Weekend Winners Club

.

Saturday, June 19, 2021.  Belmont Park has a great race card lined up today, with almost 100 runners in 10 races after morning scratches.  The featured races are the two NY Stallion stakes, 1 each for male or female, at 7f on turf. 

.

Today we’ll break down the two Stakes races and call out some other good plays in other races, but not break down the entire card ad nauseum.  First you’ll want to download today’s free Belmont Grid and follow along.

.

Race by race, we’ll point out the best long shot plays, because on this site, we don’t bet on chalk.  That’s what dumb rich people do to waste their money.  So we’re only talking about horses 6-1 or greater on the morning line.  Chalk may win, but whatever, me or you can’t prevent that.

.

R1.  6 top LP on turf at Belmont, automatic bet.  But with not much speed in the race, heed the speed.  7 and 10 offering great odds as well.

.

R2.  Short field, should be exciting, not a betting race.

.

R3.  Again not much speed at 7f on turf.  1 and 4 good odds, 5 at 15-1 cutting back from good route PF’s.

.

R4.  Again, not much speed at 8.5f this time.  Bodes well for 9 at 20-1.  Top LP is 5 at 10-1.

.

R5.  Hard to beat this favorite.  Beware 3 top LP at 8-1.

.

R6 NY Stallion Fillies 7f turf.   Yes I like the favorite but she’s going turf first time, might not take.  Same with 2^nd choice 3.  Other options include frontrunner 8 at 12-1, 4-rules 4 at 8-1, and don’t forget top LP 1 at 8-1 also.  15-1 on 7 and 9 are you kidding me?  Lots of options here, long shot specials all over.

.

R7.  Another paceless race.  7 at 10-1 the lone frontrunner.  8 will def go off at <5-1.  4 has good odds and never forget top LP on turf, 3 at 8-1.   Great options here too.

.

R8.  Speedster 3 at 8-1 will be tough to catch.  10 is top LP with 6-1 ML.

.

R9 NY Stallion for open 3yo’s at 7f turf.  This 12 horse field has almost too many possibilities to calculate.  Inside speed 1 at 12-1 trying out turf for the first time, 4 is the 4-rules horse at 8-1.  6 has top EP going to turf for first time at 6-1, I love that angle.   7 top LP at 8-1, that’s an automatic bet,  8 is 2^nd in power rating at 12-1.  11 is also dangerous first time turf at 10-1.  Include favorite 13 as well.  Great betting race!

.

R10.  Long shot specials 4 at 6-1, and 5 at 15-1.  In a field of non winners, give strong consideration to 7 at 8-1 and 11 at 50-1. 

.

There you have it.  We all know Ascot has the best racing card today, but Belmont is going strong here. Go get some good long shots today!  Remember, you can get the Grid for all your favorite tracks, every race day right here for all the great summer racing, so check out the options. 

.

Tuesday, June 16, 2021.This just in from the NYRA.  Saratoga will open with full capacity on July 15, featuring two graded stakes races.  Belmont general admission will resume on June 24.   Here are the details.

.

To entice people into receiving Covid vaccinations, anyone with the CDC vaccination card will receive free admission to Saratoga on opening day.  At either park, anyone without vaccination is still required to wear face masking during the entire day under the current regulations.

.

.

Licensed owners will no longer be required to show proof of vaccination when entering the Saratoga Race Course property. Beginning June 24, family members and guests will be permitted to accompany licensed owners to view morning training and visit the barn area.

.

So the good news is, Saratoga will open on schedule with full capacity and have a full racing meet this year.

.

June 2021. The latest Thoroughbred Stakes schedule for North America, Japan, and Ascot is now amended and released. Belmont Park will kick off the June Stakes schedule with the legendary Belmont Stakes weekend.

.

June 2021 Thoroughbred Stakes Schedule: North America, Japan, Ascot

.

Tuesday, June 1, 2021.  The Belmont Stakes had its post draw today with official posts and morning lines issued.  As luck (or lack thereof) would have it, we lost another good long shot.  Last week we lost Brooklyn Strong and this week UAE Derby winner Rebel’s Romance is out. 

.

So now all 5 of the main contenders of the 8 horse field are at single digit odds on the morning line.  The only 2 contenders over 5-1 are suspect, but if they run like their final Kentucky Derby prep instead of their horrid Ky Derby performances they have a chance.  Look at the Belmont Grid here to follow along.

.

We’re talking of course about Florida Derby winner Known Agenda and Santa Anita Derby winner Rock Your World.  The latter is quite green and it is somewhat amazing he won the SA Derby in his first dirt race in the first place, but it was legit, as he did beat Ky Derby winner Medina Spirit in that race.

.

