Meadowlands Pick-4, Races 7-10, Thursday, Jan. 16, 2014

Saturday night I played a $36 ticket (after scratches) and I had a $28.20 winner but only two of the four. Meet totals: nine plays, -$302. Starting tonight I’m going to try an experiment. I’ll play my normal ticket followed by a “whale” ticket of several hundred dollars. Can a good handicapper with a big bankroll win money betting the Pick-4? My guess is yes. I’ll keep the whale tickets to $500 or less, and probably average around $400, which is what I think it takes to have the best chance of making money with this bet at this track. My tickets have averaged $33 and I haven’t hit one yet.

Standard ticket: $1 play: 1247/4/2369/1357 = $64
Whale ticket: $1 play: 1247/1246810/12369/1357 = $480

Analysis:

Race 7: Pretty wide open C-1 pace here. I’ll use all four of my contenders.

Race 8: A lot of people are going to single (4) Six Gun here. He drops and moves inside and raced well against tougher last year. I’ll single on the standard ticket but on the whale ticket I’ll use six horses. The thing is, when these obvious favorites lose the Pick-4 pays huge.

Race 9: This is a tough trot. I think (2) PT’s Boomerang is in a good spot second time for good trot trainer David Smith but I’ll also use three others on the standard ticket and five horses on the whale ticket.

Race 10: If I were looking to play a cost cutting ticket I would single (7) Trueys Legacy here but I’m going four deep.