California Dreamin'

Been a while since the Capper has found time to rant, rave and vent, but yesterday's Morvich Handicap (GIII) on the downhill turf course at Oak Tree @ Santa Anita gave me reasons aplenty to unload this morning.

As a "Win and You're In" qualifier, the Morvich also served as a midweek play in the Breeders' Cup Fantasy Challenge, where the Frugal Capper is now in 22nd place after a bad case of thirditis two weeks ago and yesterday's misstep.

A quick scan of the past performances showed Get Funky to be a somewhat vulnerable favorite and nowhere near the value we're looking for in tournament play. From there, I gave strong consideration to Rebellion, easily the class of the field but ultimately shortening up too much for his late run to take a short price. After also giving strong consideration to Ten Maropa and One Union, I had finally narrowed it down to Desert Code, 8/1 on the morning line, and California Flag, a 30/1 bomb that I couldn't get off of.

That was based on 2 things - his July 2nd race, an allowance race he wired comfortably at 6 furlongs over the Hollywood turf course, was faster at every call than the July 6th race over the same course that both One Union and Get Funky exited, with Get Funky prevailing by a head. With Tropic Storm scratching out, I was pretty sure the Flag would make a fairly easy lead, with Desert Code his only real pace pressure.

The second key was the jock/trainer angle: in 9 starts at Santa Anita over the past year, the Brian Koriner/Joseph Talamo pairing has hit at 33% (3 of 9), for a huge $5.58 ROI...meaning they've gotten a couple bombs to the wire on top.

So it seems like a great play, right? Like the kind of play that you need to make to win a tournament, right? You're right, it was. Unfortunately, I didn't play it.

Despite the above check marks in California Flag's favor, and despite my lingering concern that Desert Code needed one start to freshen off the layoff, I still had enough faith that with his first run on the leader, he would get to the wire just ahead of Flag and Get Funky. As it turns out, he came up empty in the stretch and faded to 7th. What makes it even more painful is that even from a value perspective, he was the wrong play. His projected win/place payout of $16.40 equals the place payout of California Flag...whose capped win payout of $42 meant a total of $58.40 for the 44 players in the tournament who made that bold play.

The moral of the story? Trust your process. When you drill down and find a key race, or key comparable races, don't be afraid to make the bold play. OK, lesson learned. It's time to tackle Saturday's card and get back into this thing.