if you runs off the train with a one Oh three buyer and his next start, he’s suddenly going to be, you know, first, second or third choice. All right. Very reasonable complexity. 25 to one. [00:16:00] No, no one 25 to one. And what the, the H Allen Gerkin real quick.

Just what I mentioned Colosseum now, East to 33 and code of honor to 50 where you would either of those I’d probably pass on both, but code of honor is 50 is interesting. Right? If he comes back and runs a good race, he suddenly thrust right back into the top five. I think there could be a little bit of value there if you.

If you’re, you know, you know, I’m an excuse, you, you, you heard him and excuse there’s some, uh, some, some post interviews that, that might be give you some hints as, as, as a reason that this horse could improve. Uh, but that’s probably the one I would want Coliseum still a little bit dicey those mental issues.

Seemed like a lot to overcome before the first Saturday in may doubt about it. All right. J K, I want to talk a little bit of tournaments. We haven’t done much if any tournament stuff on this show. I think I’m just going to start this off with an apology to my friend, Paul Sherman, [00:17:00] who I have long described as, uh, the odds on favorite and all these other things talking about what heavy chalk he was to become the first ever two time winner of the NHC tour.

In an believable development. If you were writing a movie of horse players where like golfers or pro football players or something, and we got movies made about us. If you wrote a movie about what’s happened on the NHC tour this year, to this point, it would be thrown out because nobody would believe it.

A player has come out of retirement. Our old pal, Dave. Good. Goodfriend the artist formerly known as the Maven who had given up racing just started playing tournaments again in the second half of 2018 and has somehow reeled off. Something like five outright wins in a row. And is now in the lead on the NHC tour, heading [00:18:00] into the final weekend, there is one event left.

I’m sure Paul will be playing it. Doesn’t look an easy task, but I think an outright win would get him back to the front. What do you make of this insanity? It’s uh, it’s definitely crazy. I, I thought Paul was the definite winner. And then I actually haven’t really been paying attention last week. I was looking, I was going to play a, actually this weekend, I was going to play and the Santa Nita contest.

And I was curious just where I was on the tour. If I could get into the top 40, I wanted to kind of know what I needed and I saw Dave’s name on the, on the top. And I was like, what? And then I looked, he’s had like five wins or four wins since Thanksgiving. Um, it’s that? It’s it’s since Thanksgiving, I thought it went back a little.

We had two, he had two scores in the summer. In one of the summer, one in September, like July 28th and then in September, and then everything else has happened after Thanksgiving. That’s incredible. Well, whatever happens this weekend, we will be [00:19:00] talking to the tour winner hopefully next week. We’ll see who that is.

I’m done jinxing people. So I’m making no predictions. HorsePlayers on Saturday. Uh, it’s a a hundred dollar, a hundred dollars entry fee, and they’re giving away five and eight C packages guaranteed. There’s I guess a caps at 600 people. So that’ll be fun to play along and watch along if you haven’t qualified yet.

We’ve always talked about how, how the NHC is the HorsePlayers convention, that if you’ve never been to you’ll want to definitely add it to your, uh, to your yearly, to your yearly Trek. It’s it’s one of our favorites. We enjoy going out there and hanging out and just talking, talking, racing with a bunch of good handicapper.

So a good opportunity. This, this is actually the last opportunity. This is well not the last opportunity is technically there’s the last chance that takes place the week of at treasure Island, but the last, uh, way to the conventional way from, from your couch. To qualify that would be this weekend. That’s right.

I believe there is a contest at Tampa Bay as well, JK where folks can win their way in if they want to head out to [00:20:00] Vegas. So many listeners have asked me this, I’m going to volunteer it here. My status for Vegas in doubt, there’s so much going on in my life and dealing with getting this new pod up and running as a viable business.

I’m going to make a run at seeing if this can be my job. And with all that in mind, I can’t really justify. Heading out there on my own dime this year. If I get an opportunity to do some work and also then be able to partake in the fun, I think I will still give it a whirl, but it’s very, it’s all uncertain at the moment.

