The Matt Bernier Show | Ep. 105 | February 28, 2022

before we get going with this week's show a word from our friends at santa anita park and to a larger extent the stronic group this saturday march the 5th it is first saturday there are 15 stakes races across santa ana park and gulfstream park obviously two big derby preps one happening in southern california the other happening in south florida it's big cap day at santa anita it is fountain of youth day down at gulfstream there will be two coast to coast pick five bets one of them in all turf stakes pick five the other in all dirt stakes pick five player friendly twelve percent takeout with a one dollar minimum you'll have a chance to win a five million dollar jackpot it's free to play you must pick the winner in all 15 stakes events the player that picks the most winners will get a vip trip to the preakness the ultimate betting challenge is happening this saturday a 3 500 buy in all entry fees are paid out 25 000 seated prize pool on top of that it's a fantastic contest certainly going to want to get involved there and you can catch all the action in multiple different spots let's start with cnbc from four to six eastern you're gonna have brittany urton jerry bailey randy moss nick luck will be in florida you'll see eddie ulcek out in southern california covering those events tvg all day long and then a couple of streaming options first let's talk about the in the money live stream myself ptf some guests will be on for three hours throughout the course of the afternoon splitting up the three hours though there's also gonna be an abr live feed talking about the two derby prep races so all sorts of ways to take in the action on first saturday great wagering opportunities great racing coast to coast looking forward to it this saturday march the 5th be sure to check it out now onto episode 105 of the pod [Music] what's happening welcome to the map earning your show part of the in the money media network my name is matt bernier you can follow me on twitter at bernie or underscore matt today is what is today monday february the 28th 2022 it's episode 105 of the pod however you listen thank you for doing so you can find it i don't know 15 20 different ways however you listen to your podcasts apple podcast spotify soundcloud intomoneypodcast.com just to name a few you can also watch along over on youtube search bar matt bernier your show you will get this episode along with the 104 prior and as always please rate review subscribe if you're on youtube make sure the bell icon is lit up so you get notified anytime new content is uploaded to the in the money media channel got back from a long day's worth of travel yesterday last night i don't even know what time i'm a little bleary-eyed today so i apologize if i sound sleepy or look sleepy if you're watching along um it's because i am it's always good too when you get you get a 14-hour flight from riyadh to new york city and then when you get to new york you think fine i got one more little leg little puddle jumper from jfk to boston and that gets canceled and you don't have another opportunity to get out until 5 30 or 5 45 so tack on another four hours and then i live about an hour away from logan so yeah i mean it was a good 20 ish hours worth of travel yesterday but look it was um an unbelievable weekend specifically the day of racing last week out there in saudi arabia [Music] just an experience that was very unique for a number of different reasons the race track itself i hope the broadcast did it justice it's a beautiful facility and let's start off this week's show talking about the big one i'm not going to get into all the undercard races but i will say leading into the saudi cup itself it felt very much like there was only one headline story and it was the japanese dominance in all the races seemingly and the dominance of christophe lemaire who was just uh i mean he was he was spotting dimes from across the room he just was seeing everything perfectly uh he was rationing out speed on these these horses in brilliant fashion and it seemed like on a night where no one really wanted to be aggressive everything changed in the saudi cup where all the horses that you expected and even some that you didn't expect showed big speed out of the gate when when midnight bourbon was a few lengths off of the pace early on and again keep in mind the fractions you can't it's not an apples-to-apples comparison because there's no run-up over at king abdulaziz and honestly basically most places internationally there's no run-up no none of that stuff so clock starts the minute the gate's open it may not look all that fast but it's considerably faster than it actually was when you see secret ambition break and go which we kind of expected to be the case he was going to be the wrinkle the fly in the ointment from many of the other speed types that he had one way to go and it seemed unlikely he was going to stick around at the end but you knew he would be aggressive he goes we saw some other horses figure prominently early including mandalone who will get into mandolin and a few of the big horses that just didn't fire but the pace was lively and again it felt like the only headline of the the evening other than whoever you know which is whichever favor ended up winning the saudi cup was going to be the japanese dominance and lo and behold the shocker of all shockers happens they turn for home country grammar putting in his bid off of a lengthy layoff midnight bourbon the two of them hook up looks like it's gonna come down to one of them and then the local horses first making miracles and then the eventual winner emblem road rallies down the center of the track beneath wiggy ramos and upsets everything at which again in riyadh in live real time