We did it last year with our top 3 picks, and today, we hit it again in an almost identical fashion:

View Our Kentucky Derby 2008 Results

With just our top 3 selections: Denis of Cork, Big Brown and Eight Belles, you would have netted $141.60 for the Exacta and a WHOPPING $3,445.60 for the Trifecta! This terrific day was only marred by the unfortunate death of a great filly, Eight Belles.

P.S.We would love to hear from our numerous customers who scored BIG in the Derby with our selections. You can submit your testimonial here.

It is Derby day! First off, we’d like to wish everyone a fun and safe Derby day and good luck to all!

Weather update: As far as the first race, the track was Muddy. If the weather stays dry throughout the day, it is possible that the track may dry up by Derby time. MAKE SURE to keep the prediction form set to the latest dirt/turf conditions throughout the day to get the most accurate selections. If you are not going to have access to the site during the day, check the picks on our form for a Muddy track and also a Fast track beforehand so that you are prepared for a wet or dry scenario.

If the track does end up wet for the Derby, we think this may help Big Brown, who is a natural speed horse. It may give him a better chance to wire the field. We still think he is the horse to beat as he has yet to show his best performance. We also think that Gayego will enjoy a wet going.

As far as our other top picks in general, we think Denis of Cork could be in the mix if he is back in top form. We also think the filly Eight Belles has a very good chance coming off a great prep race.

In the past few years, a craze emerged among numerous tracks to convert their natural dirt surfaces to various synthetic composite surfaces. I believe California tracks were forced to convert by the end of 2007. This costly renovation was undertaken at these tracks primarily to yield two benefits: less injuries/fatalities for horses and jockeys and the ability to race in poor weather conditions. Neither benefit seems to have been fully realized or proven worth the cost of the conversion.

Just recently, an article by the Associated Press discussed details of a preliminary study comparing horse fatalities on natural dirt courses versus synthetic surfaces (read the article here). They found that between June 2007 and early 2008, there was an average of 1.95 deaths per 1,000 starts on synthetic surfaces compared to 1.96 deaths per 1,000 on dirt surfaces. This means there is virtually no improvement in safety. The funny part is how later in the article they spin it “synthetically” to say between June 2007 and last fall, there were only 1.19 deaths per 1000 on synthetic surfaces versus 1.79 on dirt. I have no idea how custom picking a favorable small window is at all statistically relevant. This is particularly the case because the synthetic tracks seems to have composition problems causing safety issues in the cold winter weather.

You don’t need to look far to find other false promises by synthetic surface manufacturers.

Santa Anita seemed to have more cancellations this meet than tracks in the Northeast that have to deal with winter storms. These cancellations probably cost the track millions of dollars.

Woodbine converted to Polytrack back in 2006 and had to renovate the $10 million surface back in May, due to a cold winter that caused the wax to ball up. Unhappy track president David Willmot said then that “we paid for a Cadillac and got a Chevrolet.”

Then, we come to Del Mar. The new surface they implemented there showed the greatest deviation in performance from the dirt track. Based on our figures, the average time for a 6 furlong race at Del Mar went from 1:10.74 to 1:12.85. That is more than 10 lengths of difference, which is utterly absurd. Some major horse owners refused to race their champion horses at Del Mar due to the surface change.

Finally, from a handicapper’s standpoint, this is a nightmare. Your years worth of valuable data collected for an established surface at a track becomes less useful.   Even more crazy is the fact there is no standard for a synthetic surface. You have Cushion, Polytrack, and Tapeta. I’m waiting for a track to start using that cheap fake grass carpet from Costco to replace their turf course. This would be the equivalent of having no standard for the baseball bat a hitter can use in baseball. All past statistics would be completely meaningless.

War Pass is no longer undefeated. Perhaps he lost because of a bad start or because he had a fever earlier in the week. Regardless, the 1-20 “lock” failed to Show (he ran dead last in a 7 horse field). Yes, we also thought War Pass was a “sure thing” (despite the fact the winner Big Truck was also in our top tier).

