Hearing about the handsome payouts at Tampa, and reading Beyer's comments about the full, competitive fields, prompted me to experiment with handicapping that track using the free PPs offered by Brisnet in February.
Here's the upshot of my experiment, which looked only at four days of racing: I have a really difficult time predicting outcomes at Tampa and so will stay away from the track.
My wagering strategy is to bet $20 on one horse to win and then to key that horse in a limited trifecta.
Feb. 2--Picked five of ten winners and still lost a moderate amount of money, $316. Made a return on win bets but lost money on the trifecta wagers, even though my key horse figured in the trifecta six of ten races. The races I hit had abysmal trifecta payouts. Of course, there was no way I could hit the 6th race, which had a magnificent tri payout. I'd like to meet the lucky bastards who had that sequence and find out how they got it. Who in their right mind would put Cornetto on top? And where the eff was Get Ready Go in that race? I was left scratching my head.
Feb. 3--Lost all my win wagers, but my key horse figured in the trifecta in five of ten races, and one of the trifecta wagers paid well. So, I almost broke even on the tri wagers, but overall, I still lost a nice chunk of change, $217. How anyone could find that $108 winner in the 7th and the $141 winner in the 10th is beyond me. It's not that either Bonnistar or Top Spot looked impossible, it's just that there were a good number of likelier candidates in those races.
Feb. 4--Lost money again, and no small amount at that, $874. Had only two winners and four trifecta hits, all with pitiful payouts. What the aitch? Horses with good form, if you can find them, seem to regress at Tampa, and speed apparently means little to nothing. For example, no way that either Schell Shocker or Devil's Bridge should have lost the fourth race to Flying Dolly, who had never before shown early pace. And don't even ask me why Miss Seduction stopped and finished off the board in the 8th race, while 69-1 shot Lightningonline, who had no previous success at the track, at the distance, or on the dirt, got in for the place. Some things defy explanation.
Feb. 5--Lost money again, but not as much, only $46. Hit four of ten winners, and my key horse figured in five of ten trifecta payouts. Three of the five tri payouts were decent, one was awful, and the other was just passable. The $123 winner in the 2nd and the $66 place finisher in the 9th prevented me from having a winning day. And who would have predicted that Legal Move would have finished in front of any horse in the Super Stakes, anyway? Okay, I'm stepping away from the PPs now
My conclusion: If you're going to play Tampa, pick and wager on winners only and you might, MIGHT, break even or come out ahead, as long as you don't chase, and if you're better at overlooking speed, form, and class than I am. Don't play trifecta wagers. When you hit, the payouts are generally insufficient to cover your key horse combinations. When you don't hit, some lucky gimp who handicaps using numerology or saddle cloth color takes home your money.
I'm glad I simply experimented with handicapping Tampa. I would have been very unhappy losing that much money. And we know that some people did lose a great deal of money; otherwise, the win payouts would not have been as high as they were.