sort of scenario we don't know what the prices are because there's no gambling over there but i knew doing homework leading into the week that he was more or less an afterthought uh to be fair both of the local horses and the reason they were after thoughts you know in hindsight you look back and and did you miss anything no the local horses were i mean we're talking about some of the best dirt horses in the world and even if they're not the best dirt horses you're talking about some of the best turf horses in the world trying a different surface so the quality was off the charts and maybe it's a little short-sighted to just say the local contingent didn't deserve a deeper consideration because they were both horses that were in great form you just don't expect that to happen we're getting closer to march madness it feels very much like the 15 beating the two or in the you know the one instance of the 16 beating the one it just regardless of the circumstances seems like such an implausible result that no i'm not surprised that i've seen some over in europe the horse was somewhere around 80 to 1 number here in the states i've seen anywhere between 110 and 115 to 1. i mean we're talking about and i haven't gone back and watched the broadcast since because you know i passed out when i got home but i i hope we did a good enough job of emphasizing the idea that what you saw was i mean our kong comes to mind in 93 in the breeders cup he was an even larger price but i mean we're talking on the short list of all-time upsets i also forgot in the heat of the moment on saturday that uh torquato tasso was a was a giant number in last year's ark the german horse i think he was in that 75 or 80 to 1 range i could be wrong don't quote me on that but that's off the top of my head it was just a stunning stunning result and i've never been at an event where the atmosphere was what it was there at king abdulaziz on saturday night because the only thing that came close there were there were two and they both involved american pharaoh one was his triple crown win in the belmont that was different because the anticipation was so high everyone was hopeful that it would happen and just purely on a numbers standpoint there was a hundred and some thousand people there the grand stand of belmont park shook like you thought the building was gonna fall down that was one another but on sort of the flip side was the travers that year at saratoga where the anticipation and the noise level is through the roof and then all of a sudden you can hear a pin drop when keen ice gets up to defeat him but the thing that made saturday's environment there on site and and maybe i've seen the replay you know i've watched a number of times you can hear it but i don't even know that it does justice to how loud it was there it was it was incredibly loud and because it was the local horse or one of the local hopes anyway it i mean it was it was a stirring stirring environment um just a crazy just a crazy result uh and i will say as someone who and perhaps it comes off this way from time to time and you know i don't want it to but it's someone who can can be down from time to time on results and races and get so stuck into the the analysis of just purely looking at it from a nuts and bolts standpoint this that or the other that was the first race in a while that and it did it kind of a little bit of a you know re-energizing for me because it was it was electric just to see the horse or a horse that no one really gave a chance roll down the center of the track and beat even with the big horses not firing beat a really really good group of horses and do it on you know from a pace standpoint he was slow out of the gate and then ramos again a local rider he's been based there for you know for a long long time now but many people have brought up he was aboard the the horse that upset in the 93 florida derby at a million to one as well you know there's that element of local knowledge and i tweeted it friday when we were there you know we were going through just doing some some communications things and getting ready for saturday but i had been watching tape from the racetrack for months now or over the past few months and those wide moves on the main track have been very good throughout they just have been and and speed on turf has been an advantageous place to be and for the most part you saw that on saturday evening as well but i mean it was just it it got the juices flowing again man it was a really incredible environment and atmosphere and just i i mean i don't know it was hard not to get caught up in the moment of you just saw something that you're never going to forget and again i was fortunate enough to be there covering it but purely from a fan standpoint watching the event i mean that's one and it helps when and i'm this is the first time i had met him i knew basically of the the folks on air i knew nick i knew michelle i'd never met tom before uh and i never met john hunt and i i tweeted it on saturday night after the race i mean just i i don't know that you could have produced a better call for really going through the entire thing he picked up teo kane's floundering early in the race um the fact that you know march lorraine was in a pretty good position the fact that mandalone was empty i believe he said cooked at the top of the lane um just a fantastic call he's a super nice guy awesome guy fun to chat with he myself and tom stanley uh we did a little breakfast show on thursday with some of the horses working out and just kind of going over a number of different things just a great group of folks to to work with but um yeah what a result what a result i'm still kind of buzzing from it a little bit i mean just those are the sort of things i think if you're someone