Thursday Thoughts with Jason Beem for April 17, 2025

A good Thursday morning to you all! Lots of Derby chatter on Wednesday as Owen Almighty was announced as once again pointing towards the Kentucky Derby (G1) after his trainer had said (for a second time) that he was going to point towards the Pat Day Mile (G2). Supporters of Baeza seemed to be most upset even though he needs a few more defections to find himself in the starting gate. I don’t recall the amount of support for a horse outside of the top 20 in points in quite a while. And why not, he was just narrowly beaten by the probable favorite in the Kentucky Derby last time out. Makes sense a lot of people would like him as he’d be a price. 

As I said on my podcast today, I’m obviously very biased towards Owen Almighty because I used to work for his owner at Grants Pass Downs, and he won our local prep here at Tampa Bay Downs. So any opinion and excitement I have about him going into the race, just be aware it’s likely very clouded with bias and rooting interest. 

I wanted to write today about having a bad day at work. I think it’s something we can all relate to and have all experienced. In our game, jockeys tend to be the people who get the most scrutinized day in day out. Heck, even race in, race out. Their decisions and performances are always out in front of the public to see and is always fodder for good debate. I feel bad for the jockeys sometimes because it’s clearly a very tough job where no matter what you do, you’re going to sometimes make mistakes.

My job of calling the races has a somewhat similar situation because when you make mistakes, people hear them and sometimes will criticize them. I think I had one of those lucky days on Wednesday where people weren’t listening or just didn’t care, cause I felt like I made a handful of dumb and weird mistakes. Just one of those days where I didn’t feel like I was seeing the races well and my mouth and brain weren’t working in tandem well. I’ve been doing this almost 20 years and I realize that sometimes these days just happen for whatever reason. The good news is there’s another card on Friday. I used to beat myself up about days like this, now I mostly just shake my head and move on and know I’ll be better next time. 

I can’t imagine anyone who participates in this game, particularly as bettors, hasn’t had the same experience. You feel like the races being run are miles different than the races you’ve handicapped. You think a horse will be on the lead and it’s dragged back to last. Everything just feels a little off.  How do you deal with those kinds of days? I would think that if you’re a winning player or generally good at capping the races, you stick with your processes and just realize you’re in a downward variance time. I remember talking with pro player Paul Matties once on the show and he was saying he was in a slump and just lowered his bet amounts until he felt like he was back on track. 

We’re all going to have bad days or stretches of bad days no matter what we do. Well, maybe except for Pete Rose. I remember sitting with Pete one time at River Downs and his phone lit up. It was a text from Alex Rodriguez. Pete read the text and chuckled before responding and putting down his phone. His buddy Arnie who was sitting with us asked “what was so funny?” Pete smiled and said “That was A-Rod, he said he’s 0 for his last 14, do you have any advice for me?” Arnie asked Pete “well what did you say?” To which Pete quickly responded, “I told him I don’t have any advice, I’ve never gone 0 for 14.”  

Have a good weekend everyone!