Horse Racing: Mick McMudder’s Saturday Picks
Mick McMudder has been playing the ponies and picking winners since Ferdinand won the Derby, Broad Brush made a right turn and still won the Pennsylvania Derby and Snow Chief was champion three-year-old after winning the Preakness and Jersey Derby (still a travesty for Mick . . . it should have been Ferdinand). But the most influential horse born in the same year was a Pennsylvania-bred . . . Storm Cat who made up for his limited race track career with a stud career that has not been equaled since . . . although Galileo is getting close! Since his fateful first trip to Timonium (you gotta start somewhere!), Mick has bought, sold, bred, raced, claimed, retired, retrained, re-homed, and, most of all, bet on thoroughbreds. In addition, he has played the ponies on four different continents and justified far too many farm trips to the TSA.
With his picks below, Mick is trying to show races where he thinks there is an opportunity to make the right wager and get a return on your investment in line with the risk involved. You will seldom see him calling out the morning line chalk. Although focusing on the Mid Atlantic tracks, he will feature top races from elsewhere in the country (and world, when possible), especially those that are Grade 1s or leading up to the classics.
Good luck and when all else fails, bet the bay horse. Why? Bays make up between 27 and 30% of thoroughbreds, the largest percentage of any color.
Picks for Dec. 22, 2018:
The biggest variable for Saturday will be track condition. After two days of significant rain, Mick’s best guess is that Parx and Aqueduct will be sloppy at the start of the day but end up muddy. Penn National should be muddy from the start. All told, a day to look for horses with proven off-track form and young horses with off-track breeding.
Parx Race 1
Great first race of the day - old warriors going 2 turns for the bottom tag of $5K. These races are usually won by whoever is having a good day since all of them have tons of back class and experience. Hard to beat the Vazquez entry of Kendricks and Zipped Code on paper but there is one horse that has the potential . . .if you can look past his last race.
$5 win bet on 10-County Corrections
$1 Trifecta box 1-Entry, 5-Belly Dancer, 10-County Corrections
Parx Race 5
Another warrior race, open $10K claimers at a mile. Again, the search is for who is best positioned to step up or who is getting dropped in. The obvious horses are 2-Salem Loop and 4-High Moon but both are making their first start for new connections and neither kept their last race rider. So instead, let’s look for a longer shot that has excellent off track form and a good reason to move up.
5-Kingslayer has been 1-2 in 7 of 8 lifetime off-track starts, has an awesome off-track pedigree (Ghostzappers are 205 off-track), and is coming off a layoff. If the 5 is not ready, then look at the 7-Ringnecked who gets the services of #1 jock Frankie Pennington, moves to a new barn and is stepping up even though they could have run him at the claim level.
$5 Exacta Box 5-Kingslayer and 7-Ringnecked.
Parx Race 7
High class 2-year-old fillies that have all won a race. I need to look no further than the two fillies coming out of Stakes races out of town. 5-My Best Friend ran in an $100K Stake at Aqueduct last out and faded to fourth -- a bridge too far at this point but is now in a better level and appears to be the well deserved favorite. But I’m looking to beat the 5 with 6-Strega Nonna, a consistent filly with more experience and a fifth in an $100K Stake at Penn National. The 6 has won on a good track and run well over both mud and slop. Rest assured, she will get one of those.
$20 Win on 6-Strega Nonna
And now for some quickies….
Parx Race 8 -- If the entry goes, look for bridge jumping opportunity. The show pools have been small at Parx recently but this could be an over bet favorite entry across the board.
Parx Race 9 -- Take a shot on the any number of runners here since the favorite, 11-Bon Heir has no off-track success. 8-Nellie Mac may be too short of a price, too. Try 2-Thatta Boy Girl, 25% trainer, back to 5 ½ furlongs and gets the shortest path around.
And Finally….
Aqueduct Race 8 The Queens County 3 & up 9 furlongs
Can Parx trainer John Servis take a horse with no Stakes experience and no experience going more than 8 ½ furlongs to the Big A and win if the horse is named for a Mets pitcher? Can Fair Hill’s Kelly Rubley take a PA-bred named for a PA river and do the same thing? Or will the big names in the big city rule the day? It’s hard to bet against Todd Pletcher, it’s especially hard when he has two in the race. And both Alan Goldberg and Kiaran McLaughlin have live horses in the race that fit. Keep in mind that ALL of the trainers can or do take their best strings to the South in the Winter but this race is on the calendar at a time when it can be the last start before the truck pulls out.
Gotta get creative here.
$1 Trifecta wheel
1, 10 over the 1,3,7,10 over the 2,3,7,9,10
$10 Show on the 3,4, 7 OR 9 if the 1 gets over bet in the Show pool.