The mystery of Ioya Bigtime's odds in the Fayette

I was struggling for an adequate title for this post, and try as I might, I couldn't get past the word "mystery," having looked up Ioya Bigtime's pedigree, and seeing he is a close relative of the million-dollar-winning Mystery Giver. Anyway, the title may not be artful, but conveys the idea, the subject. (Probably not an unfamiliar one to readers, unfortunately.)

In the race, this colt rallied to be 2nd behind the dominant Wise Dan. He went off the 6-1 3rd choice of 10. On the morning line, he was 20-1. Only Anak Nakal was similarly dismissed on the morning line, and he ended up going off at 54-1.

Ioya Bigtime comes from the Illinois-bred ranks, where he won three of his first five starts. His start previous to the Fayette looks his best, with a length and a half win in a nw3x allowance at Keeneland, and a 91 Beyer, which easily topped anything he had done before. I watched the race; there was nothing spectacular about it. If a horse with these kinds of figures and record is going off at 6-1 in a grade II, the race either isn't much of a grade II, or he's drawing surprising support.

Future Prospect(13-1) and General Quarters (7-1) went off at longer odds than Ioya Bigtime. Running 1-2 in their last start in the grade II Kentucky Cup on synthetic, Future Prospect had the same 91 Beyer there as Ioya Bigtime had in his Keeneland win. I would have thought the Kentucky Cup would have counted for something however. Basically, neither the Kentcuky Cup horses or Ioya Bigtime had an impressive Beyer last time. The difference is that there wasn't anything particularly impressive about Ioya Bigtime that I could find. He had Calvin Borel up, but Borel had only won four races at the meet, while Ioya Bigtime's last jockey, Leparoux, switched to Wise Dan. Chris Block, trainer of Ioya Bigtime, is successful, but doesn't draw blind support the way that some of the more national names do.

The upshot, however, is that Ioya Bigtime made good on the support, running 2nd, and establishing himself as a graded stakes horse. Did the stable bet heavily? Did "they know something," underscored by Ioya Bigtime's bullet 58 4/5 work? Can there even be impactful word of mouth in a stakes race for older horses, where the win/place/show pool approaches $500,000? Can anyone unravel the mystery on more concrete grounds? Whatever the source of the betting was, it eluded me and the oddsmaker.