DEL MAR — Dazzled by racing cards full of elite horses at juicy odds in an all-you-can-eat buffet of possible wagers, bettors at the Breeders’ Cup on Friday and Saturday at Del Mar will go one of two ways.
They’ll find themselves with lots of strong opinions. Or they’ll find themselves with very few.
The latter is preferable.
The wagering menu has expanded exponentially in the 40 years since the first Breeders’ Cup at Hollywood Park, which offered only win, place, show and exacta bets on every race, plus one daily double and a pick-six. Now the menu features trifectas, superfectas and “super high 5s,” rolling doubles, pick 3s, pick 4s and pick 5s, and other gimmicks. A scheduling change last year and this, moving the $7 million Breeders’ Cup Classic out of its Saturday anchor spot and into the middle of the card, has made the festival’s heavyweight main event even more tantalizing for gamblers.
As it was in 2023 at Santa Anita, the Classic is part of 12 different multi-race bets.
And as this column said last year, the best chance for success as a bettor comes from focusing your action on the few races in which you have your most confident opinions, and trying not to fritter away cash on the rest.
A few general guidelines might help:
• It’s likely that more Breeders’ Cup race winners will come from Europe and the burgeoning thoroughbred program in Japan, and fewer from the home circuit in Southern California, than in years and decades past.
• The Del Mar main (dirt) track and turf course could play a role in determining who wins and loses some races. If the main track plays as it did in Del Mar’s summer season, you’re more likely to find winners from among horses who have raced close on or close to the early lead in the past than horses who like to come from behind. On turf, inside post positions are preferable, and outside starting slots can leave early-speed horses hung out wide on the turn.
• On any day at the races, once you’ve picked your horses, make your bets match your opinions. If you like one horse in a race better than the crowd does, bet it to win and don’t dilute your opinion’s impact by combining it with others in a combination wager. If you think it’s more wide-open than most people do, try multi-horse bets rather than forcing yourself to choose one horse.
A few thoughts on specific Breeders’ Cup races to consider:
• The Classic features the best horse in the world, English Derby winner City of Troy, and the top-ranked horse in America, another 3-year-old in Fierceness. One of the older horses, 4-year-old Arthur’s Ride, is intriguing at morning-line odds of 15-1. Arthur’s Ride and jockey Junior Alvarado led from gate to wire to win the Whitney in August and could bounce back from a poor Jockey Club Gold Cup to do the same Saturday.
• A California handicapper was joking that the over-under line on the number of victories by California-based horses in the 14 Breeders’ Cup races should be “zero and a half.” The California-based horse with the best chance to win a race looks like Thought Process, the Phil D’Amato-trained 2-year-old filly who brings a three-race win streak and 5-2 morning-line odds into a bid to upset British-based Lake Victoria in the $1 million Juvenile Fillies Turf.
• Some horses with low odds could have a rough time because of their post positions or running styles or both. It could be worth trying to beat come-from-behinders Chancer McPatrick (3-1) in the $2 million Juvenile and Raging Sea (7-2) in the $2 million Distaff, and outside-post Bradsell (7-2) in the $1 million Turf Sprint, Carl Spackler (6-1) in the $2 million Mile and Skippylongstocking (4-1) in the $1 million Dirt Mile.
One-two-three picks for every race by Bob Mieszerski, Eddie Wilson, Mark Ratzky and me are available in the consensus box on the websites of the Southern California News Group’s Los Angeles-area papers, and in the papers’ Ponies Express newsletter.
I’ll present picks my picks in a different way here. For each race, I’ve listed two horses. The first is my choice for the likeliest winner, and the second is the “don’t forget where you heard it” horse with a chance at high odds.
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Friday
Juvenile Turf Sprint: Aesterius, Ides of March
Juvenile Fillies: Scottish Lassie, Vodka With a Twist
Juvenile Fillies Turf: Thought Process, Vixen
Juvenile: East Avenue, Shin Believe
Juvenile Turf: Al Qudra, Mentee
Saturday
Filly and Mare Sprint: Ways and Means, Pleasant
Turf Sprint: Cogburn, Ag Bullet
Distaff: Thorpedo Anna, Candied
Turf: Rebel’s Romance, Wingspan
Classic: City of Troy, Arthur’s Ride
Filly and Mare Turf: War Like Goddess, Content
Sprint: Federal Judge, Don Frankie
Mile: Notable Speech, Diego Velazquez
Dirt Mile: Domestic Product, Post Time
Follow horse racing correspondent Kevin Modesti at Twitter.com/KevinModesti.