[jai7123]

Anyone Following Tampa Bay Downs? Edges ? Angles?

Beautiful track and trying to figure out all the shippers etc.

Some observations and share yours or disagree, let's get our heads together, this winter time meet is not like others with all the shippers, small timers, new stables/jocks, big trainers bringing horses down for the nice grass course etc.

1) Well Jamie Ness still winning at an obscene rate, wins off the claim, moving horse up, down off layoff and even a first time starter here and there.

Andrew Beyer wrote a good article on him and his 46% win rate last year. He's harder to figure now to me and maybe the party is over.

Ness's horses being written out of races to enter?

Is he forcing horses in situations where they can't win.

No longer a blind bet but always hammered at window. I know he's spread his operations to more tracks. Is this angle disappearing? I don't know where he gets all these horses from layoff etc.

2) Jock Centeno and Jock Serpa win a lot.

Skill or quality of mounts? I notice a lot more inexperienced/lower quality jocks causing traffic problems. or pushing the lead with non-contenders.

3) More grass races seem to draw good/great trainers with youngsters. Hard to rate off layoffs with just works and a race or two from up north.

4) I noticed J. Cibelli is winning at a crazy rate.

5) Shippers from Gulfstream do well as usual.

6) Big trainers with live mounts for stakes races seem to prevail especially when the jock comes down or up for one race. Like this angle.

7) Old timer J. Espinosa last few weekends has been spending the day or Sat/Sun in Tampa and wins with cheap horses and big timers. Also with different trainers. What's up with him?

8) Lots of public money and decent pools and not as much "pound the obvious" chalk.

9) I do see some barns (or some people inside) betting first timers who outperform their pedigree and work outs.

I see this as a good angle this meet with many barns.

These people must have a way of not getting some workouts published any insight?

Any edges I miss, don't see? Disagree?

I'm having a decent meet. Weather great, track nice condition, pools nice. It's a unique place and meet.

[Easy-Rider 66]

Thx for the observations. TBD is a good track to bet imo. Not as good as Keeneland, DeL Mar, Saratoga, but in my top 10. GL.

[mikemca]

Ness is a cancer to the sport.Especially for the horse player because in the end you are purely guessing with his horses.If you try to regularly handicap his horses then you are going to be on a lot of 3-5 shots that run up the track.Its not just at TB/LRL/DEL anymore but he has started to spread into the major tracks on NYRA and GP.He gets all his horses by claiming them, then laying them off while he works his magical powers.That's why it seems a lot of his runners are coming in off some kind of lay off.


Centeno,Serpa, and Cibelli all solid at Tampa.With the exception of Cibelli there is a reason they are at Tampa.The surprise imo has been Curatolo as he has been pretty bad ever since he lost his bug until this meet.Every handicapper has their own way of going about it but I feel sometimes that it is best to ignore the human connections.You can find a good horse that is overlooked only because he/she isn't in a top barn with a top rider.

Espinosa is a solid jock, he is just buried in the pecking order in NY where he mostly shines on the turf with speed horses.Surprised he hasn't gone elsewhere until now where he can be live on any type.

With all the private farms now it is easy to hide workouts.When they do show slow works though its not an automatic toss.A lot of trainers will only let their horses run the last furlong so while they might show a slow :50 4f work it would look a lot better if you knew that they galloped 3f in 38 and 1 but came home in :11.3 and galloped out 5 in 1:02 flat.Sometimes they will even be given credit for the 5f in 1:02 and think how bad that would look on the face but in reality it was a very strong move.

[jai7123]

Ness is a cancer to the sport.Especially for the horse player because in the end you are purely guessing with his horses.If you try to regularly handicap his horses then you are going to be on a lot of 3-5 shots that run up the track.Its not just at TB/LRL/DEL anymore but he has started to spread into the major tracks on NYRA and GP.He gets all his horses by claiming them, then laying them off while he works his magical powers.That's why it seems a lot of his runners are coming in off some kind of lay off.

Centeno,Serpa, and Cibelli all solid at Tampa.With the exception of Cibelli there is a reason they are at Tampa.The surprise imo has been Curatolo as he has been pretty bad ever since he lost his bug until this meet.Every handicapper has their own way of going about it but I feel sometimes that it is best to ignore the human connections.You can find a good horse that is overlooked only because he/she isn't in a top barn with a top rider.

Espinosa is a solid jock, he is just buried in the pecking order in NY where he mostly shines on the turf with speed horses.Surprised he hasn't gone elsewhere until now where he can be live on any type.

With all the private farms now it is easy to hide workouts.When they do show slow works though its not an automatic toss.A lot of trainers will only let their horses run the last furlong so while they might show a slow :50 4f work it would look a lot better if you knew that they galloped 3f in 38 and 1 but came home in :11.3 and galloped out 5 in 1:02 flat.Sometimes they will even be given credit for the 5f in 1:02 and think how bad that would look on the face but in reality it was a very strong move.

