The abbreviated 2020 Monmouth Park meet has gotten off to a fantastic start from a betting perspective with the welcomed absence of two trainers who shall not be named except on an FBI warrant. Over the past seven years, you couldn’t touch Monmouth with a 39 ½ foot pole when it came to horizontals on a regular basis. Only through spot plays in the verticals could you have made nice profits. My, how times have changed with opportunities galore. The Pick 5 payoff has averaged $12,777 for 50 cents through nine total wagers offered, and only three of those have paid less than $7,000. Unlike the last several years, favorites are now winning at their normal 33% clip. But nearly 20% of the 52 total races run were won by horses over 10-1, and six of these races had win payoffs over $50, and three had win payoffs over $100! This doesn’t even account for the numerous longshots that have filled out exactas and trifectas underneath. Now a few of these longshots were completely unexplainable, but many of them were quite playable off of a few angles. The keys to finding those horses are the focus of today’s column.
Trainer Rory Huston normally takes a while to get his horses primed during the meet, usually peaking around the NJ Thoroughbred Festival in late August, but this year he’s been firing away consistently at prices underneath. From 13 starters, he has saddled five second-place finishers, all at odds over 20-1, and won once with a maiden claimer at 65-1 who showed positive physical handicapping signs in the paddock (did the author put a win bet on him after making that observation with all of those second-place finishes? Of course not!). Huston is on an obvious hot streak, so do not overlook him at those prices in the short term no matter how bad the form looks, particularly on horses coming off of layoffs since last October.
New apprentice jockey Ferrin Peterson, represented by her agent, legendary Hall of Fame jockey Julie Krone, has really made the most of her mounts so far. She sports three wins and five second-place finishes from 19 mounts. Several of these finishes have come aboard horses at 10-1 or higher. Her primary asset is her ability to relax horses on or near the lead, and in time her finishing ability will improve greatly. She’s going to make a lot of noise the more she learns and sharpens her skills. So do not be deterred when you see Ferrin Peterson on a horse that you like. The weight break will be beneficial and you get a very capable rider at the helm.
Perhaps the most lucrative angle of the meet has been the Paco Lopez/Jose Ferrer exacta combination. They are two of the best riders at Monmouth Park over the last decade and yet bettors are letting Ferrer regularly go off at boxcar odds. On paper his horses don’t seem to amount to much, but at 56 years old Ferrer is still riding at the top of his game and getting the absolute most he can out of his mounts with his aggressive riding style. He has two wins over 25-1 and several wins and second-place finishes at 10-1 or higher, and all of these finishes have come with Paco Lopez rounding out the other half of the exacta. In fact, out of 17 races riding together, they have comprised the exacta 10 times. Blindly betting a $2 exacta box on each of those 17 races would have yielded a profit of nearly $800 for a total cost of $68. That is absolutely insane! Paco’s mounts are getting bet heavily as usual, and rightfully so, but bettors are not paying enough attention to Ferrer at the moment. We will see how long this trend continues, but it might be wise to continue to blindly bet exacta boxes with these two when Ferrer is on a mount over 10-1.
The aforementioned angles have been the primary formula for identifying live longshots thus far at the Monmouth Park meet. But there are some other identifiable patterns that have been apparent. We’ll start with some trainer trends. Mike Stidham cannot be overlooked with any of his turf runners. He has three wins and two each of 2nds, 3rds, and 4ths from ten starts, all but two of those occurring on the turf (and those two were rained off). He’s not necessarily firing at prices, but anytime he has a horse entered for turf you should pay attention, even with first time starters. Jonathan Thomas is another one who cannot be overlooked, with two second place finishes from as many starts, ditto Ray Handal. They’re not shipping to Monmouth for nothing. Mike Dini got off to a somewhat slow start over the first two days but has since rattled off three wins and a second over his last five starts. