Do the Silks Have It? Threads of the 144th Kentucky Derby

Antics and a willingness to fail--publicly, indelved in hard to wash out pixels make a great tradition. My annual Kentucky Derby tradition. They say the pixels shall inherit the earth.

This year, my ongoing investigations and choice to try to predict by jockey silk colors led me down many paths of investigation.

I saw a lot of purple, then three word names. And the number 16 kept coming up a lot (that's Magnum Moon's post position).

But one little change in one stable swapping out silks the jockey would wear, and I began to get distracted with a desire to make 2018 more adventurous.

But first, let's change the weather to suit our excitement-craved needs. It looked earlier this week like it would be done with rain by early morning but nope...

Now that it's raining, I am going to make a second set of predictions that are totally different. And for fun this year, I decided to learn to bet.

Secondly, I can't help but mix politics with horse racing. I would have loved to see Blended Citizen win, but he was allocated to the auxiliary gate... and then scratched. You read into it. Ah shitshow our nation has become.

 
Taking the Bucks to the Street
Unlike the dirty, virus and malware laden industry that I thought would literally eat my computer from the inside out the moment I landed on the web page, I found pages simply lacking in decent Ux. That means user experience. No, I didn't download the app, I loathe adding apps to my phone. They were happy to take my money, darn easy to set up, but still not user friendly to the novice when it came time to bet. #bored and I still have $18 to allocate.

Here were my picks till the rain came...uh, was summoned, left to right. I know it'll dry up some and that it's not heavy:

Mendelssohn:  From the UAE. A lovely gorgeous TDH (tall, dark and handsome) colt but in the rain...ennnh, not his ideal footing no matter how impressive that stride is.

• I have set these three "purple lads" on a boxed trifecta though, so we'll see. All proceeds after taxes go to horse charities. Otherwise it's blowing to the wind and that's the fun--being wrong.

Oh so I guess that's important if you're trying to find out if my prediction streak will last. Just because I've put money down, doesn't mean those are my final picks. 


Magnum Moon:  There's the 16- his post position. Rain? Certainly he may be in the money but perhaps he'll just barely get the show (3rd).

Good Magic: We need this! I think he's an underestimated colt just hidden in the pack so no one will bet on him. He does have a 6 post position but could also get squished if there isn't a game plan for him. There is. Best laid plans of jockeys and trainers.

Any order among the 3, but likely with Magnum first. 


So as of almost 1:15 pm ET now, here is where we are at with odds, silks

Here are the rest of them:

So here are today's official predictions (gotta hit publish) that I'll hold my record to. But first my streak:

The Streak
2014:  1 of 3 horses in the money
2015:  1 of 3 horses in the money
2016:  Complete fail.
2017:  3 of 3 horses in the money, wrong order

My official picks (any order; my goal is just to be in the money)

My Boy Jack (the three word names)
Bolt d'Oro
Bravazo or Combatant

Russian Liking?
I noted on KentuckyDerby.com that if you click through the horses and view each of their Facebook Like counts, My Boy Jack's has been jacked up way higher than the others- which as of last night ranged from 15 for Combatant, the lowest, to My Boy Jack which was 1.1K. I found this odd, no pun intended. All the other horses' counts were 295 or under.

• I do think Jack is best to handle what the track will be- he'll be in the money.

And for more fun, my daughter's choices based on my horrible explanation of the odds. By the way this favorite-dominated sort of result would be terribly boring. I have ranted a lot about how the Derby excitement has declined over the years due to favorite domination.

1st:  Justify
2nd: Audible (she's an audiophile)
3rd:  Flameaway
4th:  Magnum Moon
5th:  Mendelssohn (she calls this horse "Nelson Mandela")
6th:  Bolt d'Oro
7th:  Vino Rosso