So, uh, for now I’m a pass. I do have a lot of fun at that event and do second everything you’re saying about how so many horse players go there once and they decide that they want to make it an annual event. Speaking of contest stuff, JK have had the results at Santa Anita on Saturday. Saturday and Sunday are, we’re a very podcast friendly results.

Uh, you mentioned Saturday with the one to finish of a Duke and Paul Matisse. Um, and, and, and [00:21:00] I actually, I talked to Paul afterwards and, and I guess they, they ended up playing the same horse in the last race, which, uh, it was definitely a horse that. That made sense. From a mathematical standpoint, the horse was 12 to one, but on the information that they look at, that horse was an, I mean, I, when I saw they both won, I knew they both played the horse, uh, based off of, off of that.

And so that was great to, uh, to see those guys run one, two, and then, and then our buddy and a guy that you coined in the TV show, the world, horse players toward TV show. Uh, the greatest live bank role player of all time. It’s definitely Garrett Skiva, Kara adding to his laurels with an outright win on Sunday, playing via remote from express bet into that Santa Anita tournament.

But very cool stories all weekend for those who don’t know what JK was talking about there, the Metasys have a proprietary database. Of handicapping information that they use. That’s what, that’s what you were getting at there, right? Yeah, absolutely. Paul and Duke have both talked about how they kind of have their own situation.

So [00:22:00] it kind of causes them to end up on the same horse. You know, I don’t know a lot of people probably speculated about when they were both doing well at the NHC. They, they, you know, they were both hitting different horses. They just happen to have one cap horse in common. Which was, uh, which was a horse that made a lot of sense on their stuff.

Makes sense. Completely. All right. I think we’ve, uh, talked about everything on my sheet here. J K, do you have anything else you want to get off your chest? You want to yap about before we head into our special guests today? Now I’m gonna do a little, this is kind of like, uh, like, uh, it’s, uh, it’s a hunting technique, you know, I grew up in Texas.

So you, you put a little bait out there and see if you can get a nibble. Um, I’m curious if, if Ryan Flanders, who famously ran second to me in the NAC tour, I’m curious. If, if he’s listening. And so I’m going to throw a little bait out there and see if I can get a text, an angry text from Ryan later this evening.

But when you mentioned Ryan Flander’s favorite horse was trophy chaser made a lot of sense. I thought you were referring to the fact that he was chasing the trophy in [00:23:00] 2015 and ended up running second. Didn’t quite get there similar to a trophy chaser on Saturday. Let’s see if we can get, if we can get Ryan, if we can get Ryan fired up.

I would imagine, uh, an expletive or two will be texted to me this evening. If he sees this better that you do your trolling here JK than on Twitter. That’s all I’ll say. All right, enough of that, we’re ready for our next segment. And now we’d like to welcome to the, in the money players podcast. Today’s special guest Joe Migliori Joe, how are you doing great guys.

How’s everything with you. Thanks for having me on. Things are excellent. Having a good time here in the Brooklyn bunker you’re in a little bit different of a location. Describe your surroundings at the moment. It might be a bunker as well, but, uh, I haven’t met the chemo in January sale. Uh, we are fortunate enough, uh, to be selling three Phillies that we raised under the West point, thoroughbreds colors, uh, as proven their prospects today, um, you know, being a racing partnership.

No, I need to the Phillies in [00:24:00] particular that, you know, have some success, uh, some steaks success on the track, you know, they do, uh, and I have some residual value and, uh, looking to get the best return we can for our partners. So selling three different Phillies today, uh, best performance, uh, filly named boreal, and then I Philly named lavender Chrissy.

So, uh, fingers crossed that they do well in the Oxford. Excellent. You are a partner representative for West point thoroughbreds. What does that job typically entail? I, I represent about, uh, I would say 125, uh, individuals that have bought shares into our horses to compete out on the racetrack. And, uh, you know, it’s not just about selling them shares.

