The Triple Crown Fantasy Racing league heads into the Wood and Santa Anita Derby with a wide open leader-board. I first talked about the league back in January after the drafting of our stables.
League play began with the Holy Bull and runs through the Belmont Stakes. Points are awarded for 1st,2nd, and 3rd place finishes on preps for the Kentucky Derby and Kentucky Oaks.
The season has 19 races left with the point scale at 10-5-4 for this weekends races in the Santa Anita Derby, Wood Memorial, Santa Anita Oaks and Gazelle Stakes. The Ashland and Fantasy Stakes are also worth 8-4-2 points this week. The Triple Crown races and Oaks, Black-Eyed Susan and Acorn will all be worth 12-8-5 for 1-2-3 finishes.
The standings are pretty tight going into this weekend. Bellringer wins picked up a “Double” last week with wins by Constitution and Vicar’s In Trouble. A victory by Samraat this week could give him a 3-headed monster going to Louisville.
That is not a misprint “your’s truly” is in last place! Each stable is allowed 8 horses and claims are made each month to re-fill the stable and claim new talent that comes into the pipe-line. Stables are allowed a $500 (not real money) claiming budget for the season to allocate towards claims. This allows for people to bid higher amounts on horses they like.
Social Inclusion was “claimed” for $111 this month and Ring Weekend was snagged for $186. The claims are on a “blind” process, meaning you have to submit a “blind” claim without knowing what other bidders are claiming on.
The “strategy” takes place with people deciding when, how much, and who to claim each month and when to allocate their dollars. At this time the $200 claim of Albano looks shaky, but he probably will make the Derby starting gate and a chance at some larger points.
The Claiming budgets is listed below with two claiming periods left. The end of April and the end of May.
With the tight current standings, still 19 races left in League play and two claiming periods the results could come down to the Belmont Stakes. Current rosters are below if you want to play along at home!
So far, everyone seems to be enjoying how this plays out. Some tweaks may be made to races that are included and next year we may want to increase roster size and ideally make it a 12 or 14 team league.