22 fabulous races for Saturday…

Saturday is a prelude to the Breeders’ Cup with several important races for all classes of horse.  And I always have a special place in my heart for the Champagne Stakes at Belmont.  I remember well the excitement of my friends over the win by Seattle Slew in 1977, my first year being into Thoroughbred Racing.  Then in 1978, we got to see Alydar and Affirmed, in one of the few times that Alydar got the best of Affirmed. Affirmed and Alydar, still for me, are the greatest rivalry in our sport – to my experience.

Back in those days, most of the participants had raced many times, as much as 5 or 6 or even more races when they tacked-up for the Champagne…  Not so anymore, today we are lucky to see 2 races in any horses past performance, so the handicapping has to be somewhat more imaginative.  But from this race, we will start to get a picture of some of the better contenders in the division.

Another interesting race for me is the 7th, sprinting on the Turf, with some great names from the past including Pure Sensation and Disco Partner.  But we now have several new faces to this crowd and their might be a change in the guard…

Over at Santa Anita my favorite race might be the City of Hope, Race #9, and to be truthful, I do not expect to see any of these on BC day, but the race comes up very interesting from a handicapping point of view… and that’s always the most interesting for me.

As I said, we have 22 terrific races with plenty of handicapping puzzles and I would offer the opinion there are many great payoffs we can participate in….

Stay with the Power Page…

Playing the ODDS on horses…

This is a really bad idea… In the 3rd at Santa Anita, Mucho Unusual went off at 1/5, meaning you got $1 profit for every $5.00 wagered…  The first thing I want to know is, who is stupid enough to be the horse once it goes below 4/5.  What exactly happens, does someone with lots of money say to themselves, ” my g-d, this is unbelievable the profit on the horse is going down to such a little sliver, but I have to have some of that!”  I get you like the horse and it’s 4/5 or even 3/5 and you feel it’s a near certainty and you bet…   I DON”T , but someone does…

A little earlier in the day, at Belmont their was a Chad Brown horse, with big fast numbers returning off a layoff at 1/2.  Not much better than 1/5, but a little.  He looked like a winner every step of the way, except the last few steps, when he looked like an absolute loser…

So if you happen to bet both, you got back $2.40 on an investment of $4.00… and you would have to win 3 or 4 in a row to get back to plus street… I think it’s pretty easy to see, they are not automatic until they have pulled away in the stretch… and even then they could get DQ’d…

There is a simple way to handle these, especially if you are attracted to them in your handicapping… simply go get a cup of coffee and take a break… there are plenty more good races to play…