It’s making sure that they have a good time at the races that they’re well taken care of. Uh, And, you know, really able to have the access that they, a hundred percent owner would have, whether they own five or 10% of an individual horse and, you know, meet a lot of really great people, make a lot of really great friendships and enjoy what we do out at the races with West point.

Yeah. Joe growing up around the racetrack, you know, w when did [00:25:00] you kind of catch the bug? I know that you’ll, uh, uh, place a wager or two from now, every now and again, where did you kind of catch the bug on the gambling side of it? Obviously you were around the racetrack quite a bit growing up. Yeah. So, uh, I think I had the bug from as early as I can possibly remember.

Um, my mom would joke to you that I learned simple math from looking at the tope board. Uh, you know, was probably the only three-year-old to sit there and go, Hey, five to two is two and a half to one. And, um, it was from a very early age. And I pretty much had no shot like solar from the wagering side of things.

So you can bank, uh, you know, I can blame mom and dad for that. They can blame the sport. Maybe in case you’ve been living under a rock for those who might not know. Uh, Joe, of course, Richard Bigley already saw the MIG was a guest on our podcast. Uh, one of the last podcast we did over on the other feed, but folks can [00:26:00] still go and check that out in the DRF podcast feed, if they’re interests, it was great to, you know, I listened to that podcast that you guys did a, you know, with dad.

And I thought that was really good. I, you know, even whipped out a few stories, I hadn’t heard in a long time. So that was, uh, he was giving you guys some good stuff for sure that that hour. Joe. Are you ever, did you ever think about the writing path? You’re you seem a little too tall for that, but I don’t know.

I was wondering if you ever, if you ever, uh, caught the bug in that direction. No, I absolutely up until about age 12, I would say the jockey dream was well alive. But then, uh, by the summer of my 13 year old year, uh, it was long over a very fast, I think I shot up about 10 inches in a summer or something crazy, you know, grew like a weed.

And, uh, it was funny because I was always. Begging dad to, you know, teach me how to ride a horse and, you know, teach me how to be a jockey. And then, you know, he’d let me hop on the aquacise or time and again, but, uh, it, it wasn’t until I was suddenly, you know, six foot one that he was like, yeah, sure. I’ll [00:27:00] teach you everything about how to ride.

Emily was holding back on me a little bit. Uh, and I can understand why, you know, being a jockey is a very tough thing. Uh, I don’t think anybody wants their, their first child. To follow it. Now they’re very dangerous footsteps. So to say, clearly couldn’t get away from racing. I feel like I met you. Gosh, I don’t even know how many years ago now when you were working in the Niara press office, how has your journey in racing professionally gone since that time to now where you’re working for West point.

Yeah, that’s actually really interesting. You bring that up. And I do remember those early days and, uh, you know, that was kinda my first real internship, uh, in any industry, uh, you know, any form of work, um, you know, I’d done some, some hot walking in some small, you know, hands-on things, uh, you know, before that, but that was kind of the first chance, uh, you know, to.

It’s a really work at the track and see what everything’s about. And it was a great place to be with the press office and the press box, you know, in the [00:28:00] summers, uh, you know, in between school. Uh, and, uh, I think Dan silver was the, uh, director of communications there at the time and developed a really good relationship with him.

And. Uh, the rest of that is it’s been an incredible journey since then. Um, after I graduated college, I went abroad for a good while I went to Ireland, uh, and worked with horses there at the, uh, Irish national stud and went to field study in Australia and, you know, worked with some stallions and bird Maris.

So, uh, it’s been quite the adventure and then was lucky enough to get an opportunity with West point, uh, to bring me back home to the States. And I’ve been with them for four years. Now, this is a. The start of my fifth year and the time has flown. I love what I’m doing. And, uh, it gives me an opportunity to travel a good bit.

And like I said, see a lot of people and have a good time at the races. Now, did you formally do the Darley flying start program or did you essentially make your own? I, I, I sort of mishmash in my own life doing it. I, I think I, you know, on my own terms, uh, you know, checked [00:29:00] off, I think three of the four locations that they.

