Betting the Belmont

Here is an interesting article predicting how the Belmont will be run on Saturday. They pick Smarty Jones to come up just a bit short to a horse, Birdstone, that performed poorly at the Derby, skipped the Preakness, and is now back as a hopeful spoiler. This same scenario has spoiled Triple Crown hopefuls probably numerous times in past history. You will recall that last year's Derby favorite, Empire Maker, played spoiler in just this manner to Funny Cide.

For the bettors out there, the article makes good emphasis of one of my personal favorite betting strategies. When you agree with the rest of the masses that one of the horses (or dogs, as it may be) is a clear powerhouse, it is often best to put your money in the show bet instead of win or across the board. As the article tells, Smary Jones will almost certainly go off at better than even money odds. Heck, with all of the desire in America to have a new superhorse, I wouldn't be surprised to see sentimental betting drive the odds down to 1-5 or thereabouts. What this means to you as a better is that the win line would probably look something like $2.40 $2.25 $2.10.

There's just not a lot of money to be won on the straight bets, and as such it is far safer to make a $50 show bet than it is to do something like $50 to win or $20 across the board. In my personal strategy, I will sometime combine the across the board with a big show bet to help cover me in case I'm wrong. At 1-5 I probably wouldn't bother, but at or above even money, if I can find a winner, I'll often do something like $5 across the board with an additional $20 show bet. I'm disappointed at how often I tend to cash only the show portion and none of the win or place portions. I think the big show bet on a strong horse can also be a good hedge against some off the more exotic bets that you might place.

Then again, my father, who is certainly a much more accomplished gambler than I, almost never bets the straight (WPS) bets. He is all about exactas, quinnellas, trifectas, and superfectas. The bigger money is in the more extravagant bets and wheels, partials wheels, and the like types of combinations mean that the confident bettor can make a fairly wide combination of bets for a fair cost. I bet plenty of trifectas and superfectas myself. They are the bets you remember winning for along time. But in most instances, my performance on any given outing is probably more driven by the success or failure of my show bets.

Jonathan 6/03/2004 01:07:00 PM