It's kind of funny how a player's perspective of a day's races is influenced by how he or she approached the betting. Many of yesterday's winners were favorites or co-favorites, yet there were some very unlikely longshots in the second or third slots.
If you were playing the horizontal exotics, you might have concluded that the day was fairly formful. The only price of any kind in the pick 6 was the La Prevoyante winner, and that was only about 7-1. The final pick 4 had a run of either first or second choices and paid accordingly.
Yet, Cal correctly noted that those who were trying their luck with the vertical exotics needed to be either very creative or very fortunate to cash some of the tickets. In the third, the exacta was totally predictable, but the third place finisher was 66-1. In the 7th, the winner and third place finisher were contenders, but the second place finisher broke up a number of exactas and trifectas at 44-1. A trifecta player in the Hooper would have needed a crystal ball or an all button to include a 70-1 shot in the third slot after two of the top three contenders on top. And as Cal already bemoaned, Seeking the Soul split the top two choices in the finale at 34-1.
A horizontal player left asking himself why he wasted money by going too deep in a pick 4. A vertical player either cashed a big ticket or tore up lots of smaller ones unless the play was very creative. It can be a very "funny" game to play.
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