Known Agenda on the other hand, has a more proven track record.  He finished 3^rd in the Remsen at 9f in his 3^rd career race, and after a poor Sam Davis, came back to win an OCM by 11 lengths and then the Florida Derby, in which he beat Greatest Honour who was undefeated at the time.  

.

Todd also has a great record in this race, certainly his best of the 3 Triple Crown races.  He has 2 Kentucky Derby wins and 0 Preakness wins, and 3 Belmont Stakes wins including 2 of the past 8, so you have to consider his top steed a legitimate contender here. 

.

Todd also trains Overtook into the race.  A wild card for sure but he has shown steady improvement.  In Overtook’s only race with a fast pace, he broke maiden at a mile at Aqueduct.  In his last two, both slow-paced, he showed a strong late kick and finished in the money in the two G3’s.

.

Again with a Pletcher trainee we have Bourbonic, who looked excellent going into the Kentucky Derby with a last to first Wood Memorial win, but showed nothing in the Derby.  Back in the Big Apple where he has 2 wins and a 2^nd, he could make some noise here for sure.

.

So Todd’s trainees now make up 37.5% of the field, but not the best contenders, who are the 3 entries listed at under 5-1.  I don’t really expect his two long shots to win, but either could definitely hit the board, and with 3 of the 8 entries, Todd has a good chance of getting two in the superfecta.

.

That would mean of course, that at least one of Essential Quality, Rombauer, and Hot Rod Charlie would have to run a subpar race.  This is entirely possible, considering they’re 3yo’s going through a grueling Triple Crown Trail.  And there’s only 1 Belmont I remember where they finished in exact betting order, because I had that straight superfecta.

.

One point of interest is the Flavien Prat situation.  As we know, Prat rode Rombauer to a Preakness victory in his first time riding the creature.  However in the Belmont he will appear aboard Hot Rod Charlie, who finished a close 3^rd, only 1 length from a Kentucky Derby victory.

.

So there you have it, the 3 main contenders, and some mid and long shots to consider to round out your exotic bets.  In the verticals I’ll probably just use the top 3 but we’ll see how the other races pan out when the data become available.  The only one I throw out completely is the Dubai non-contender.

.

You can get the full Belmont Grid for both race days of June 4 and June 5 right here.  Check out the additional options for subscribing to the Weekend Winner’s Club and enjoy the Grid for more summer racing.

.

Monday, May 31, 2021.  Santa Anita has a big day of racing starting at 4PM Eastern or 1PM California time.  Grade 1 racing includes the Hollywood Gold Cup, Gamely, and Shoemaker Mile, all with fields of 7 or less as is the norm nowadays.  Let the Precapping begin. First get today’s Free Grid.

.

The memory of the now defunct Hollywood Park lives on with the featured Gold Cup G1 which has a field of 7 talented horses competing for $300k, probably the lowest G1 purse of all time.  My selections are chalk, chalk, and more chalk.  It doesn’t look good for betting at all but I would try to include 1 2 5 7 in your verticals if possible.

.

The Gamely G1 is also down to a field of 7 after scratches.  Frontrunner Charmaine’s Mia started going two turns the last 2 races and still hasn’t been caught in the pair of G2’s at a mile.  There’s not a whole lot of competing speed on paper but you still have to respect top late runner Red Lark which at 12-1 is the longest shot in the field.

.

The Shoemaker Mile is down to 6 after scratches, led by another frontrunning favorite Smooth Like Strait at even money morning line.  Whisper Not also looks good here but has low odds, and once again you have the top late runner Restrainedvengeance at 8-1 for the turf mile.  

.

There are 9 races on the card which begins at 4PM Eastern and the late Pick 4 will begin with Bob Baffert winning an optional claimer with one of his two 5yo’s which make up 40% of the short field.  The Jackpot 6 will carry over $260k into the day and should surpass $1 million.

.

As always, you can get the Grid for all your favorite tracks and races every race day at this link.  It’s a great time to join with lots of good summer racing coming up including the Belmont Stakes on June 5.

.

May 26, 2021.  The Belmont Stakes is now 10 days away and we’re evaluating 10 horses competing for the last leg of the Triple Crown, which was the first leg last year, but that’s another story.  The contestants are of course, possibles and probables only, as nothing will be official for another week.

.

But it’s never too early, especially if you have access to Belmont Stakes futures for example.  The odds posted herein are listed in the futures for Betonline.ag, a reputable offshore sportsbook that has somehow eluded shutdown by the government for over a decade now.  

.

So far what we can gather is that 6 Kentucky Derby contestants will take on two Preakness runners including champion Rombauer.  A Peter Pan runner and this year’s UAE Derby champion are slated to join the fray as well.

.

First what you’ll want to do is take a look at the Belmont Stakes Grid, which you can download below.  The 10 possible contestants are listed alphabetically, with performance figures toward the left and composites on the right. 