who and i mean look we all deal with it from a racing standpoint but just in general you know there's a there are bigger things going on in the world um sad disappointing depressing kind of stuff and then we you know you get involved with some of the other racing things and you see some other stuff with sports i mean major league baseball and all the nonsense going on there it's you know you feel like you get beat down from time to time something like this is a nice pick-me-up it reminds you why you first fell in love with some of these things and why you still pay attention because you deep down you love these things and just uh an incredible result um congratulations to the connections and i'll be fascinated to see you would think you'd go to dubai for the world cup with emblem road um i you know if i'm being frank he probably deserves to be a long shot in that race again i'm not gonna let one result be the thing that changes the narrative of everything but he deserves a shot he just won the richest race in the world why not go on with it uh other horses coming out of the race now let's let's pivot into more of the the analysis standpoint before we shift our attention to the the local or the domestic races that happened over the weekend specifically the rebel and the honeybee the runner-up country grammar i had mentioned during the broadcast and all throughout the week that of the american foursome the quartet i thought he was the most intriguing runner because i maintained that he was a good horse and i will pat myself a little bit on the back here if you'll recall going back to last year when the breeders cup classic rankings began to come out and i voted week in and week out until they were sidelined and one of them unfortunately just didn't fire really beyond that one two i had royal ship country grammar i thought they were both two of the best older horses in the states country grammar unfortunately was sidelined royal ship ended up running a couple of clunkers at del mar and then he was sidelined so i'm i feel a little bit vindicated it's not vindicated validated whatever word you want to use country grammar is a good racehorse and coming into this race purely on a figure standpoint he was the fastest american horse going into it he's a good horse early with the lead change bothered me a little bit especially for a horse coming off of a lengthy layoff but for him to do that at a one turn mile and an eighth i think baffert and company have to be pleased with that performance sure you would have liked to have won but assuming he's sound coming out of it you gotta think he's a prime prime player for a race like the world cup coming up in about four weeks time and no there's no guarantee he's gonna be able to run with a horse like life is good but let's just say while i don't believe it's necessarily the case let's say life is good has an issue at a mile and a quarter country grammar i have no que no question that he can get that distance i have no question that a mile and a quarter is something within his scope if he's a tighter version off that sort of run off of a lengthy layoff i think you have to look at country grammar as a legitimate alternative to a horse like life is good if they do choose to go to the dubai world cup uh midnight bourbon i'll tell you what he ran and you know he ran so much better than i i don't want to say that i thought he would run but at the top of the lane he looked like he could be a winner in the race and he flattened out some at the end i have to think at this point and we'll get the man to loon in a second i had mentioned the thought of i want to see him turn back i wonder if he's a prime example of a horse that's been doing things and he's been doing them well despite the fact they didn't really want to do them and i'm saying this with the caveat that steve asperson knows much much more than i do but watching him run he gets a little short at the end of some of these races he doesn't have to have the lead i i love i'd love to at least see what 7 8 of a mile would work the churchill downs on the undercard of the derby grade 1 7 8 of a mile between now and then that gives him a good two months get him back here give him a little bit of a breather get him in for a month and then bang take a shot if not that the mile makes sense i think but i'd love to see him i'd love to see a turn back for him he's a very talented horse when you see him continuing to to not struggle at the end but he doesn't finish as well as many of his counterparts do can't help but think part of it is because maybe he just doesn't really want to go this far and who knows maybe turning him back will really fully sort of you know get into that untapped potential midnight bourbon i thought ran really well mandalone was terrible and i don't know i don't really know where you want to go from here he's another one though that i'd like to turn back find out maybe he's been going a little bit too far i said it on the pod last week i don't know what his ideal distance is is he a mile on an eight is he a mile and a 16th is he a mile and a quarter is he seven eighths i would try to turn it i would turn him back as well see what happens doesn't mean that you can't stretch him back out in time but find out i would think if maybe they do want to go shorter and there's nothing wrong with having a one turn horse luckily for the boys you got many options you've got the churchill downs you've got the grade one mile you've got the forego at saratoga you know you've got maybe some slightly lesser races as far as the grading is concerned but you've got the ack act that you can run in there there are many options for one turn runners and if you still believe that you've got a big time one turn runner who's to say you don't wait for a