ARCADIA, Calif. – The main track at Santa Anita was sealed before the first race Saturday as track superintendent Dennis Moore prepared for rain. How that affects the racing program a day later, on Sunday, is a mystery.

Will the track be fast? Will it be wet? Will the inside be preferred, or the outside?

Who knows?

Wiggle room is necessary due to uncertainty; Sunday strategy is subject to change. Races 1, 5 and 8 are scheduled for turf and therefore out of the early discussion. As for the remaining races on dirt, below is this handicapper’s early plan.

Saturday’s card at Gulfstream is loaded with quality late, as one might expect this time of year, but the early portion of the program is surprisingly shaky. Four of the first five races are for maidens, with three of those four being maiden-claiming affairs. And the two weakest maiden claimers are slotted for races 2 and 5, which bookend the early pick four.

Saturday’s card at Santa Anita features two graded stakes events, and they will be the focus of my plays. I will play each of them individually, as well as have them be the bookends of a pick three play.

THE PLAYS

RACE 6

WIN/SHOW wager on UNBLUNTED (4) at odds of 7-2 or greater

EXACTA BOX of UNBLUNTED (4) / HERO TEN ALL (8)

PICK THREE (races 6-8): 4,8 / 2 / 1,2,10

RACE 8

WIN/SHOW wager on QUADRIVIUM (1) at odds of 9-2 or greater

EXACTA BOX of QUADRIVIUM (1) / HOPPERTUNITY (2)

A small pick three wager on races 2-4 Saturday at Santa Anita includes the possibility of chaos in the final leg. It’s a $20 play.

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

RACE 2: BYE BYE BELLA (#5) stands out here off the last couple of figures she has earned, and this is not a deep group of maiden claimers. She closed to just miss in her latest despite a slow pace and her main rival in here, Natasha's Jewel -- who goes long on the dirt for the first time after losing ground in sprints in her last two -- figures to help produce at least honest splits.

A's: 5

B's: NONE

C's: NONE

Before the start of the Gulfstream Park meet Dec. 6, we used the Daily Racing Form Formulator to look at a handful of trainers and how they’ve fared at Gulfstream over the last five years. In analyzing the data, we identified angles that had proven successful or unsuccessful in recent history at the track.

Update Alert: Please refer to the third paragraph for news of a major update to BreezeFigs which eliminates a lot of superfluous text from this column.

The Hal’s Hope may be the race Saturday at Gulfstream that has the most star power – drawing last year’s Grade 1 Donn winner, Lea – but the two other stakes there Saturday, both deep contests on turf, are the races that have this horseplayer eager to wager.

Immediately after the Hal’s Hope is the Grade 3 Marshua’s River (race 8) at 1 1/16 miles on grass – a race in which I suspect Parranda will be favored.

Before we take a look at a few of this week’s stakes in a Beyer Speed Figures context, let’s look back at two stakes from last Saturday.

Going into the Jerome at Aqueduct on Jan. 3, the 94 Beyer that El Kabeir had recorded in winning the Kentucky Jockey Club strongly suggested he would be the winner. El Kabeir won the Jerome by almost five lengths with a 95 Beyer. Nasa got an 86 when winning the Pennsylvania Nursery. He was a clear second in the Jerome, nearly eight lengths in front of the third-place horse. He got an 87 for his effort in the Jerome.

The stakes focus Saturday is precisely where one would expect it to be in January – Gulfstream and Santa Anita. Gulfstream has three stakes on its card – the Grade 2, $200,000 Fort Lauderdale; the Grade 3, $150,000 Marshua’s River; and the Grade 3, $150,000 Hal’s Hope, which marks the return of the highly talented Lea. Santa Anita has a stakes doubleheader consisting of the Grade 2, $200,000 San Pasqual and the Grade 3, $100,000 Sham, a route for 3-year-olds with 17 Kentucky Derby points.

Fort Lauderdale Stakes