Saratoga Diary - Aug 19

Week 3 was not all that kind to me. I had 12 winners on top and still lost money with my spot plays but having said that it was actually my best period of the meet. So essentially I still suck but just not as much. One of the main reasons for my minor improvement has been my intentional development and use of something I call the KSR (Kennedy Speed Rating) I've played around with the concept for for more than a year off and on but after getting killed in claiming race after claiming race where I simply had no idea what to do I decided to knuckle down and refine the ratings to see if they could help a bit.

Starting Monday Aug 3rd I made calculations for every race possible. Not every race can have KSR's applied because the rating is essentially based on the premise of finding the average speed of each entrant at a similar condition that they're facing today. If a horse has never run on the surface or has never run with 2 furlongs of today's distance it's basically impossible to say how they'll do. If a horse achieves a rating of 100.00 or more it is the KSR's suggestion that they are fast enough to win this particular race.

In 13 race days at Saratoga 69 races had the KSR applied to them and 47 times the winner had a rating of 100.00 or more. 11 times the winner was unrated and another 11 times the winner had a rating of 99.99 or less. A flat bet on every horse in those 69 races that had a rating of 100.00 or more would have made you $85.60. It's not the most unbelievable profit margin ever but it does show a profitable correlation.

The KSR is still pretty new so it might need some revision but I've decided to link today's figures here on the blog and we can follow the results as they happen. Hopefully these ratings can help put you and I onto a few winners today.



Spot Plays for Aug 19th

Race #1
$1 exacta box - Miss Fleetfoot/Dressmaker/Sneaky Girl =$6

Race #3
$1 exacta box - Rodman/Penna Entry/Banking Holiday/Levine Entry =$12
$1 trifecta box - Rodman/Penna Entry/Banking Holiday/Levine Entry =$24

Race #5
$1 exacta box - Starfish Bay/Thoroughly Holy/Gemswick Park =$6

Race #8
$1 exacta box - Akonite/First to Come Home/Galluscio Entry =$6

Race #9
$1 exacta box - Dashing Debby/Sassy Image/Camille's Appeal/Babai Baby =$12
$1 trifecta box - Dashing Debby/Sassy Image/Camille's Appeal/Babai Baby =$24

Wagered - $90
Meet Balance = -$487.00 (-54.72%)

You may notice that most of the horses I'm using today are well rated by the KSR. There were a lot of playable races today based on those figures. In fact there were likely more races today than any other that I've calculated so I'm going a bit heavy in relation to my stated average of $50 per day.

In Race #5 I'm taking a bit of a risk in that I'm leaving out a lot of really good horses but I just like the race because you have a good looking Pletcher, a good looking Rice and Gemswick Park, a horse that I've always thought very well of. So hot trainers combined with a classy sprinter, it seems like a good deal to me.

The other plays are mostly based off the figures. I'm looking for overall speed to dominate the races and hopefully cash me some tickets.

I think Pletcher will really come to hand in the second half of this meet and he's starting to put in some serious horses. Look for him to win 5 or more races this week.