A look at the results from this weekend's stakes action. As usual, you can click on each table for a larger image.
-Congressional Page's victory in the Decathlon Stakes at Monmouth was the top race of the weekend based purely on Beyer numbers (according to DRF.com). His victory was also very nice from a visual perspective. The pacesetters in the Decathlon put up testing fractions of 22.1 and 44.1, giving the winner plenty to run at in deep stretch. But while Congressional Page finally passed the leaders in the shadow of the wire it was his big move on the turn that really won him the race; he ran the fifth furlong in 11.87 seconds, according to DRF's Formulator charts. From there it was just a matter of time before he ran down his competitors in the lane (after switching out in the lane to avoid traffic). A very solid win for this five year old son of Orientate.
-Bay to Bay's win in the American 1000 Guineas was about as easy as it could be as Robby Albarado had her under a hand ride the entire stretch. The Brian Lynch trained filly raced along in mid-pack as the leaders set pedestrian fractions of :49.09 and 1:14.18. But the "Good" Arlington Park turf course and the middling pace couldn't deter her from crushing this field by an easy 2 ½ lengths under the wire.
A three year old daughter of Sligo Bay (IRE), out of a With Approval mare, Bay to Bay is on form and improving every race; she could be a formidable filly in the turf ranks this year. The only drawback is that I'm not sure how far she's going to want to go, which might box in her connections in terms of racing options.
-The betting public sometimes has a lot of difficultly evaluating the strength or weakness of Europeans shipping over to North America, but not in this race. Kilmore Quay (IRE) had put in some decent efforts over in France but had done all of her best work at distances greater than a mile. She was rightly ignored on the tote board at 11/1.
Kilmore Quay might make a great bet in her next start provided that a) she's entered in a race with more distance, and b) she gets away from the starting gate better. After finishing a well-beaten 6th in this race, she could be available a very nice odds next time out and could be eligible to run a much better race.
-The all-turf Pick 4 on Saturday at Arlington Park paid $314.60 for $1.
-Below is a comparison of the Pick 4s at Monmouth Park this weekend, along with the payouts for each race, total Pick 4 pool, and the parlay payouts and difference for the same four races.
The early Pick 4s were pretty light but the late Pick 4s more than made up for it. The late Sunday sequence saw three logical winners with one bomb, triggering a fat $4.5k payout.
In terms of value for your money when compared to a four-race parlay, the sequences on Saturday were a much better bet than the ones on Sunday, providing an almost 20% increased return when compared to Sunday.
I am somewhat surprised at the Late Pick 4 payout on Saturday of $2,209.50. Given how many people tend to go really deep in the first leg of these sequences, and how formful the final three legs were, I would have expected a payout of something like 1,600, essentially the parlay payout. The Sunday payout makes more sense to me, as a huge bomb in the last leg will often trigger box car numbers.