A good day yesterday handicapping the final four races at Churchill Downs. I had three scratches face me, so I had to do a bit of late scrambling with the bets and the feature race-- the 9th and Grade III Ms. Revere was moved to the dirt from the turf, but I still managed to hit that one.
In the final analysis, I had 20 runners go forth...when you look at my top picks and my "if scratches occur" selections. Out of those, I had 4 winners, 4 seconds and 1 show. So, it wasn't a grand day for trifectas, but, I did give you four exactas and the Pick 4. The "in the money" percentage was 45% and I filled nine of the 12 "payable" slots for a 75% success rate there.
Race 8 brought BIG BEAUTIFUL WALL to the wire first and he rewarded us at 14-1 with Julian Leparoux on board for one of my favorite Churchill trainers -- Paul McGee. MAKE NOISE scratched, which necessitated putting Big Beautiful Wall into the mix and he got it done That exacta paid $131 on the $1 investment.
Race 9 saw PATIO FLAG draw a lot of money after VILLANELLE scratched and she edged out the favorite OCEAN BREEZE at 7-5 odds to get to the wire first. The combination of Santana riding and Asmussen training scores again and the $1 exacta paid a small $4.80
Race 10, the feature racce -- the Ms. Revere Grade III, drew a lot of money on winner PRINCESS GRACE after favorite HENDY WOODS scratched and she fulfilled the backers belief at 5-2 odds. PASS THE PLATE, trained by Paul McGee, could not catch her in the stretch. Meet leading rider Florent Geroux was the winning jockey and the $1 exacta got you $16.60. That race was the only trifecta I hit, receiving $68.70. If you decided to "roll your Pick 3's" in the final four races this one rewarded you with a $89.50 payout on the .50 cent attempt.
The final race of the day Race 11 is where I thought there might be a longshot winner. It ran pretty true to form, though, with 5-2 HONORIFIQUE nosing out ROOKERY for the final win on the day. $.9.90 on the $1 exacta, that rolling Pick 3 got you $27.40 on the .50 cent wager and the late Pick Four, with the numbers 9-2-4-12 rewarded you with $370.35 on the ,50 cent try. Tyler Gaffalione rode the winner.
If you played the Paulie Picks for the final Pick 4 verbatim, you laid out $135 for a $370 return, so that gave you a +$235 profit. The trifectas, though cost $30 a race for $120, and just got me back $68, so I lost $52 there. But, that still had me up $183 on the day. I'll take it.
If you had gone the five-horse, $1 exacta box route for the four races, you would have turned your $80 investment into $162, a $82 profit...so congratulations if that's how you played the day.
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We'll give it a go again next Saturday for closing weekend at Churchill. A longstanding tradition of mine of hitting the track on the Friday after Thanksgiving probably isn't going to happen, with this Covid shit getting worse each day, but, I may look at the final four races there as well and offer you FRIDAY and SATURDAY selections next week.
paulie
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