David Part ??? - I've Lost Count, and I'm Tired...Oaks Final Thoughts

So, we have a defection as Stanford has officially dropped out of the Kentucky Derby.

It's kind of a big scratch in that he was one of the horses figuring to vie for the early lead. Him being out seems to help favorites like American Pharoah, Dortmund, and Materiality who have speed and will be close.

On your Value Line, nothing is too out of whack with where I am thinking. Here would be my few main changes:

• I would have Pharoah on top, with Materiality and Dortmund co-2nd choices.
• I'd have Mubtaahij in the 10/1 or 12/1 range
• I would drop Firing Line to 15/1 or 20/1.

Also, really bold stance on Carpe Diem. You're essentially giving him a 4% chance or so? That seems too low, even though I dislike him, I think there is a somewhat reasonable chance that my opinion is blatantly wrong, I think he skew more in the 8-10% range.

But, it's tough, you have to drop horses somewhere and in a 20 horse field, it's hard to give out big percentages to too many runners.

I haven't really jumped into the Derby card too deeply, but it definitely seems to be a card with more horses I like than the Oaks card.

Oaks day feels weird to me. Typically there are some really nice horses in the maiden and allowance fields on the undercard that seem like standouts. This year, I don't really see any of those. In every race I'm plucking out a few horses above 10/1 and thinking they have really legit shots. I'm not that kind of handicapper usually, I'm not my crazy dad that just bets 20/1 closers all the time. 

If I was forced to pick one winner in the stakes I may go Honor Code in the Alysheba, but only because the other races are so tough...I think he's the safest of them. This really looks like a card that should produce a couple of $30+ type winners, hopefully we can catch them.

I literally have no idea who I like in the Oaks. Just none. It's like a Chinese riddle box. I am completely confused by it. I tried looking at it for an hour, my head started hurting, I had a nosebleed, my saliva started tasting like purple. In the end, I think I'm A Chatterbox seems like the safest horse in here, and we probably try to get some prices around her.