.

To start off this analysis, I first ranked my top 6 as usual, based on all the information in the Grid.  And I came up with the exact order of the early odds for those 6.  That’s not much help, is it?  But they are all very similar in class and capability, so the fact is any of these could win.

.

Third and Fourth place Kentucky Derby contestants Hot Rod Charlie and Essential Quality (Breeders’ Cup Juvenile winner who was undefeated in 5 previous races) are clearly the ones to beat.  Along with Preakness winner Rombauer who rolled by the Derby winner in the stretch with ease.

.

Then you have Rock Your World and Known Agenda, who were on top of the world after their final preps, before flopping in the Derby.  Add Rebel’s Romance, who laid waste to the UAE Derby field by 5.5 lengths in late March, and I give him a real legit chance to win here.

.

Are there any other contestants?  Yes, but it literally depends on the weather.  The top PF in the field, whether you use the Grid or Bris numbers, clearly belongs to Brooklyn Strong, a number that by far exceeds his other PF’s.  This was achieved down the street at a sloppy Aqueduct track, before he too, flopped in the Derby.

.

Of course, it’s too early right now to say exactly what the weather will be for next week, but if you’re Daniel Velasquez, Jose Ortiz, or Mark Schwartz, you’re definitely hiring local rain dancers for the weekend beginning Friday June 4.  If the track ends up sloppy, you have to add this one to the top.

.

If the track stays dry on the other hand, you could add Bourbonic to your exotics, and you should wheel him at the 4 spot anyway.  Todd has a good record in this race and brings a horse whose last win was a last to first win in the Wood at Aqueduct, before a dismal Derby.

.

If it’s sounding like you need to wheel all at the bottom of the superfecta, well that’s normally what I do, unless the field is extremely large and the bet is $1 minimum.  But with a field of 10 and a dime super minimum, it’s no problem to wheel all at that slot. 

.

There is almost no speed at all in this race, so you have to give a bump to any horse with a tendency to run early.  Read:  Essential Quality, Rock Your World.  That’s how I see it unfolding right now, 10 days early.  My top pick remains EQ.

.

You can get the Grid for all your favorite tracks and races, every race day right here.  Check out the Belmont Stakes specials here.

.

Saturday May 22, 2021.   Churchill Downs has decided once again that Saturday night’s alright for racing, so get a little action in.  To sweeten the deal, they have a couple stakes races featuring the Winning Colors G3 sprint for fillies and mares, and later the Keertana for females 12f on turf.

.

The shortest field of the day is of course the graded stakes race, but most of the other fields are packed with action, as about 90 horses are racing tonight after the routine scratches. Despite the short field, the Winning Colors is a very competitive race of 5 excellent fillies and mares.  First, grab the Grid.

.

In the Keertana Stakes, we have 10 awesome female horses to choose from, with only a couple that I would consider complete throwouts. The single digit entries are all strong, but I give the edge to 10.Dalika in a race with only 2 early runners, she being one of them.

.

As mentioned, the other single digit entries are hard to ignore, specifically favorite Delta’s Kingdom with the top power rating.  But for long shots I like the late running prowess of First Course and Tweety Show, both of whom have excelled at this distance and are 15-1 ML.

.

In the last race, I see a couple long shot  specials already.  I always like the fastest horse transferring to turf for the first time.  Catholic Guilt qualifies on that angle at 12-1 ML.  That race is scheduled to go off at 11:10PM if you can stay awake that long.

.

In race 8, what’s wrong with the top LP at 8-1?  The main problem is it will probably go off at 5-1 or less, and literally every horse in that race is within 7 points of that LP rating.  Thus, a good betting race.

.

For the rest of the races, you’re on your own, but you have the Grid to use as your guiding light in the races tonight.  Racing starts at 6PM eastern time, as Steve Asmussen will demonstrate how to win with a 2yo son of a Gun Runner, who he coached to a Breeders’ Cup win among high stakes victories.

.

Remember, you can get the Grid for all your favorite tracks and races right here, so check out the options.  Good luck!

.

Sunday, May 16, 2021. Sunny Santa Anita has a mandatory Jackpot 6 payout today with a $550k carryover coming in. That means a couple of things. First, you don’t need a unique ticket to win; anyone with the all the winners on their 20ct (or more) ticket ticket will win part of the final pool.

.

Secondly, it means the final pool will probably exceed $2 million if history serves correctly. The difference is this: if you were one of yesterday’s winners that won $457 each, without the carryover you would have won $1465, which is a $1000 difference.

.

If there were the same number of winners today and the winners as easy to pick yesterday (which they were) the payout for each person would be $3675, which is obviously $3000 more than you would have made yesterday.

.