race like the the uh woodward at belmont park in the fall as far as breeders cup time goes this year it's at keeneland you're probably looking at the two-turn dirt mile or if you think he continues to develop and you take another shot at the classic you know i mean there are many things you can do but i would be curious at this point anyway if again i use frosted as the example these horses that they're so good that they can do other things but when you allow them to actually do what they want frost has met mile who knows about these two horses midnight bourbon and mandalon they explode i'd at least like to find out if that is the case as far as the rest of the field is concerned the japanese contingent oh art collector he was part of that pace early on and i just think it was much much hotter than maybe it even seemed at face value um not gonna hold that race totally against them the japanese contingent march lorraine actually ran quite well she was traveling well and behind horses and when the real running started she just kind of finished evenly but she gave a good account of herself i loved t.o kane's going in and john hunt alluded to it i mean he was cooked early the interesting thing is he actually like stayed on at the end and i do wonder perhaps some of it had to do with kickback we had heard earlier in the week that the japanese contingent they were concerned and the folks involved specifically the teal canes they were concerned that the dirt at king abdulaziz was different than the dirt that he had run on or had been running on in japan and they thought perhaps that mars lorraine would take to it better than he would based on the result that's exactly how it played out but um i don't i don't regret going with him i i thought that champion's cup was a tremendous performance and if he replicated it he would have been right there at the wire and unfortunately for me and you know anybody that may have actually backed him uh he didn't replicate that performance it's part of the game you you do your handicapping you come to your conclusion and you hope that you're right sometimes you are sometimes you're not uh and mishrif will end on on him and there are other horses in the race and if you have questions about them or thoughts leave them beneath the video player on youtube or on twitter at bernie or underscore matt um mishra if i i don't know what that was keep in mind we hadn't seen him since the champions stakes race in which he ran really really poorly i attributed that more to condition than anything else and when i say condition i mean the ground he was terrible he was really bad in this race and you have to wonder if something's wrong for him to run that poorly i mean this is a horse that typically shows up and even if he doesn't win he runs a respectable and admirable race he was he was dreadful on saturday and um you hope he's okay um but yeah just a shockingly bad performance i you know if if emblem road didn't win the shock of the race would have been the disappointment of in the states anyway the co-favor not co-favorites i shouldn't say that mandel loom is a pretty clear-cut favorite in the states but the top two choices mishrif and mandalon running i think 9th and 14th i mean like terribly and that would have been the story and instead the story is emblem road winning what was just uh a wild wild result in the 2022 saudi cup we'll find out maybe this is just the beginning for emblem road um be very interested to see what the form of this race looks like coming out of it where these horses go from here and what your overall thoughts are on the race itself the 2022 saudi cup or even the undercard races so i'm happy to dive into those next week if people have other questions thoughts or comments before we transition into recapping the derby prep and the oaks prep and we'll lump them together because they could not be on more opposite ends of the spectrum and that'll be all we'll go over here on this week's show a quick word from our friends at sam houston race park make plans to head on down to houston for an nhc qualifier on march 26th at sam houston race park there's a big contest going on thousand dollar entry fee it's all bankroll and you keep what you have left tour points will be available in the top two finishers when all expenses paid trips to the nhc in february of 2023 for more details head on over to shrp.com that's shrp sam houston race park big contest going on nhc qualifier march 26th on site check out all the details our friends down at sam houston in texas all right let's take a quick break when we come back what to make of the races in hot springs all right we're going to wrap up this week's show going over the two preps that we had at oaklawn you had the rebel you had the honeybee the two races couldn't be farther apart as far as importance is concerned to their respective races the derby and the oaks let's start with the bad and get this out of the way i i like newgrange i think newgrange is a talented horse he didn't show that on saturday when you look at this race won by unoho paid 152.75 to one careerbest buyer of 84. the time form us fig is uh i believe somewhere there abouts like a 107 call it could be even slower i don't really have much positive to say about this race i don't know how you can i mean none of the horses ran particularly quick ethereal road in 83 barber road in 83 cavett an 81 but i mean newgrange was bad dash attack didn't improve i chasing time didn't do anything i i didn't think any of the trips were awful i just i think it's a bad group the new grange i suppose you can just be kind and you know give him the benefit of the doubt but he was so bad i i i mean i think it's a really bad race really bad and maybe one of these horses will make me think otherwise i suppose