Uh, typically go to on their course, but, uh, you know, I did the Irish national stud breeding course, which is a shorter. Version a and you just remained in Ireland. That’s about six months. And then, uh, I, I had always thought about applying to the, to the darling for my start, but it was something that, uh, I think I just kept taking what was next in store, uh, and got to a point where I felt like, okay, well I’ve already kind of done a lot of those things.

And, uh, like I said, I had a great opportunity with up with West point that I really couldn’t pass up. So, um, it just didn’t work out. You mentioned the, uh, the breeding program at the Irish national stud. How, how much of that information that you gathered in that, in that coursework? Um, that, that you apply to your, to your handicapping into your bed.

And when you’re looking at pedigrees and stuff like that, you know, I would think it would certainly help, uh, you know, Jonathan, when you have those European imports that are coming over, um, you know, and you’re able to kind of look at their pedigree and understand it a little bit [00:30:00] more, uh, you know, the, than you would originally.

Uh, and I also think it gave me a lot of, you know, even though it was a breeding course, I did get a decent amount of exposure to the racing. Uh, over there and obviously, you know, uh, you know, after long days, you know, being able to watch European racing, uh, you know, for a consistent period of time, uh, and just pick up a familiar familiarity, you know, at that time with some of the form lines of horses that were running and maybe coming over, but, you know, you’re able to kind of distinguish maybe who the classier.

Uh, Europeans might be, or, you know, the more well-bred ones at least. And, uh, I do think it’s an element in the toolbox that, uh, it gives us a slight leg up. I wouldn’t call it a major game changer or anything, but it definitely helps. I think that’s a great point. You make about the value you could get just from knowing which the most important races are.

Which the most important courses are, which the, which sires or female families have a [00:31:00] history, you can get a lot of information. That’s just going to help you, especially at a meeting like the breeze cop, to understand where a horses place in the pecking order might be. You mentioned class is class something that you look at.

Regularly in your horseplaying in the United States? Uh, yeah, I think you have to, I think it’s a big part of, uh, you know, understanding, you know, the, the shape of a race, uh, you know, dad from day one, you know, Pounded into my head that, you know, the pace of the race is going to be everything, but you also have to be able to recognize that, um, you know, okay, this horse is either dropping in class or this horse has been, you know, maybe running at a similar condition level, but running against much better horses.

Uh, in that similar type of race. And, uh, you have to recognize that maybe even though this horse might be out of form, okay, he’s been running against much tougher competition, and this is going to help, you know, this is the bunch he needed to find, you know, to kind of regain that form. Um, you know, so it [00:32:00] it’s a major factor in my handicapping.

One of the other handicapping things I wanted to talk about with, uh, especially with West point is. I think one of the largest tote influencers, um, that doesn’t have to do with the racetrack is the Westpoint effect. Uh, yes. Yes. I I’ve. I’ve heard it’s it’s it’s a, you guys send out a bunch of workout videos.

You keep your partners very informed. You let them know what a horse is in doing well. Uh, obviously you paid attention to the West point, uh, coat factor. What you think about those, uh, how influencing you guys can be on the odds? You know, it’s funny because it’s something we always get a kick out of that, uh, you know, at anytime we’re even the slightest bit excited about our chances, uh, and that board opens up, we all kind of, while we did it again and you know, our, our nice eight to one morning line suddenly opens that, uh, you know, seven to two or something like that.

And, uh, it, it happens without fail. It happens. I think even at times when we don’t necessarily think our chances are that strong. Very much a [00:33:00] team culture and a team attitude that Terry and has developed over the 27 years of the company is that, you know, I might have a guy who owns 5% of, you know, one horse, but he looks out on the track and he sees those black and gold colors and he feels like that’s a part of his team.

That’s the team he’s rooting for anytime he sees them out on the field. So we definitely have a lot of, uh, you know, uh, loyalty players. So to say that. No, no matter what spot we show up in, they’re going to put their money on. And, uh, it creates a, a fun atmosphere and people definitely, uh, you know, are encouraging of each other, whether they have.

