It's now time to update your Cynthia Publishing par times, and for a limited time, you can save some money and get some terrific bonuses, too. These profuse rewards are our way of thanking you for your patience and support.
Translation: Your copy of the 2002 PARS PLUS Special 10th Anniversary Edition will be available for shipment soon, and that's only some of the good news. This year's pars are cause for celebration. You'll draw on our solid decade of experience in providing the ultimate in par-time information. But that's not all. You'll also leap ahead of the rest by taking your knowledge and application of pars to a spectacular new level no one else can show you. And you'll get all of this at a remarkable discount and with some very special gifts.
Back to the pars. You'll get them in our traditional, time-honored, three-call format for all the racetracks, both dirt and turf, in North America. So if you're accustomed to using the par times as the basis for your handicapping, you're set. You know the value of updating your pars annually.
But if you're hungry for extra handicapping tools, 2002 PARS PLUS has plenty to satisfy your needs. We're excited to be able to provide average daily variants; improved, more-realistic track-class levels; and more-practical intertrack class-level ratings than before. They'll help simplify your handicapping experience. These three tools alone are dynamite in getting quick reads on track-surface speeds and shippers, without needing to go through the entire exercise of comparing pars from one track to the next. In this age of full-card multi-track simulcasting, quick-handicapping is the key, and having handicapping information such as average daily variants, track-class levels and intertrack class-level ratings will slash hours from your handicapping load.
There's more. We're also pleased to be able to provide you with a brand-new way of evaluating how tracks behave for each combination of track, distance and surface. We call it WMF (Winning Move Factor), but you'll call it money. You'll use WMF to confidently eliminate noncontenders and understand how changes as subtle as switching distance or moving from one track to another can boost a horse that looks dull, or help knock off a low-odds horse that looks sharp.
Better yet, WMF is a real eye-opener that translates easily take from track to track. Ever wonder why your pet early-speed plays do better at some tracks than others? With the handy WMF, you won't be left wondering anymore. You'll know. Better yet, you'll be able to temper your enthusiasm for these plays when they take place at tracks whose WMF is disadvantageous to frontrunners. And bet with confidence over surfaces where the WMF is in your favor.
And don't worry - if you're allergic to numbers, there'll be meaningful, practical articles to help explain the numbers to you and how you can use them to help your handicapping.
By themselves, these outstanding information resources and articles would be enough. But why stop there? Perhaps the most exciting aspect of your 2002 PARS PLUS materials are the bold advances we've made in taking the practice and theory of par times to the next level. We have combined many more hours of research plus a savvy for all-important local knowledge to change the way you approach and think about the game. On each coast and everywhere in-between, you'll begin to understand the game like never before, thanks to logical, sensible and thought-provoking inquiries that should have been made long ago but, amazingly enough, appear for the first time only in 2002 PARS PLUS. We're committed to seeing your handicapping is as well-informed as possible.
These developments in 2002 PARS PLUS Special 10th Anniversary Edition truly are cause for a lot of celebration, but the icing on the cake is the price: 2002 PARS PLUS is unchanged at $107 (including shipping and handling; $115.25 for California residents to cover applicable state sales tax). That's right! You get three-call par times for all the tracks in North America, PLUS terrific handicapping tools like average daily variants, track-class levels, intertrack class-level ratings, PLUS the WMFs for every track PLUS eye-opening articles tying it all together PLUS great local-knowledge pointers for a hundred bucks, plus shipping and handling. What an overlay!
It gets even better. In our quest to continually delight you, we'll make the deal even sweeter. We're obviously excited about the 2002 PARS PLUS Special 10th Anniversary Edition and everything inside. But if you place your order for the 2002 PARS PLUS Special 10th Anniversary Edition book now, we'll deliver two extra-special bonuses before May 1 - at no additional charge. They're called "The Quick and Dirty Guide to Trainer Subtleties," one for Southern California trainers and another for their New York Racing Association counterparts. Don't let the crazy title fool you - these excellent guides give you more than just the usual, tired-old stats. You'll get vivid word-pictures and descriptions that actually put you inside the trainers' heads to uncover their winning m.o.'s. In other words, you'll know when a trainer is ready to strike - or not, as the case may be. Valued at $25 apiece, that's a $50 bonus, yours free with your prompt order of the 2002 PARS PLUS Special 10th Anniversary Edition.
