King: Del Mar pick three play for Friday, Aug. 22

A pair of full fields sandwich the featured race Friday, the CTT and Thoroughbred Owners of California Handicap, making the late pick three the most attractive of the multi-race gimmick wagers to these eyes. Due to only seven races on the card, the late pick three starts with the fifth race.

Race 5

A six-furlong sprint on Polytrack, this race has two ‘A’ plays in Off the Deep End (#5, 7-2), who has two wins and a second in three starts, and Passing Game (#14, 4-1), an in-form runner who appears poised to draw into the race following early some scratches in the body of the field.

:: Build your pick three ticket with DRF TicketMaker | DRF TicketMaker (Mobile)

Two secondary ‘B’ plays serve as backups: Justification (#8, 8-1), a recent claiming winner in fast time, and the lightly raced Mal Verde (#12, 9-2), who has run in the top three in all of his races.

Race 6

Customer Base (#4, 5-2), starting for a winning turf barn, rates as the lone ‘A’ runner in the feature. Her extensive stakes experience suggests she is the class of the field.

Also of interest is Rhagori (#9, 7-2), who rates as a ‘B’ after running good third in a deep stakes field in one prior start at the meet.

Race 7

LL Cool Jo (#4, 8-1) and Super Defence (#12, 5-2) are the two ‘A’s. Both are capable of running Beyer Speed Figures in the 60s, suggesting they are faster than the others.

Spoiledandentitled (#3, 6-1), despite lackluster recent form, gets some degree of respect based on what she did last year and picking up hot-riding Kent Desormeaux.

The Ticket

Plugging the horses into Ticketmaker as described above, using a $1 base wager and a budget of $40 results in tickets of all ‘A’s being played for $3; two ‘A’s and one ‘B’ tickets for $2 each; and one ‘A’ and two ‘B’s for $1 apiece.