Triple Crown Update

…and a rant about future pools in horse racing.

While we have a more extensive preview of this season’s Triple Crown in the works, some news from over the weekend just can’t wait.  Algorithms, seen as one of the favorites to win this year’s Kentucky Derby, is to undergo surgery and has been pulled from the Triple Crown trail this season.  He was set to race this past weekend in the Fasig-Tipton Fountain of Youth Stakes at Gulfstream Park, but was a late scratch with what trainer Todd Pletcher said was a popped splint. 

The splint bones are two very slender, splinter-like bones that begin under the horse's knee and travel down the back of the cannon bone.  Splints are enlargements that can occur along the length of a horse's splint bones. These enlargements often referred to as the horse "popping a splint" because the splint bone looks larger on the leg, indicate that the area has been inflamed.

However, X-Rays Tuesday morning showed a fracture in one of these bones that will require surgery.  While Pletcher hopes it will involve minimal time off, he states the horse will definitely not race in this years Triple Crown.

Future Pools: A quick explanation on how the Kentucky Derby Future Wager Pool works.  It’s not the future bet you are likely used to, where a line is set by someone in Vegas and does not move, an example being the Yankees odds at 8/1 to win the 2012 World Series.  The Derby future pool is a Para mutual system just like that normally seen at a racetrack, where the odds reflect what has been bet by the public on each horse. Therefore, the first future pool is a reflection of what the public thinks during the time the pool is open, in this case the first pool was open from February 10-12^th. The next is March 2-4^th. The third is March 30^th to April 1^st.  So you may bet a horse at 20-1, but if many more bet on that horse the odds could fall, and you could be stuck with 8-1 odds, and that needs to be taken into account when making your wager. 

I believe there is really only one type of bet that should be made in this system so many months ahead of the race, and that is your long shot wager, the 25-1 and up.  The reason for this is there is just too much uncertainty this far ahead, horses have races left, in which they need to perform well, to even be considered to make the derby itself, let alone win. Algorithms is a perfect example of the risk associated with the future bet.  With multiple races left to the Kentucky Derby, horses can become injured in many ways, and while Algorithms has looked impressive in his 3 unbeaten starts, the 12-1 odds he got in the first future pool just are never strong enough odds for me to partake.