It’s been ages since I have posted. Turns out 2023 wasn’t a great handicapping year, in terms of time, volume, and success.

I just ran my year end stats, and booked a small ($300 ish) loss for the year. My handle was less than half of my better years. Real life often intervenes, and a home renovation and the 9-5 clearly dominated for me.

A little road trip to Penn National for Penn Mile early in the summer was my grand day out, and a nice score with some extra hit it and split it money on Belmont Day was the playing highlight.

I’ve slowly been trying to rebuild the playback book, which totally waned in the late summer/fall. A nice hit on John Sadler’s Autoline this past week will spur me into 2024 with a bit more enthusiasm.

Today’s Smarty Jones at Oaklawn Park kicked off my campaign of tracking horses for the 2024 Kentucky Derby, which I’ll try to do a much better job of this spring!

Gettysburg Address took the worst of the bumping early and Prat took him back and tried to make a big run. I’ll offer him a little forgiveness for taking the bump, and he finished stronger than most, though was never gaining on winner Catching Freedom, who benefitted from an inside out trip behind a solid 23.2 pace and finished up well.

Informed Patriot was a good third for Asmussen and Santana, and took a little bump down on the rail and never really got a full run at the winner. Don’t know that he was ever winning, but may have been closer with a better trip. He was hemmed in most of the way, but then didn’t completely fire when he did have daylight late.

That’s all for now . . . Happy New Year to one and all, and let’s cash in 2024!