Thanks for the insight and observations.

It's kind of a nice winter home/meet for a wide variety of horses, barns and jocks. You got the bottom of the barrel on one hand yet Motion, Mott, Sheppard, Pletcher all ship down new 3 yr olds for the grass course and stakes races.

Yes, you are right most if not all the jocks are all B and C rated... Centeno and the rest all spend the rest of the year at the bottom of the barrel east coast tracks like Penn, Presque Isles etc. as are a lot of the horses and trainers who deal with cheap claimers picking pockets at the northern racinos that nobody considers decent anymore.

How much cheating goes on? Well it seems like it goes in cycles.

1) Ness - Yeah, he's spread operations to like a dozen tracks and some places his magic works, other places he's ordinary or awful.

Hard to believe he won more races than any trainer in North America last year but he's got a lot of money backing him so he can claim for $16,000 and a month later put the horse in a $5,000 and yeah 3-5 and either wins by 9 or is vanned off on 3 legs.

Can't handicap and anyone winning at that rate is feeding more than oats and be it Oscar Barrera or Lance Armstrong every cheater gets caught.

Last year they raided Ness' barn looking for juice and whatever else he's using in Tampa but he was as I understand tipped off and he skated.

He says he worms them, feeds them and gives them time off and they run for him. YEAH RIGHT.

He's in the league of Mike Gill and Mark Shuman when these crooks had a reign of terror starting in Florida and expanded into NY and big leagues.

Remember a few years ago- claiming/juicing/cash tickets/repeat.

"It seems that two of the Gill-Shuman horses that ran so well at Saratoga last Summer were drugged with an anti-psychotic med called fluphenazine. Now from today's DRF story, Michael Gill is not complaining about getting caught, he is complaining that New York had a rule against running on the drug. What a disgrace!
http://www.drf.com/news/article/61692.html"

2) Jocks - A few years ago they threw out a dozen jocks including Houghton, Jacobs and bottom of the barrel bandits from garbage circuits like Houghton and others who get the boot every where but still ride.

Seven jockeys are banned from Tampa Bay Downs Three former riding champions are among those refused access to the track. http://www.sptimes.com/2006/12/20/Sports/Seven_jockeys_are_ban.shtml

3) Tampa while ago started not sending their signal or taking even parimutual money from certain overseas shoppes that was fine print in the news.

So why bet there?

It can be profitable ie. when certain combos/angles are clicking, throw away form. If you can figure out when it stops, you'll protect your profits. That's my problem now.

I was blindly betting Ness, Centeno and Serpa but it doesn't take long to lose profits since they are hard to figure. I noticed a lot of "even worse" riders all over the track causing traffic problems and yeah most fields have shippers from all over and who's live? Who's incompetent? Who's laying low?

Early season was good to me but now I'm trying to handicap horses who've had a few trips over the track.

1) The crap dropping from $50,000 tag to $8,000 off layoffs and crap works aren't winning any more.
2) Ness off the claim can't get them winning next start or he'll win with a horse 4 times in a row and drop and lose? Where he actually is I wonder since he's got animals everywhere.
3) Lots of maiden and turf races.
4) Most jocks have no sense of pace on anything not 5 furlongs on dirt, every day you see 2 go head to head 15 lengths ahead and down the lane you see jocks 7 wide and others trapped on the rail. All these races are exposing their lack of talent and getting in the way of what looks live.

So, obviously I concentrate on this meet but am puzzled, unlucky? unskilled? as of late and wonder what to look at if it isn't a big purse/race on weekend.

[jai7123]

More cheating and this was an article written last week, stumbled upon it, what gives?

Michigan man pleads to trying to fix races at Tampa Bay Downs

Associated Press
Posted: Feb 05, 2013 10:24 PM

http://www.tampabay.com/news/courts/...cle1273941.ece

DETROIT — A Michigan businessman has pleaded guilty in connection with a scheme to cheat on sports betting, including trying to fix races at Tampa Bay Downs, authorities said.
Mitchell "Ed" Karam pleaded guilty Monday in Detroit federal court to charges that include conspiring to fix horse races at Tampa Bay Downs other tracks in 2005 and 2006, as well as conspiracy in a point-shaving investigation involving football and basketball at the University of Toledo in 2004-06.
Karam's plea comes nearly four years after he was indicted in the Toledo probe with Detroit businessman Ghazi "Gary" Manni.
According to court records, Karam and others attempted to get insider information on horse races run at several tracks, including Tampa Bay Downs, by bribing jockeys and persuading some of them to "give less than their best effort to win."
Records show Karam and Manni bets hundreds of thousands of dollars on sports events.
Karam has not yet been sentenced.

[daoilman]

I often follow Ron Allen Jr. at Tampa, not a high percentage of winners but a square mutual here and there and he seems to be fairly honest in his rides. I look for him with stalkers and speed types, seldom do I use him with horses that come from way out of it, but to be honest, I seldom play any horses that come from way out of it.