Kentucky Derby and The All American Futurity and Survival At The Shore

 Saturday I watched the latest edition of the Kentucky Derby.  The conventional wisdom was that Authentic would set the pace and then fade out.  Tiz the Law would then come from behind and win the race.  Authentic held on and Tiz the Law faded but ran a good race.  Baffert won with the fresh horse this time and so it goes.  The new shooter won.  

The race was almost an afterthought.   Thousand Words reared up and fell over backwards and was scratched.  Horses do that sometimes for any number of reasons, a detailed examination of the horse after the scratch indicated no problems.  Good news for the horse but the assistant broke his arm trying to control the horse.

In the Winner's Circle Baffert said red ribbons attached to the traditional roses bothered Authentic and he wheeled around knocking Baffert down.  It wasn't the normal 2020 Winner's Circle.  Reports indicated that the parimutual handle was down almost 50% over 2019 Kentucky Derby.  Not unexpected given the date of the race, no fans, the Triple Crown "muddle".

Whistle Stop Cafe, ridden by Ricky Ramirez, trained by Blaine Woods won the $3,000,000 All American Futurity on Monday.

Finally, I had a good weekend participating in a free handicapping contest at Monmouth Park.  With over 4000 contestants, I rocketed up to 385th place.  Four of the horses I picked won and two paid $20 plus to win.  The contest has three more weeks to run and I need to pick some longshots that come in.  It would be fun to finish in 99th or better. 

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