What kind of horseplayer would bet a paltry $2.40 on a pick-5 ticket in Breeders’ Cup races? Surely no one would be that cheap on the biggest day of racing and expect to win.
Well, I did – to prove a point. And the point was made after I cashed the ticket for $152 and had players in the Race Book at Assiniboia Downs laughing their heads off when I showed them that ticket.
And what was the point I was trying to make? I wanted to prove to readers of this column and others that if you have betting rules and follow them to a “T” you should have some expectation of cashing a ticket for mere chump change.
In my Bettor’s Edge column on Friday, I outlined rules gleaned from years of studying Breeders’ Cup races. The $2.40 ticket was a 60-cent wheel on races 3 to 7 at Santa Anita Saturday that looked like this: 3/6/1,7/10,14/4. Three races were singled and two horses were taken in the other two races.
Here’s how neatly those five races unfolded rule-wise:
Leg one: A rule is to watch DRF Mike Welsch’s clocker reports and when he said Cody’s Wish was “breathing fire” in his workouts, was Cody not a key?
Leg two: This was a turf race in which the rule says to bet the horse who has been racing for the highest purses. That horse, Inspiral, won.
Leg three: This was a 7-furlong specialist race in which the horse with the highest Equibase speed figure at 7-furlongs is expected to win – and did: Goodnight Olive.
Leg four: Another turf race in which one of the top two highest-purse horses won, Master of the Seas.
Leg five: This race, the Distaff, is expected to be won by the filly or mare who has the most in-the-money finishes—and that was Idiomatic who was a perfect 11 for 11. No other horse had a perfect record.
Pretty straight-forward, eh?
Thanks to those rules, my betting group at the track spent a mere $40 to collect $1,301 in a $10 pick-4 wheel on legs 2 to 5 above. Contrast this with two top handicappers at ASD who appeared in a podcast where they offered their betting suggestions for the same four races: one of them recommended spending about $20 in a 60-cent pick-4 wheel to win $78 and the other analyst suggested spending $45 on a $1 wheel to win $104. Faith in betting rules made the difference.
As mentioned in Friday’s column, the race most prone to upsets is the 5-furlong Turf Sprint so the betting group took “all” horses in race 10 in its all-turf pick-4 and collected more than $1,100 after the longest shot on the day, Nobals at 12-1, won the race.
A scan of Friday’s column will point to rule horses winning races 8, 9 and 11, too.
While rules predicted race winners and some exactors and triactors, superfectas and High 5s were elusive. Friday’s column referred to a brand new betting angle in which horses with previous odds under 5-1 could be boxed in superfectas for a possible big payoff. One of several such boxes played by my betting group almost produced a $2,000 payoff but a Japanese horse with previous odds of MORE than 5-1 killed the ticket. That’s not to say this angle won’t be effective in future ‘Cup days or Kentucky Derby Day, however.
Did you bet Breeders’ Cup races on Friday? Did you take the biggest favourite on the day, Tamara, in the Juvenile Fillies race? Then you’re probably not happy I’m bringing that up because Tamara finished up the track. And you’ll probably be even less happy when I tell you clocker Welsch was warning viewers in his daily reports again and again the filly was not training well. “Lacklustre” was one of the words he used. In other words, you should probably have bet other horses in the race.
All of which should serve as a reminder to watch his reports prior to big race days, the next of which is Kentucky Derby Day.