if you are really really grasping at straws who's the winner from this race maybe it's early voting who won the withers by four and a half lengths and defeated unoho who ran second i guess this kind of flatters him but again i think the race is bad um i don't know what you want to do with this so purely from a prep rating standpoint and i don't know i'm going to really go into like trips and things like that i suppose if you want to look at it barbara rhode moved up down the backside inside horses got into a position then wasn't really moving all that well in the turn and kicked on at the end i would like to think that maybe the horse is a little bit greener he's run seven times and from a fig standpoint he's effectively run the same race what each of his past four 84 78 86 83 i mean he's just not getting any better runs in spots it seems like i don't know i mean i'm really struggling to pull positives from this congratulations to the connections i mean it's a it's got to be an exciting time you've punched your ticket to the kentucky derby but i mean i would be stunned if this horse based on today anyway had any real effect on the outcome the first saturday in may having said this i just saw a horse that was 110 to 1 or whatever it was when the saudi cup so anything is possible but just looking at the race and the way it played out i'm giving the prep rating of one i just don't see how you're gonna get anything out of this race to truly affect the outcome of the kentucky derby and having said that the boys i initially thought it was a good group i still do i'm not ready to write them off but i will say past few weeks leave you a little bit a little lukewarm which then rolls into the honeybee and the complete opposite where secret oath she wins again and not only does she win again she wins by open links again and she does it in a fashion that i loved she earns a 92 buyer i believe it was a 111 time form us rating so they they seem to check out for the most part but for her to the big thing that i wrote in my trip notes my form note anyway for drff's product is the agility that she shows rounding the far turn to be willing and able to scoot up the inside after being in a little bit of a box going into and rounding the far turn there's a little hole that opens up down on the inside and for contreras to be able to get her down there and for her to kick through i think that is a very encouraging sign and there's also something to be said about i hate the phrase turn of foot on dirt i think it's silly i think it's a bit of a misnomer it's the same idea as like cruising speed what does that mean it's just how she runs but i know i'm in the minority there and i know it makes me sound like a curmudgeon but the turn and foot thing i think of it as a quickening she actually does appear to have a turn of foot on dirt which is i think much more unique than it's made out to be at the three-quarter but the third call of the race she is what a length behind the leader and at the next point of call she's five clear i mean in the blink of an eye she's opened up five now you can look at that one of two ways you can look at it and say she's brilliant or you can look at it and say she got nothing running behind her as is the case with almost everything the truth's probably in the middle um but she is extremely talented there's no you know there's no denying that now no arguing it i know again going back to when this philly was brought up or brought to my attention we talked about her on the pod by that that listener and that viewer um i said i got it i got to see it without the lasix because she had just taken such a substantial jump from that run in the goldenrod to that allowance race where she moved her buyers up 29 points and she's done that she's backed it up in these last two races no she hasn't run faster than the 93 but the way that she's doing it um i i mean there's nothing to knock the only concern if you're looking for a red flag or a reason to possibly try to fade her or go against her that the three massive races have come in oklahom park and while she did win and break her maiden and blow out fashion at churchill down she ran slow she'll need to show that she can transfer that form to another track but i mean i i don't the tape backs up what the numbers suggest that she's good and when she when she puts these fields to bed she puts them to bed in the blink of an eye i think i think she's a very very interesting philly not just for the run into the oaks but going forward because she's by arrowgate and unfortunately we're not going to have a great uh a great sample to work with as far as arrowgate's progeny are concerned because of his untimely death but i mean i i wonder if if she and any of his other offspring are going to be like he was where they got better as they got older really uh until he you know blew the engine after the dubai race the only other thing i'll throw in there about secret oath and echo zulu who has not come back yet but she's working and again to this person's eye um i mean she looks like a million dollars on the racetrack as she always has with the boys being as uh suspect as they are unless something ridiculous happens on first saturday in the fountain of youth or the san felipe and one of the some horse or a few horses run massive races and earn big big and what i'm saying big big numbers i'm saying at least high 90 low 100s if i'm involved with secret oath or i'm involved with echo zulu i'm i'm running against the boys in the next race secret oath even more so because the arkansas boys look terrible right now which to be fair is probably going to open the door for out of towners to look and go what are we afraid of in the arkansas derby down there so maybe that field ends up being a little bit saltier