So let's recap. It's time to update your par times, not to mention get such improved supplemental tools as average daily variants, track-class levels, intertrack class-level ratings and WMFs for all North American tracks. It's also time to tie it all together with fascinating, provocative and thought-provoking articles on the very latest par-time handicapping techniques based on local knowledge of the various tracks. And if you order now, you receive all these outstanding handicapping resources for $107 ($115.25 for California residents) - PLUS you get two more extra-special bonuses ("The Quick and Dirty Guide to Trainer Subtleties" for Southern California and New York) FREE! How can you lose?
If you're an ALL-IN-ONE, Easy Capper or Fast Capper user and want to upgrade to the 2002 par times, no problem. Order by March 30 and for $107 ($115.25 for California residents) you get the 2002 par-times update for your software, the printed supplemental material from the 2002 PARS PLUS Special 10th Anniversary Edition book AND your two "The Quick and Dirty Guide to Trainer Subtleties" bonuses at no extra charge.
To order by phone with a major credit card, call (323) 876-7325. Or fax your order information to (323) 874-1591. Or visit our brand-new Web site at www.cynthiapublishing.com and click on any link alongside announcing the 2002 PARS PLUS Special 10th Anniversary Edition. Or if you like to do business the old-fashioned way, please mail your payment to Cynthia Publishing Company, 11314 Ventura Blvd. #524, Studio City, CA 91604. P.S. Remember, this very special offer is good only for orders placed by March 30, so don't delay. We appreciate your business. (And if you need more information, please enjoy the additional information at the Cynthia Publishing Company Handicapping Store.)
Mike Helm's Debut Trainer Guide 2002 is now available. It goes beyond the unthinking monotony of the fat numbers-crunchers by providing specific situations behind a trainer's debut wins. It adds texture to the numbing stats provided by everyone else. For a better understanding of the hows and whys behind debut-trainer patterns, definitely check out Helm's work. It combines the cold, hard facts with the warm touch only the soul of a poet could provide. Click on this link to the Cynthia Publishing Company Handicapping Store.
Of course, don't forget about the newest offering from the illustrious Mark Cramer: the authoritatively titled Hidden Probabilities: Hard-Core Research for X-Rated Horseplayers.
In inimitable Cramer style and packed with unique research, Galileo-inspired thinking and writing (with high-level concepts made easy to grasp, thanks to Cramer's renowned facility with the English language), this new booklet is an ambitious blend of the nearly mechanical, the almost-magical and the fully inspired. That's because our friend Cramer takes 10 time-honored and simple handicapping concepts and pulses them through the kink-o-master machine, coming up with a stunning creation of staggering beauty and elegance that's good enough to eat.
Whoa. That's just plain silly. But you get the idea. Hidden Probabilities: Hard-Core Research for X-Rated Horseplayers is going to be another valuable addition to the handicapping literature, courtesy of someone who knows how to do just that.
We're down to the Final Four, and tomorrow they get down to the finals. Who are these fearless handicappers looking for a berth in the Final Four next weekend? Check out the Cynthia Publishing Horsetalk Forum and look under the subject header Contests -- their identities will become plain. And see how they got where they are by clicking on our current contest page.
Turfway Park is in Kentucky, but its relative proximity to Louisville and Churchill Downs has not translated into an expressway for Kentucky Derby winners.
After all, it's been 10 years since Lil E. Tee parlayed a run in the Spiral/Jim Beam into a triumph in the Run for the Roses. In the intervening years, some OK horses have tried the Spiral, but they've come up short six weeks later at Louisville, done in by injury or, most often, an acute lack of ability.
But after the results of the 2002 Spiral, there could be a reversal of fortune. Maybe. It's hard to tell. When three horses finish tight on the line the way Perfect Drift, Azillion and Request for Parole did in the Spiral, the comparative-handicapping freaks say the race didn't boast much quality. Races in which the winner strung the field out are a much better measure of a productive race, they scream.
Yes, and last year Balto Star won by nearly 13 lengths -- and the race had very little impact on the Roses. This year's version, on the other hand, showed talent, heart and determination from its leading trio when things counted the most. Request for Parole dueled all the way around aginst a solid pace before succumbing only in the final strides to a rallying Azillion and a perfectly rated Perfect Drift.
