Fair Grounds handicapping roundup: Week of Feb. 1

Betting trends

January has been a strong month for Rosie Napravnik. She’s riding well, getting live mounts, and wound going a very nice 95-23-15-8 for the month.

That’s a 24 percent win rate, which is excellent for a jockey, and Napravnik’s win mark got higher as the month went along. But her $2 return on investment during this strong run? A paltry $1.32 – and paltry might be too strong a word.

Napravnik used to be a leading Fair Grounds rider who generated a healthy ROI. During the 2010-2011 meet, when she won her first Fair Grounds riding title, Napravnik was a bettor’s dream, her 22 percent win rate producing a $2.09 ROI. During the 2011-2012 meet, when she was better known as a Fair Grounds stalwart, her meet ROI still was $1.80. Last season, that number slipped to $1.58, and this year she’s at $1.51 for the meet.

This trend surprises me. In her fourth year at Fair Grounds, the “buzz” should be gone from Napravnik. I would expect at this point that her mere presence in the saddle would produce the same sort of effect any leading rider has on the odds of her mounts, but that is not what we’re seeing. The Rosie Effect seems as strong as ever, and it has to be accounted for when considering what kind of value can be extracted from Fair Grounds wagers.

◗ What is going on with the run on Tom Amoss-trained starters? Sure, Amoss is having his typically strong Fair Grounds season, but his horses – especially recently – have been getting crazily bet. Amoss himself expressed disbelief the other day that Delaunay had gone off at 2-5 in the Jan. 25 Gaudin. This was a 7-year-old former claimer returning from a long layoff after losing his best form. But race 1 the next day, Jan. 26, was even worse: Portentous, who had coughed up an easy lead last out at the same class level and distance, went off at insane odds of 3-5. This time, the Amoss devotees weren’t so fortunate – Portentous checked in fifth.

◗ The Portentous race leads me to another betting trend. Portentous was obviously going to be one of two favorites in the race. But by the natural logic of handicapping and betting, she should have been a close second choice to A Noble Calling. Portentous had led and faded to second last out in a $10,000 maiden claimer, while A Noble Calling had a similar running line from a $25,000 maiden claimer. But A Noble Calling went off at 3-2 compared with Portentous’s 3-5!

That is the weird sort of wiseguy wagering that has become so prevalent, at least at Fair Grounds these days. Here’s my theory – as the number of bettors has narrowed, we’re left with a pool of more experienced and theoretically “savvier” horseplayers. But this pool, like the larger less-informed one that has diminished, has a herd instinct, too. They cluster around horses of marginal competitiveness,“value plays,” and regularly drive down odds far below what was supposed to have been fair value.

Let me give a second, more telling example – race 7 on Jan. 24. This was a second-level optional $40,000 claiming dirt route for older horses. Ground Transport was the natural favorite. He was stakes-placed at the meet, was still fairly lightly raced, and was coming off a second-place finish as the favorite at the class level and distance. He won by more than three lengths – at almost 2-1! The 6-5 favorite was Karibu Gardens, who, granted, had looked good winning his last start, but was moving up from soft first-level allowance competition, and wasn’t even fully established on dirt. Ground Transport was clearly the logical favorite, but wasn’t – wiseguys at work.

Vashchenko comes through

Here’s hoping any readers of this space paid heed to the note last week concerning trainer Pavel Vashchenko. Vashchenko had a win, two seconds, and a third from his six starters, and might have notched a second win had Fable not found trouble twice in race 9 on Jan. 26. Fable, like Vashchenko’s winner during the race week (Flying Butterfly, $14.80), was a first-time starter in a maiden claimer, and this outfit has absolutely been killing in such instances. Keep paying heed to them.

New gelding may improve

Let’s not abandon all hope for Unknown Road. Yes, his highly anticipated two-turn debut, in race 5 on Jan. 24, turned into a fiasco. Favored at 1-5, and the subject of bridge-jump show bets off a dynamic, highly rated sprint maiden win, Unknown Road pulled a bit early in his race, came under a ride at the five-sixteenths, and never picked up, finishing fourth and triggering huge show payoffs.

Days later, the horse found himself at an equine surgical clinic at Louisiana State University. Unknown Road was found to be a bilateral cryptorchid, meaning he had two undescended testicles (unilateral are much more common). Surgery was being performed to geld Unknown Road, and there’s a decent chance the condition was at the root of his hugely disappointing performance. If all goes well, he figures to make another start at the meet.