Tuesday Thoughts

Some thoughts after the big weekend...

• Saturday's Majestic Light Stakes was, to put it mildly, an exercise in absurdity. Even though eleven horses entered, a whopping six of them scratched. Six! You almost never see that, unless the race is taken off the grass.
  What really grinds my gears, however, is the fact that all the scratches were merely listed under "trainer", which could mean anything from the horse is hurt to the trainer decided to scratch for the hell of it. That's unbelievable. I get that, sometimes, horses have to be scratched because they're hurt, or sick, or whatever, but tracks could at least tell us that's the case (like they do in harness racing). And if a trainer wants to scratch and the horse isn't hurt or sick...well, they shouldn't be allowed to.
  Now, I noticed that trainer David Jacobson entered three, and scratched two of them. In those kind of cases, why not just couple all of his horses? That way, if he decides to scratch two of his, at least the amount of betting interests in the race stays the same.
• With seven winners over the weekend, Paco Lopez moved himself to the top of the jockey standings, where I will imagine he will stay for the rest of the season.
  Meanwhile, Navin Mangalee, of all people, leads the way in terms of winning percentage, winning with 25% of his mounts. He guided home a 20/1 winner, Trockette, in yesterday's finale.
• Speaking of jockeys, I'm happy to hear that Elvis Trujillo will be bringing his tack back to Jersey from California. I welcome him back, and hope that he resumes the success he had here at Monmouth some years ago.
• David Jacobson, meanwhile, leads the trainer standings with five winners. Him and Andre Worrie have combined for four winners so far this year. If their horses keep going off at odds-on, however, don't expect to make too much money off of him.
• I saw the nominations for this weekend's stakes, the John Reilly and the Open Mind, both for Jersey-breds. The Reilly nominations include a solid bunch of sixteen, including the venerable Hop Skip and Away, Claiming Crown Express winner Loverbil, and 2013 Jersey Shore Stakes winner Rainbow Heir.
  The Open Mind, however, only drew eight nominations. Hopefully all of them go, but at this point, I would just be happy if it filled (which would require five entries). We'll see how it shakes out.
• I'm happy to see the grass sprints returned this weekend. What I'm not happy about is that there's still no fractions for the 5 1/2 furlong races. Maybe someday...
• Public Service Announcement: there will be NO selections for the Sunday program. I will have picks for Saturday, but not Sunday. Keep that in mind.

Those are all the thoughts I have about Monmouth at the moment. See you later in the week for Saturday's picks.