Despite a spirited stretch duel, none of the three gave it up, and their rate of speed in the lane was quite impressive. True, it's not the same as having the legs in the final two furlongs of the Kentucky Derby, but it was a good start nonetheless.
But if you had to settle on just one of them, Perfect Drift would have to be it. He accomplished his game win despite a comparative lack of seasoning, and his ability is only now coming to hand. Request for Parole, in comparison, had the benefit of showing large ability as a two-year-old but as a three-year-old has yet to explode far ahead of that foundation. Azillion is a useful sort, but his maiden-claiming roots don't bode well for his continued advancement at the highest levels of the Thoroughbred hierarchy.
It was much easier -- perhaps too easy -- to dismiss the weekend's other three-year-old Derby prep, Oaklawn Park's Rebel. It was not a particularly impressive race at any stage of the proceedings -- the pace was a full second slower than $20,000 nonwinners-of-three-races-lifetime horses were able to manage in the opener at the same distance, while the final time was only six ticks faster than that of the restricted claimers.
One race: the Private Terms at Laurel. And it rounds up the usual Maryland suspects.
Heading them up is the unstoppable Magic Weisner, who might actually go off as the favorite this time, despite a four-race winning streak. However, there is the presence of one unstoppable human right now, and that's jockey Jeremy Rose aboard the great Root With Style. Rose has won, like, 18 races in the last three or four days. If that's an exaggeration, it's not much of one. The kid is unconscious. Sizzling.
As for the race itself, if we have to beat the Magic Weisner (and they all get beat, remember), we'll go with H. Graham Motion's charge, The Sweickley Kid, coming off the bench and stretching out. If anyone can get this horse to fire in this spot, it's Motion, who earlier in the year shipped-in the winner of the big Tampa Bay Derby. Bonus points if you can name the horse.
Now, we've already concluded Oaklawn's inability to host a meaningful Kentucky Derby prep at this point in the season, but they do have a couple of interesting sprints for three-year-olds going on tomorrow. Nice, full fields and deep contention. Hey, it's something.
In the seventh, it's the colts-and-geldings division of the Rainbow Stakes at six furlongs. You know it's not much of a race when a horse that just came out of a three-year-old claimer is one the second choice on the morning line. (That would be My Good Trick, claimed by none other than the great Steve Asmussen.)
He makes sense, as does morning-line favorite Perfect Fantasy. For added pari-mutuel excitement, however, let's try Snowball King, sent out by another perennial Oaklawn king, Mr. Cole Norman. Snowball King isn't the second coming of Kauai King, but he does plod along well enough in the late stages, and in this race, that might be a big bonus, given so many up-front types signed on.
Three races after that, it's the Rainbow Miss Stakes, which -- you guessed it -- is the sister race of the Rainbow. If you don't want to stomach morning-line favorite Supreme Discovery or second choice Magical Miss, try Dancing Girl, who seems versatile enough to bounce back at what should be a reasonably attractive price.
As always, best wishes for a big weekend!
A big run around the country:
Aqueduct hosts the big seven-furlong Distaff Breeders' Cup Handicap. Selection: Cat Cay. Longshot hope: Prized Stamp.
Gulfstream hosts the big five-horse Gulfstream Park Handicap at 10 furlongs. Selection: Sir Bear. Longshot hope: Ditto. (What can you expect in such a short lineup?)
Santa Anita hosts the Potrero Grande at six and a half furlongs, a big Graded stakes sprint. Selection: Kalookan Queen. Longshot hope: Reba's Gold.
Sportsman's hosts its big Illinois Day, jam-packed with big guaranteed-money races for Ill.-breds. The biggest race of 'em all is the Milwaukee Avenue at a mile and a sixteenth. Selection: Chicago Six. Longshot hope: I Love Chicago. (C'mon! Whatd'd you expect?)
We appreciate your comments about this newsletter. Please send them to our staff. Thank you!
Cynthia Publishing • 11314 Ventura Boulevard,
Suite 524 • Studio City CA 91604
Voice (323) 876-7325 • Fax (323) 874-1591
info@cynthiapublishing.com