How to Handicap a Del Mar Breeders' Cup with The Big A | NYRA Bets

How to Handicap a Del Mar Breeders' Cup

Question: What do Echo Zulu (Juvenile Fillies), Jack Christopher (Juvenile), Gamine (F&M Sprint), Life Is Good (Dirt Mile), Jackie’s Warrior (Sprint), Letruska (Distaff) and Knicks Go (Classic), the morning line favorites for the seven Breeders’ Cup events that will be contested this Friday and Saturday at Del Mar all have in common besides being the early chalk?

Answer: SPEED

And, historically, that’s what you want in SoCal, but especially at Del Mar.

Of those seven horses, the course and configuration of Del Mar helps Knicks Go the most. In fact, I think it can be argued that it’s as big of an advantage any horse has had in the history of the Breeders’ Cup.

Knicks Go will be asked to go 10 furlongs for the first time in his career. Before this season it appeared as if he’d be best at or around a mile. Even in the race formerly known as the Donn, the Pegasus, at Gulfstream, it was perceived that getting nine furlongs was helped by the historical bias in Hallandale Beach. BTW, that was for you Andy!

However, at Del Mar the short stretch is the key. It seems to me that the wire comes as soon as the field spins off the far turn. It not only leaves Knicks Go with less to do but perhaps more importantly it leaves his rivals less time to make up the ground they need to.

It’s an interesting renewal of the Classic because Knicks Go’s main rivals are all three-year-olds and two of them, Hot Rod Charlie and Medina Spirit, do their best work on the front end.

Essential Quality poses the biggest threat to Knicks Go. He won’t be in the position of stalking or chasing like his fellow sophomores, yet he doesn’t have to be hopelessly out of it in the early going. If that tenth furlong does Knicks Go in, look for Essential Quality to be the one running him down.

When looking at the dirt races for this piece, I realized there is a strong possibility a dirt winner doesn’t pay as much as $12 in the seven races. We are going to have to hope for some chaos on the turf, which likely means we are going to have to try and beat some of the Euros. I think we can. You can check out my selections on NYRABETS and I’ll be posting a couple of Pick 5 tickets as well.