Santa Anita Handicap Spot Play for today

I'm a big fan of Mark Cramer (also James Quinn), and I just realized that shows my age doesn't it? Anyway, Cramer has an angle for surprise winners. You find a horse with three straight loses that is switching tracks along with a jockey change. Additionally, the horse should be beaten by more than 2 lengths in those three races, dropping (or rising) in class and odds greater than 4/1. Cramer showed a 13% win ratio with a huge ROI.

The #8 Gladding fits most of the criteria. It did finish less than 2 lengths back in one of those three races and is moving up in class not down. So consider him a borderline case, but at a morning line of 12/1, it's worth the shot. You got Gladding coming in from Churchill, Rosario is now riding, and he has won at Santa Anita before. So for fun, will put a dime on him.

Side note: I saw El Padrino clipped a 101 in the Risen Star, making two in a row of over 100 Beyer, he looks strong to me. The one I do like is Mark Valeski, who was neck and neck with El Padrino, so he had to have had a Beyer at 100, a huge jump for him. It's early for the Derby hopefuls, but Mark Valeski is quietly rising into contention.

Weekly Recap for the Clocker

We finished the week with a nice win at Santa Anita. Darling Dodie a first time starter went off at 7/1 and paid $16.00 for her efforts. I didn't get to see the race, but did read the recap and it looked like Corey Nakatani set her up perfectly. Interesting note on that maiden race, all three finishers were first time starters! We handicapped four races for the week, playing $2 to win on each race, we invested $8.00 and returned $16.00, not a bad start for the week.

Today we have three big races at Aqueduct, and I like the favorites in each of them: Hansen, It's Tricky and Caleb Posse. I'll be handicapping the Battaglia Memorial over at Turfway Park for 3YO. that analysis will be at horseplayersassociation.org under Weekend Handicapping.

One last note, I want to leave you all with a quote from Mark Cramer,

In Search of the Steady Horse

In search of this ideal, we must reckon with certain realities of horse racing:

1. No horse wins all races.
2. Dependable horses that win most races yield an unplayably low average mutual.
3. The closet thing to a truly "consistent" horse is one that loses all its races.

Have a great weekend, and see you on Monday.