Florida handicapping roundup: Week of Dec. 28

Chalkfest followed by string of upsets

There have been many inscrutable results since Gulfstream’s championship meet opened on Nov. 30, but not during one memorable two-hour stretch on Sunday, a four-race chalk festival that produced some of the lowest multiple-wager payoffs seen around here in years.

The winners of the second through fifth races on Sunday – Sky Skier, Scatter Joy, Toh’s Grey Cat, and Catron – returned $2.80, $3.20, $3.20, and $2.80. The resulting pick three payoffs grouping the first three of those winners and the last three returned $5.30 and $5.40 for a $1 wager, while the pick four for the entire sequence paid a mere $9.80 for $1.

Favorites and form in general took a beating during the second half of Sunday’s program, with the win payoffs on the final five races ranging from $12.40 to the $27 River Seven returned for winning the featured Harlan’s Holiday Stakes.

Outside posts tough again

Although the winter meet is less than a month old, some familiar-looking patterns are again developing when it comes to post-position relevance in races run at 7 1/2 furlongs and a mile on the turf and at 1 1/16 miles and 1 1/8 miles on the main track, where the short runs to the first turn put horses breaking from the outer posts at a decided disadvantage.

For instance, in 7 1/2-furlong races on the grass, with admittedly a very small sample size to choose from, horses breaking in posts 6 through 12 were a combined 1 for 25 during the opening weeks of the meet. That’s not surprising when you look back to last winter, which produced only four winners from the 89 horses who began 7 1/2-furlong turf events outside post 5.

In one-mile turf races, there were five winners from the 84 starters who broke out of posts 8 through 14 during the first month of the meet. One of those victories was the product of a picture-perfect ride orchestrated by Kent Desormeaux to get Dreamalot home first from post 14 on Dec. 14.

The results were pretty similar in races run at 1 1/16 miles and 1 1/8 miles on the dirt. Only one horse breaking outside of post 7 had won at 1 1/16 miles in the first 10 races run at the distance this winter. Only one race had been carded at 1 1/8 miles here so far this season (it was won from post 1). Only one of the 31 starters breaking outside post 7 won at the distance during the 2012-13 session.

Jockey/trainer facts

Everybody knows that Paco Lopez and Javier Castellano had been dominating the jockey standings four weeks into the winter meet, and Eddie Plesa Jr. and of course Todd Pletcher had a stranglehold on the trainers’ side of the ledger. But here are a few other lesser-known jockey/trainer facts that handicappers might find relevant when making their selections.

Riding favorites – Although 14 of Castellano’s first 18 winners at the meet came aboard favorites, and he delivered with a whopping 54 percent of them, Dylan Davis has proven an even better friend to chalk players. He had won with four of the six favorites he had ridden entering this week, a 67 percent success rate.

Turf specialists – As was the case here a year ago, Castellano and Jose Lezcano continued to dominate on the grass. Castellano had registered nine turf victories from just 32 grass starts, while Lezcano had won with six of his 27 mounts on the grass. Perhaps Lezcano’s most notable performance on the turf came last Saturday aboard Middleburg, whom he maneuvered expertly to victory despite a slow start from post 12.

Bang for the buck – Many trainers are victims of their own success, at least from a parimutuel standpoint. Average win payoffs on five of the top 10 trainers in the standings through last week ranged from $4 (Marty Wolfson) to $5.50 (Wesley Ward), with Chad Brown ($4.30), Kirk Ziadie ($5.20), and Pletcher ($5.30) all also under $6. Oddly, leading trainer Eddie Plesa continued to reward his backers on a regular basis, with a $10.10 average win payout and a positive return on investment for the meet through last week. Backers of trainer Eddie Broome had profited the most. He averaged $34.90 for a $2 win bet for his three winners this month.