RTSS Week 6 Review

The Racetrack Super Scout started with a bang in Week 6! But it ended with a bit of whimper on Saturday.

On Friday, April 8, we not only identified 3 of 4 false favorites correctly, we nailed the winners in our first two races. And our two picks filled the exactas in both races!

  • Mighty Ghost won Race 1 at Tampa Bay Downs at 8-5, with Internet of Things grabbing the second spot at 5-1.
  • In Race 2 at Tampa, Rattlesnake Ridge cruised to victory at 4-1, with our other choice (Hard Ten) closing fast for place at 5-2.
  • False-favorite Super Shoes jumped up and bit us in the butt in Race 3.
  • Over at Keeneland we correctly ID’d false favorite Beravina in Race 6, but had to settle for 2nd place with American Pyramid at 3-1.

Saturday ended up as a day of near-misses. We started with an absolutely brilliant assessment of 3-5 false favorite Search Results. As we predicted she failed to handle the hidden class hike going from 3-year-old stakes to facing older, hard-knocking mares. We cashed in on Glass Ceiling at 2-1, with the favorite never really in contention. But our next two races at Aqueduct saw us lose by a neck with Early Voting in the Wood Memorial and by the tiniest of noses in Race 11.

That nose and that neck are all that came between us and a huge winning week.

In the Racetrack Super Scout’s continuing coverage of Kentucky Derby prep races, we correctly identified false favorites in the Wood Memorial and the Blue Grass Stakes.

  • Using the morning line, we emphatically ruled out the undefeated Morello, and he complied by breaking poorly and never getting into the race.
  • In the Blue Grass we warned that favored Smile Happy was a slow-footed grinder despite what his open-lengths victories were telling everyone else. As foretold in the RTSS, Smile Happy’s late kick proved less than stellar as Zandon easily cruised past him in the final sixteenth.

Subscribers to RTSS can check in later this week for an updated “Optimizing IVH” article. We’re seeing one particular category of bets showing a solidly positive ROI and another showing a hugely negative ROI. This one tweak to our betting strategy should make all the difference in the weeks ahead.

Also on tap for subscribers only is a new series of in-depth looks of each likely Kentucky Derby entrant. Remember that we’ve identified false favorites correctly in nearly every Derby prep RTSS has covered:

  • Morello (Wood Memorial), lost
  • Smile Happy (Blue Grass Stakes), lost
  • Secret Oath (Arkansas Derby), lost
  • Nitrous Channel (Hutcheson Stakes), lost

We also paid due respect to the following legitimate favorites in Kentucky Derby preps:

  • Epicenter (Louisiana Derby), winner
  • Simplification (Fountain of Youth), winner
  • Creative Causeway (Tampa Bay Derby), winner

We see through the hype that Derby prospects attract like flies and, instead, focus on substance. Subscribe to the Racetrack Super Scout to access our well-documented Derby expertise.