Day at the (Saratoga) Races / Travers Stakes

Sports are back and so are the sharps. After a once-in-a-generation pandemic induced hiatus, we're back and better than ever. We took a virtual trip to upstate New York today and brought the downstate swagger, hitting the exacta in Race 10 and hitting the exacta and trifecta in Race 11 (the Travers Stakes), and also hitting the Daily Double by picking the winners of Race 10 and 11: Gamine and Tiz the Law. We had both these horse anchoring all of our exotics. An auspicious start to the #WetBeakSummer. Our tweet thread, with picks and play by play commentary is linked below.

Race 10 Handicap:

We believe in the Occam's Razor principle of wagering, the simpler you can communicate handicap, the more powerful the edge. In this race, we viewed Gamine, the 5 horse, as a special, perhaps a generational Filly, but the odds were too short, so we used exactas to get some juicy juice. We also used her our daily double, with Tiz the Law, the 6 horse in Race 11 (the Travers Stakes). We paired Gamine with the 6 horse, Venetian Harbour, and the 3 horse, Mrs. Mrs. Danvers. The former hit and we were on the day's premier race, the Travers, with the first leg of our double complete.

• *Uncle Buck is a typo, meant Uncle Chuck.

Race 11 - The Travers Stakes Handicap

Like in Race 10, we had one horse that we loved in this race, and that was the 6 horse: Tiz the Law. Similar situation, his odds were too short, so we used some exotics to ensure a drenched beak vs. a damp one. However, going into the race, there was a lot of buzz about Uncle Chuck. There was basically a press tour for this horse in the days leading up to the race with Baffert comparing him to Arrogate. We bought in a little bit, but nothing beats fundamental analysis aka the pre-race eye test where Uncle Chuck fell short.

This horse was acting like a two year old and was really acting up heading to the gate. Plus, the horse had traveled a long way from California. Lastly, Baffert could view Saratoga as a tune up for the Kentucky Derby, so maybe they wouldn't push the horse all the way. All of that added up to us trying to fade Uncle Chuck. We looked for value and added more to Max Player (4 horse) and initiated some wagers on Caracaro 7 (horse) who was getting some heavy late action (bet down from 20-1 to 11-1). We like Max and fondly remember him rounding out our trifecta at the Belmont earlier this year. Here are our bets:

Overall on the Travers, Tiz the Law won and the rest followed from there, with Caracaro slotting second and Max Player filling the third place in our trifecta for a second time. We hit on the 6-7 exacta, 6-7-4 triple, and the second leg of our daily double. We had a 165% day at the races and, for a moment, forgot about Coronavirus.

Stay sharp.