King: Pick four play at Gulfstream for Sunday, Jan. 31

As usual, a series of deep, competitive races – mostly on turf – give the opportunity for a fat payoff in the late pick four at Gulfstream Park on Sunday. Here’s my strategy for it, ranking horses as either an ‘A’ or a ‘B’ based on their probability of winning each respective race, and then plugging the horses into DRF’s Ticketmaker program.

Race 8

The first leg, a maiden turf race for inexperienced 3-year-olds, is a scramble. So I will go deep with three A horses and two B’s.

In order of preference, I like the following horses as A’s: SHE’S SO COSMO (1), CONQUEST CITY GIRL (10), and LOVE THE KITTEN (5). She’s So Cosmo is a first timer from the dominant turf stable of trainer Chad Brown, and the other two fillies have good form on Polytrack and turf, respectively.

The two B runners are MISS METEOR (4) and AKRON GOLD, with Miss Meteor having shown promise on dirt and Akron Gold being a fast-working debut runner from the grass barn of trainer Christophe Clement.

Race 9

OUTLASH (7) comes off a second at this level, and though this is a talented group of first-level allowance horses, has an experience edge over DEEP SEA (8), and a likely fitness advantage over comebackers UNBRILDED JUAN (5) and IMPERIA (4).

Outlash is the lone A, with Deep Sea, Unbridled Juan, and Imperia ranking as B horses.

Race 10

I am excited the value, at least on the morning line, of 12-1 shot DREAMS CUT SHORT (8), who has struggled in two starts this meet but whose overall grass form is very good. He drops in class and looks dangerous at a price.

Dreams Cut Short is one of two A’s that will be the only plays in this race, with the other being SHARP OMAR (2), a first off-the-claim Chad Brown runner with proven marathon turf form.

Admittedly, this is going to be a tough leg to clear, using only two horses, but the beyond the two mentioned above, I saw four or five others with relative equal chances of winning, and to keep the ticket cost down elected to go only two deep.

Race 11

The nightcap also has just two horses on my ticket: SUPER C ME (4), a win machine who ranks as an A, and FRANKIE’S TRIGGER (3), a B, who is poised to wake up at a price with the shift from dirt to his preferred surface on turf.

The Ticket

Plugging the above-mentioned horses into Ticketmaker, for $54 an all ‘A’ ticket can be played for $1.50; any combination of three ‘A’ horses and ‘B’ for $1; and two ‘A’ horses and two ‘B’ runners for 50 cents.

:: See Byron King’s pick four play in DRF TicketMaker and bet it with DRF Bets