One of my favorite wagering axioms, emphasized by friend and colleague Dave Litfin in his fine book “Dave Litfin’s Expert Handicapping”, is that you try to set up your wagers so that when you lose, you lose a little; when you win, you win a little…but sometimes you win big.

Our Pick last week, Quality Investment, was scratched and therefore rendered our handicapping useless.  However, there were three BreezeFigs maiden winners on that card along with four BreezeFigs stakes winners, two at Gulfstream, one each at Aqueduct and Woodbine, plus two others making their fifth and sixth starts (at Gulfstream and Penn) that were not on that card so it pays to keep good records.

The winter meet at Gulfstream Park has traditionally been a key meet, often attracting the best horses on the East Coast. Almost every big trainer on the New York Racing Association circuit sends a string of horses down to Florida, plus there are the lower-profile trainers who are stabled in Florida year-round.

Los Alamitos Race Course hosts Saturday’s only graded stakes race, the Grade 2, $200,000 Bayakoa, but Gulfstream Park’s championship meet opens Saturday with eight Claiming Crown events, topped by the $200,000 Jewel.

Claiming Crown Jewel

NIPIGON
Trainer: Rachel Halden
Last race: Nov. 29, 8th
Finish: 2nd by a head
Beyer: 77
Off a second-out maiden win, he had to take his game to another level if he was to make an impact in the nine-furlong Coronation Futurity, and he did. The handsome son of Queen’s Plate winner Niigon hails from the family of champion Sky Beauty. He looks like a viable candidate for next year’s Plate.

Top trainers are top trainers because they win races. They win a lot of them, and they win the richest races, racking up victories and total earnings at a high rate. On average, the best trainers can be expected to win about 20 percent to 25 percent of the races they enter, but often they get overbet, especially in relation to their relative success previously in certain types of races. Other times, their runners are comparatively overlooked, providing great value and opportunities to make money.

Saturday, November 29

Aqueduct - Comely (race 4)

COMMENT: More proof of the danger of lone speed and how it was even enhanced by a main track that played heavily to inside speed. Snowbell, wisely scratched from the Grade 3 Go for Wand the day prior, was coming off a romping 8 1/2-length optional-claiming win at Belmont Oct. 5 when she went wire to wire, as she’d also done in her maiden win.

It’s closing day for the Bing Crosby meet at Del Mar, and while most people will be focusing on the pick six carryover and the mandatory payout for that wager, I’ll look at a few individual races to try to make some decent scores on.

RACE 2

Considering yesterday’s intense rail bias along with today’s soft turf course, two grass races moved to the main track, and a 2-year-old maiden special weight full of first-time starters smack-dab in the middle of the early pick four and pick five, I’m playing the Sunday Aqueduct card with extreme caution. 

Let’s try a pick three.

Race 2

It’s a classy card at Aqueduct this afternoon, with the featured Cigar Mile the last Grade 1 of the year in New York. I’ll concentrate on the graded stakes races and the late pick four sequence.