WINNING WITH WORKOUTS
MARCH 10, 2005
In this regular weekly feature, Handicapper’s Report will present examples of
how to use workouts in your handicapping using actual results with horses
featured in our reports. To access the HR reports and to see the highlights of
our recent results,
click here.
Today’s Topic: Look to throw out odds-on droppers with bad workouts
One of the best value plays using workouts is when there is a horse dropping
off a good race and the public makes the horse odds-on and he has a bad
workout. It is difficult at best to analyze the condition of a horse when a good
trainer drops. Is he trying to steal the purse or are we dealing with damaged
goods? Is the horse damaged goods, but will make it around the track and
outstagger his overmatched opponents today? Or will the horse run an inferior
race at very short odds, giving us the opportunity to get some value on another
horse in the race?
In the 1ST race at Santa Anita on February 23, the public made BELBART
(Bartok [Ire]) the 3-5 favorite when he dropped to a $20K claimer off a narrow
loss at the $25K claiming level preceded by a 3 1/2 length win at the $20K
claiming level. The trainer was Steve Knapp, who doesn’t give anything away. Our
clocker told us what was going on.
On February 10 at Santa Anita, in Belbart’s only
workout in six weeks of inactivity, the horse worked in a decent 1:00.4 H, according to the official workouts. However, our clocker noted that “…He was
shortening strides quite noticeably in deep stretch and didn’t have much of a
gallop out. Be a bit cautious here as I question his condition.” Belbart indeed
shortened stride in the stretch and was soundly beaten.