For those of you who are not familiar with the term, “bridge jumpers” are people who look for horses that are heavy favorites, and then bet the farm on them to Show. The logic behind this is that regardless of the lopsided proportion of money on the heavy favorite to Show, the track is obligated to pay a minimum of $2.10 on a $2 bet (5% return). So, for example, one of these people may put $20,000 on the horse to Show, to get a “definite” $1,000 return when the horse finishes in the money. However, this type of bet is not as “definite” as you may think…

Doing a little research from our extensive database, I discovered that since the end of 2004, there were 35 entries that had win odds of 1-20 (the shortest odds a horse can have) in a race with available Show wagering. Of these 35, only 31 actually finished in the money (88.6%). This equates to an expected LOSS of 5 cents on every $2 wagered. If you extend the search to horses that had win odds of 1-9 or shorter, ironically you have slightly better results (but still not good). Of the 228 matching entries, 204 finished in the money (89.5%) which equates to an expected LOSS of 3 cents on every $2 wagered. These expected returns obviously assume that the bridge jumper has enough funds to wager the same amount even after a loss (which may not always be the case).

In conclusion, simply based on the win odds of a horse, bridge jumping is not the way to go. Of course, there might be cases where you could determine that a horse is over-bet and really shouldn’t be 1-9 or 1-20 (and skip these races). However, War Pass was probably not one of these cases.

Congrats to those who used our free Breeders Cup’ detailed analysis form with commentary.  We picked Lahudood ON TOP (paid $25.40 to win) in the Breeders’ Cup Fillies and Mares Turf with Honey Ryder underneath for the EASY $167.60 Exacta.  Earlier, we hit the $1 Superfecta in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile for $275.60 in our top 4 picks.  Let’s keep it going!

Feel free to discuss your Breeders’ Cup thoughts, picks, and experiences over the next 2 days…

The Breeders’ Cup World Championships are one of the biggest events in horse racing. This year the combined purses of $23 million will set an American racing record. With the immense talent of thoroughbreds in the event each year, it is one of the most difficult events to handicap.

View the entire October 26th, 2007 press release.

Our Breeders’ Cup selections are NOW AVAILABLE! From the Toteboard, choose Monmouth Park for October 26th and October 27th. Each form will cost 10 WinningCredits. We also put together a FREE Breeders’ Cup analysis page. This page gives our top picks in each race with some commentary. Good luck everyone!

On occasion, we receive comments from customers asking how we take credit for a Superfecta in our Big ‘Uns if our top pick didn’t hit the board or if our 6th or 7th pick ran 3rd or 4th. People often underestimate the difficulty in correctly predicting a Superfecta. For this very reason, it is usually relatively costly (and extremely rewarding) to bet a Superfecta correctly. For those who are new to wagering on horse races, a Superfecta wager is when you are trying to pick the top 4 finishers in order. In this post, I would first like to discuss in general how to effectively bet a Superfecta. I will then explain how we typically determine a Superfecta “hit” in our Big ‘Uns and the suggested method of applying our predictions to making a Superfecta wager.

Read the rest of this entry »

We hit 5 races today starting with the 1st race. In the 1st race, we picked the $180 Trifecta easily with the winner on top. In the 2nd race, we followed up with another Trifecta with the winner on top (paid $270). The COLD Early Double paid $58.50. In the 6th race, we had the $30.20 Exacta in our top tier and the easy Trifecta paid $116.50. In the 8th race (Glens Falls Handicap), we had the $10.80 winner Rosinka on top. We also had the $177.50 Exacta in our top tier and the very hittable Trifecta paid $960.00. In the 9th race (Hopeful Stakes), we had the Exacta reversed in our top tier. Our 2nd choice, Majestic Warrior, paid $15 to win and the Exacta paid $31.60 (not bad for a 4 horse field).