You know, 10 shares with us or one share and it creates for, like you said, some, some massive underlays West runners at the end of the day, it is interesting. The branding aspect of horse racing, whether it’s people identifying with trainers more traditionally riders, I suppose, but also now. Uh, owners or ownership groups or [00:34:00] potentially stallion farms.

There’s some untapped potential. I think in terms of racing’s being able to market these longstanding entities like West point now is Joe. I wanted to ask you about your own horseplaying wit where do you typically, uh, put your money through the windows? Do you have a favorite pools or bats or tracks where you spend or, uh, Or do you sort of just play it by ear?

Well, I would say that I have some, you know, personal favorite pools that, uh, I find myself in quite often, but, uh, then, you know, as of last week, as I do every year, do you know, kind of a, an end of the year review of how you did and all those specific areas. And I think, uh, as much as I love. To play, pick five somebody, uh, if they were, you know, an accountant, it was auditing my place.

They would say, stop playing for fives. You’re horrible at them. Um, you know, and there’s definitely areas like maybe Exactive and doubles that, uh, you know, maybe [00:35:00] I don’t get as much of a kick out of, but, uh, see some more success in. And, uh, I think one of my. 2019 resolutions is to try and, uh, you know, play a little bit more to my strengths, even though it’s very tempting at times, especially when you see that there’s a Lake carry over at the, at the, not at aqueduct on Thursday.

So, you know, we’ll, we’ll see, uh, you know, lair, my money ends up. I, I enjoy the multi race stuff. Uh, I think it’s very exciting. Um, you know, but I think. The best strategy for me going forward is probably to stick to those, uh, you know, exact and double set and actually, you know, do fine as well on the, uh, the wind wagering side of things.

Sometimes it’s very good to just, I feel like if you’re ever in a rut just to simplify the game and you know, you’d like to source at 71, well, guess what? Just go get them to win. It’s very simple. It’s the old pick one. That, uh, we joke about in the, uh, in the book bedding with an edge that Mike Maloney used to tell his dad who was also attracted to the, the higher degree of difficulty, [00:36:00] the more bud Maloney was attracted to the bet and Mike would, would enforce that idea.

And I think, yeah, he said a lot of sharp stuff there, Joe, as a horseplayer for one thing, just going through that act of reviewing your own plays is the kind of thing that’s going to make you a lot better. But also recognizing that degree of difficulty is a reel of the wager itself is a real hurdle that HorsePlayers need to overcome.

And I’m not saying takeout isn’t important. It’s super duper important, but as a player, it’s not all about, Oh, let’s bet all the money. In the pool with the lower takeout. Sometimes it’s about let’s bet all the money in the pool where I have a better chance of caching and has a reasonable takeout. So very interesting and good, uh, and good observations as far as all that stuff goes.

Um, we got to talk to you about, uh, this past weekend and, uh, the success of gunmetal gray. How were the vibes, how were the vibes around this horse? Uh, it, it couldn’t be, uh, any higher at the moment. [00:37:00] It was such an exciting race and, and a race that, you know, we were looking forward to, uh, with this horse, you know, that we had actually talked about potentially running him, uh, uh, in the grade one at Los Alamitos the name of the race, which may have at the moment.

Uh, but you know, had opted. To skip that race and just point for the sham instead. And it’s very rewarding when, uh, you know, the horse goes out there and, and, you know, basically affirms that you made the right call. Um, it’s also very exciting when you know the odds on favorite. Uh, doesn’t exactly break very well.

And, and. You know, I have a much better ratio, I think, you know, going into the first store and then you maybe originally would’ve thought you have, um, it’s the Derby is, is everything from us on the partnership side of things. It’s, you know, if I’m calling a potential new investors, I would say nine out of 10 times, you know, that potential new investor talks about, you know, history and being the Kentucky Derby and, you know, Uh, as hard a place that [00:38:00] is to reach, um, you know, we’re out here providing, you know, we’re, we’re trying to make people’s dreams come true.

