I returned a little later than expected, so Friday Night’s blog will be brief…

Race Day Plays for Friday:

One winner in Amberella at $5.60 at Los Alamitos.  Two losers at Aqueduct…

Carry Over Friday

Certainly, all the carryover hoopla has past, and in the rear view mirror, it was just a normal day of handicapping with extra focus on plays that are by definition very difficult.  I thought the opening Pick 5 at Aqueduct was worth playing and as many of you know, I offered a series of Primary and Secondary selections in each of the 5 races on Race Day Las Vegas with Ralph Siraco.  If you  match up the Primary plays and sub in your Secondary plays in a fashion that at least 3 Primary hits and at least 2 Secondary groups hit, you can hit this play for about 200 combinations…  The problem is there is always a tough spread race, this was the 4th today which we narrowed down to 3 horses, but they were all placed in the Primary group.  So every ticket had one leg with a 3 multiplier in it…(at least)…  Anyway there was a realistic way to hit this particular Pick 5 for about $125 and it paid $988.  That being said, this is an advanced approach to multi race wagering — but easy enough to understand.

Something else to consider…

Race #4 – something happened to spook the #1 horse, Bunyaan. who had only raced once before.  Under the heading of “You will never believe this”, Bunyaan went to the lead and then veered sharply to the right, interfering with many horses and completely compromising the #10 Tom’s Gift.  Tom’s Gift recovered nicely, but it was too much to ask of him to make up the difference on the #3 and eventual (lucky) winner Core Portfolio.  This also goes under the heading of “The Best horse doesn’t always win”- tough break for Tom’s Gift for certain.  But back to the other heading ” You will never believe this”, after being wrangled back some 30 lengths and way out to the middle of the track (on first turn and then the backstretch), Bunyaan commenced a rally that was truly amazing, getting to within 2-3 lengths at the finish and then scouting right by the other horses after the wire.  Basically, Bunyaan made up some 28 lengths in about 5 furlongs of correct racing.  He might be a nut and do this sort of thing again, or maybe he had an equipment malfunction or maybe it’s just one of those things.  But it’s certainly fair to say, he was much the best, but he was also erratic…  His trainer, Kiaran Mclaughlin has his work cut out for him…