you get some more shippers but if you're just talking about the local hopes in arkansas i mean she's as good as any of them if not better echo zulu she's going to have to come back to the races at some point will she be cranked up and ready to go first off the bench i don't know but we're getting pretty pretty close to the point where it's going to be one prep and then oaks slash derby but the reason i would do it is because both of these girls echo zulu i guess is a little bit closer to being bubblish but i mean you're probably gonna have your points to get into the oaks and you're gonna in theory run one more time no matter what so what what is the downside if your secret oath to running in the arkansas derby and by the way it's not lost on me that wayne lucas is her trainer if she runs in the arkansas derby and it doesn't work for whatever reason fine you got your final prep in you got four weeks you're running the kentucky oaks you're one of the favorites if you're echo zulu i believe last i looked she's got 30 points i want to say and again i'm gonna do what everyone loves you're listening to something or you're watching something and somebody's doing research um the oaks phillies secret oath 60 points is more than enough to get her in and echo zul's got 30. let's say it's it caps out at a 14 horse field i mean there's still a long way to go for horses to pass echo zulu i suppose if you're fearful of not being able to get enough points to get into the oaks then sure run run in one of the the philly preps and and go from there but if she's as good as you know her two-year-old form suggests and we think that she's going to be somewhat close to that going forward why not run in boy louisiana derby would be a tough spot for her to come back in because that's running a mile and 3 16. you probably would have to get her out of town i don't know if you want to do that but point being if these girls ran against the boys in the final round of preps and it didn't work so be it we go back and we run on the oaks and we're the two horses to beat if it works then you have a choice to make and let's say they don't win let's say they run really well against the boys and they get their points that they need to get into the starting gate you can look at it and say do we and the beauty is your the connections would have all that lead in time basically until whatever you know entries are taken roughly a week out from oaks and derby you have all that time to make a decision of what race you'd want to go in you can take a full view of the landscape and say you know what the girls there's nothing behind us we're not worried about it or the boys they haven't developed we have a chance if either of them win whatever race they could run against the boys in i mean again the world is it's theirs for for the taking they can do what they want um again i'm not someone who cares about the whole oh let the girls i get the the logic of you have a major prize that is restricted to just phillies why would you bypass that but in the big picture if the boys keep looking pedestrian and these two girls keep running the way that they have or we've seen them in the past why wouldn't you take a shot that's just my feeling and by the way don't forget out on the west coast you've still got a dare manner and who knows what the whole baffert thing will be but she's she's very good you know so it's not as though the oaks would be a a cupcake even if it's just these two well somebody's gotta win somebody's gotta lose the derby i mean how many of the derby horses are you terrified of i like the louisiana path right now i think all those horses are good and that's why i kind of preface this conversation by saying let's see what happens this coming saturday if somebody runs big in the fountain of youth or somebody runs big out in southern california maybe the whole tune changes but if they all kind of do what they've been doing what do you have to lose what are you afraid of just my two cents let me know what your thoughts are about secret oath about unoho about the honeybee as a whole about the rebel as a whole and what these two divisions look like going forward because don't look now but we've got what roughly eight-ish weeks until the first friday and saturday in may clock's ticking let me know your thoughts are beneath the video player on youtube or on twitter burnier underscore matt however you listen thank you for doing so please rate review subscribe you know all the places to find the pod you know where to find the video version again saturday myself ptf guests we will be on for three hours we're going to be doing a two hour shift then breaking to allow the avr coverage they're going to be coming on to go over the prep races and then ptf and i will be coming back for a final hour of coverage for first saturday got all the action from gulfstream all the action from santa anita we can you can follow along with this you can also watch on tvg all day you can also watch on cnbc with the nbc crew who's going to be covering both sets of races plenty of ways to take in all the excitement from first saturday this coming saturday march the 5th again also don't forget to check out our friends at sam houston race park about that big nhc qualifier coming up in just a few short weeks time so that's going to do it for episode 105 however you i can't remember what how i typically sign this thing off best of luck however you play whatever you play and wherever you play there it is i knew it would come back for a second this has been episode 105 of the map earning your show we'll see you this weekend [Music]

Channel: In The Money Media Network

Views: 1,386

Keywords:

Id: s-9lW0kY4rk

Length: 38min 43sec (2323 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 28 2022