Uh, when we can get a horse like gunmetal gray to, you know, get 10 Derby points. I know it is January. I know it is early, but. Uh, it’s a lot of fun for all of us to, to be able to pull up that Derby point standing and see him fourth on the list. We’re all about dreaming and, uh, it will continue to dream going somewhere with this horse.

Great. What’s what’s the story with him, you know, as he was, he bought at a two-year-old sale, a yearling sale, how many partners? I mean, whatever you can share with us about just to kind of let people know how the process worked from kind of from start to this point where you’re winning Derby preps. Yeah, absolutely.

So, yeah, I I’d say we have a very heavy presence at the two year old in training sales. Um, you know, we probably by about 30 horses a year and I would say maybe a, you know, 20 of them are settled, maybe, you know, 15 to 20 of them come from those two year old and training sales. Uh, I think people, uh, they enjoy buying into a horse, you know, in the spring time, uh, with the potential that that horse could run and say Del Mar [00:39:00] Saratoga in the summer, uh, you know, it’s not as much of a daunting weight maybe as.

Uh, when we go to the yearling sales and they’re buy horses. So no gunmetal gray was a lot of the OBS March sale. I think it was for 225 or 230, 5,000. So he was a fairly substantial purchase for us, uh, you know, a cult by exchange rate. Uh, and you know, that’s a stallion older stallion that had a lot of, you know, has had a lot of success, but you know, maybe not necessarily one you think would, uh, you know, light up the board and the auction ring as much.

So if we did pay. Uh, based on the stallion and, you know, his pedigree, quite a, quite a good sum of money, uh, you know, for him, uh, he was a car we absolutely loved and, and, uh, you know, The classic cliche checked all the boxes for us, but, uh, at the sale, Jerry Hollendorfer, you know, like the, uh, quite a bit as well, uh, you know, and when we had bought him, you know, he definitely wants to be a part of, uh, of that partnership and also have the opportunity to train the horse.

So, you know, Jerry’s also involved in the ownership group and he’s done an outstanding job with this call, [00:40:00] uh, and really thought that, you know, was telling us that he had talent from, you know, long before his debut. Uh, and in his debut, he actually ran into a, that was the same race Roadster. Debuted. And at the time, you know, that was the big Baffert horse that, you know, everybody was talking about as, you know, the next trial.

Um, you know, he ran admirably that day. Um, you know, got a very good experience. It was sprinting, I think it was going six furlongs. He ended up finishing fifth, you know, maybe beaten eight or nine lengths. Uh, but then in his next start going to terms at Damar really popped and, and, uh, uh, won impressively, um, and got a big number.

So, you know, that kind of kicked off his journey and. Uh, he’s just been a consistent, you know, sound horse, uh, every step of the way. And, uh, he’s starting to really reward, uh, you know, our patients with Joe. I know you’ve got to go. You’ve got work to do out there, but just wanted to thank you one more time for coming on the show today and we hope to talk to you again soon.

Absolutely. Thanks so much for having me guys. [00:41:00] And, uh, we’ll talk again soon. I’m sure. I’ll see you at the races at some point. This winter. And that’s going to do it for this episode of the, in the money players podcast. I want to thank Joe Migliore one more time. Want to thank JK for taking time out of his busy day, DJ unstable with some behind the scenes support as per usual.

Most of all though, I want to thank all of you for listening. I want to remind you one more time about this survey. I want you to help us out and take this survey. Very simple. 10 questions. It will not take very long. You can find the link on my Twitter at looms boldly or over at the main podcast page, which is in the money podcast.com.

And you know what? Go ahead. And if you really want to help us out subscribe to the blog as well, then you’ll get an email. Every time I post something or a new show goes up, we’d appreciate it very, very much. That’s it for now. We’ll be [00:42:00] back on Friday. Rumor has it that Sean  of WinStar will be returning to the pod on Friday.

He’s always a lot of fun. We will see you then I’m Peter Thomas Fornatale. May you win all your photos.