DeRosa: How to bet the Pick 5 $32,684.58 carryover at Turfway

In case you didn’t notice, Horse Racing Nation made a big hire this week, picking up Sara Elbadwi to be our handicapping content coordinator beginning in January.

One of her first assignments was to read David Sklansky’s The Theory of Poker, which I’ve always thought does the best job explaining the essence of pari-mutuel wagering (and how to approach it with success as the goal).

Every time you play a hand differently from the way you would have played it if you could see all your opponents’ cards, they gain, and every time you play your hand the same way you would have played it if you could see all their cards, they lose. Conversely, every time opponents play their hands different from the way they would have if they could see all your cards, you gain, and every time they play their hands the same way they would have played if they could see all your cards, you lose.

Now you might be saying, “No kidding. If I knew who won every race and then bet I’d be a billionaire.” But that’s not really the point. Just as poker is not played face up, neither is racing played with the results known. But both poker and horseplaying involve information and using it against other players instead of the house. I have really focused on keeping this at the forefront of my handicapping process, especially when looking ahead to the $32,684.58 Pick 5 carryover on Thursday at Turfway Park. Or as professional horseplayer Inside the Pylons likes to put it, if you’re using the same horses as everyone else you’re going to be a long-term loser.

To that end, instead of using my time handicapping a race to determine who will win, I’ve become more focused on determining where my competition (i.e. other bettors in this pool) are going to make mistakes.

Turfway Park has – by far – the largest field size of any track in December. That, combined with horses coming from all over at the start of the meeting, and a competitive condition book does make the morning line process especially tough, but through 2 weeks (64 races), Mike Battaglia seems to be pretty zeroed in on who will take money, and there are two morning line favorites who look especially vulnerable in the Pick 5 sequence:

1. No. 4 Airwar in race 3, &

2. No. 10 High Noon Rider in race 4

How actionable Airwar is remains to be seen because he is the 4-1 morning-line choice in a field of 10 with two other horses 9-2 and another pair at 5-1, so half the field is between 4-1 and 5-1. This is absolutely going to be a spread race for most, which means there are several opportunities to zig where others zag in race 3.

1. The five contenders on the morning line are 1, 3, 4, 6, and 10. I expect most players will use at least three horses in this race, up to seven if they eliminate any at all, and of all the races in the sequence people might punch the “All” button, it’s far more likely here than in races 2 or 4. So, one way to separate here is to use less than 3 contenders.

2. I am going to further try to separate by leaning on No. 5 Orb of the Boro or #9 Cornbread Hill, 10-1 and 15-1, respectively, on the morning line. The former ships in from Presque Isle Downs off a Predicteform.com New Pace Top, and Presque Isle shippers have won four races so far at the meeting. (Note that since December 2018, Presque Isle shippers have underperformed relative to their win odds, which is what the HRN Impact measures, but they have outperformed those odds this year.)

3. Cornbread Hill is trying synthetic for the first time, but his dam has thrown a synthetic winner, and she herself won her lone synthetic start. If the surface change gives this one some early zip that could be dangerous because the Horse Racing Nation Pace Report is projecting an extremely slow pace w/ Orb of the Boro or Cornbread Hill on the lead..

Race 4 is a little more straightforward for me, as I don’t like the morning-line favorite there at all and am very willing to lean on No. 3 Inclusive, who attracts leading rider Gerardo Corrales. Although I see No. 5 Franco’s Team in race 2 as the most likely winner in the sequence, I see Inclusive as the best bet, because he’s not the morning line favorite and don’t think he will be many people’s single. Race 5 is a potential narrowing opportunity as well, because it is not only the last leg but also a maiden race with some debut runners. People love to be live to “All” and love to cover themselves on debut runners. All three of them look playable here, and narrowing on the 5 and 9 in race 3 will allow me to cover here at what I expect an overlaid price, but for those tickets where maybe I’m not as thing earlier, Nos. 6 and 10 are intriguing leans to close it out.

No. 10 Valentina Day is by Cupid, and her debut showed signs of life under Corrales, who returns for the synthetic and two-turn debut. Cupid progeny 21 percent on synth, and the dam has four synthetic wins among her progeny. No. 6 Catiche has speed and ran well on debut after hitting the gate. By Arrogate out of a Pulpit mare, she should appreciate the stretch out. 

There are a few data points to consider as well as scratches. Again, it’s a game of information so don’t want to get too married to specific horses yet, but in terms of handicapping the handicappers and looking to take advantage of their mistakes, these are the opportunities I’m forecasting.

We’ll put it all into practice on Thursday night when TwinSpires’ Scott Shapiro joins me on the Horse Racing Nation live stream to handicap Turfway Park.