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Saturday, July 20, 2013

Rodeo Time; Handicappers on Fire

In the twelfth race at Hoosier Park last night, Trace Tetrick found himself in a precarious situation when his left line broke during the race, requiring the outrider Neal Steilhiem to come to the rescue as you can see in the video below.




After the race, the stewards ordered a refund on Tetrick's horse due to the mishap but what makes me wonder is why the judges didn't order a complete refund of the race for other than the race winner, the others, while not credited with interference had to give way to the out of control horse.

I realize some gamblers would have been unhappy with the decision, but clearly until the horse was collared the others were not racing all out to improve their position.  To me, safety should have won out over parimutuel payoffs.


It took a while but the 2013 HANA Harness Grand Circuit Handicapping Challenge is starting to get some explosive hits this past weekend.   Rusty Nash,  Mark McKelvie brought down some solid winners on Thursday night (McKelvie had two triples) and on Friday night, things went really wild with Ray Garnet picking up over $400 on one race with $10 Win and Place on one horse; Rusty Nash picked up $224 with a winner in one race and a Trifecta in the next.  Richard Scott went wild both nights with a $30 win ticket paying $438 in one race on Thursday and $600 on a $15 win, place ticket Friday evening.

Of course two hot nights doesn't mean things will continue, but if you haven't been following the contest, you should be taken a look at their selections if only to get a feel of what the handicappers like.  Selections in the contest may be found here.

3 comments:

JLB said...

You are correct-an absurd decision not to declare the race a NO CONTEST, given the evasive maneuvers much of the field had to do. Even the winning driver looks repeatedly over his left shoulder down the stretch to see where the loose horse is.

Anonymous said...

Beyond bizarre decision! Why would a refund be given on a horse that has broken equipment? And of course, whenever the Marshall is riding through the stretch with the field, a declaration of "no contest" is likely a no brainer.

That Blog Guy said...

Well, if you looked at the race, assuming there was no interference, that horse was second when he was corralled. Since the driver was still on him, if he finished in the money he would have been eligible to participate in the mutuel pool. My guess is since the Marshall took him out of the race, that is why they refunded it.

Some industry experts are puzzled on how the handled it.