Right now, the winners don’t look like they will be any more difficult to select than yesterday, but you never know will happen. I won’t be breaking down the races for you today, but you’re free to use today’s free Grid to help you select some winners.

.

Racing starts at 4pm ET and the Jackpot 6 is scheduled to begin in race 5 at about 5:45pm, so you have plenty of time to prepare for the pick 6.

.

You can get the Grid for all your favorite tracks and races right here. Check out all the options.

Preakness Picks for Pricks.  Precap, Past Performances, Pace Predictions, Possibilities

.

Saturday, May 15, 2021.  It’s the 3^rd Saturday in May and therefore it’s time once again for the Preakness Stakes.  We’ll take a look at some past performances, pace predictions, and possibilities in today’s biggest race.

.

Obviously Medina Spirit is going to be the favorite, and rightly so, as Baffert has won this race 6 of 7 times with the Kentucky Derby champion, all with a similar front running type of win, and his one loss was a second place finish last year.  Bob also brings Concert Tour, a similar type of runner coming off a 3^rd place in the Arkansas Derby, as the second ML choice.

.

There is only one other early runner in the race, Midnight Bourbon, who coincidentally is also the 3^rd ML choice at 5-1.  He was a solid 6^th in Kentucky after finishing in the money in two big-point preps for Asmussen. Between these 3 we’ve mentioned, they are the only ones that normally run up front.

.

Rarely do 3 early speeders run top 3 or even top 4 in this race, so we definitely need a late runner.  Enter Crowded Trade, actually a midpack runner, who at 10-1 would be the 4^th ML favorite.  He probably would have won the Wood for Chad Brown if not for chasing a dawdling pace.  He has top LP and also the top PF in the Preakness Grid.

.

Another good late runner is Risk Taking, who also faltered in the Wood trying to chase a non existent pace.  But prior to that he won two 9f races for Chad Brown and has good closing runs normally.

.

Rombauer is another strong late runner who has an improving PF in each of his 6 races for Mike McCarthy, resulting in a 3^rd place finish in the Blue Grass stakes.

.

The remaining 4 are certainly capable of rounding out the superfecta, but it’s a toss up and could go either way.  Much of the time there is an unexpected long shot who breaks into the top 4, so it’s a good idea to key and wheel.

.

That’s it for today, pricks.  Good luck!

.

Friday, May 13, 2021.  Preakness is upon us again, barely 6 months after the 2020 edition. Thus it is time once again for our annual study on the top Kentucky Derby and Preakness horses during the Baffert Era, which began officially in 1997 although he was training well before that.

.

This exercise is important because it clues you in on how to bet the Preakness.  The first graphic below illustrates how the top 4 Kentucky Derby finishers did in the Preakness.  Take a good look and then we’ll review the findings.

.

The first thing you will notice is that of the last 22 Kentucky Derby champions that ran in the Preakness, half of them won it.  Only 3 from that group finished out the top 4 in the Preakness.  2 of those 3 were Pletcher trainees, worth noting in the future, primarily because Todd has never won this race.

.

Bob Baffert on the other hand, has an excellent record in this race, with 7 Preakness winners in the Era named after him.  In fact, last year was his only Preakness loss with a Derby champion, when his Authentic finished a close second.

.

You will also notice that the other top 4 Kentucky Derby finishers also have an excellent record in the Preakness, with 40 out of the 52 runners finishing in the top 4.  But alas, Medina Spirit is the only one running in this year’s 2^nd leg.  So let’s move on to the next graphic.

.

From this chart you can see what the actual top Preakness finishers did in the Derby if they actually ran for the roses.  Recently in the last 7 years, you can see that a slight majority, just over half of the top 4 Preakness runners actually did not run in the Derby.  That is expected this year as well since only 3 Derby competitors are entered in the 10 horse field.

.

But also note that of the Preakness winners that did run for the roses, all of them but one finished top 6 in the Derby.  And, only one runner up and 3^rd place finisher were not from the top 7 in Kentucky.  Thus, we have to consider the 3 Derby runners this year, all top 7, as key horses.

.

The next problem is what to do with all the dnr’s, which make up 7 of the 10 Preakness competitors.  That’s the million dollar question, but the good news is there are almost always long shots in the trifecta.  In only 4 years of the 24 year Baffert Era has there not been a double digit dog in the tri, and often there are two.

.

So who do you pick for the long shots?  The Lukas winner is tempting, but I’m looking at the Preakness Grid and there’s a horse from one of the nation’s top trainers, who has both the highest PF overall and the top LP calculation. 

.

Past that and the two Baffert trainees, it’s tough to figure out who else will appear in the super.  It may be best to wheel all at the bottom, but you also have to key the Derby horses along with that and try to figure out the best long shot which I already did.  So get the Grid and make your picks!

.