Sidebar

[usfgeology]

I'm a big fan of Tampa Bay Downs. To echo others, the turf races are really where this place shines.

Camacho is a man on fire in Tampa. Has been for 2 years. Tough to ever get a price on him as he's always on well intended horses. Bet him in the opening daily double any day he's got horses and you'll end up with a positive ROI.

Gallardo may not have the %'s but is far and away the best turf rider in Tampa. His timing with deep closers running routes is so much fun to watch. Look out when he rides for Kathleen O'Connell, who runs a super classy barn and is always in contention for trainer of the year. Pablo Morales is right there with Gallardo but hasn't had as many mounts since getting injured (last year?).

Gary Wales rides hard and gets rewarded every once in a while, and usually at a price because he's not getting the best mounts. If he's on a horse that has any previous running lines that would contend, it's worth considering him if you like playing longshots.

I generally play against Pletcher and Joseph shippers. I like Baxter shippers. Clement turfers are always well-intended here (but aren't they anywhere?). Mid-west shippers are doing well this year as has been observed by others.

On stakes days, we have a lot of the classy jocks from Gulfstream come up and they often mop up the undercards and at prices you'd never normally see.

In terms of the formula being discussed previously...I use "earnings per start" as a metric. Earnings per win, by default, is unusable to evaluate a maiden race. This eliminates having to dissect earnings by surface, wins, etc....It's a great way to quickly evaluate the class of a horse, but as DaHoss pointed out, it can be very misleading in races with lightly raced horses (i.e. maiden races, n1L, etc.) I've found it to be most effective in open claiming, optional claiming, handicap, and allowance races with unrestricted age ranges. The last part is the key. I love betting a sneaky seven year old who's won 22 races lifetime running against a bunch of four year olds who just finished all their conditional races. Your mileage will vary.

I'm glad to see the dialogue and attention and will look to play along in the Selections forum.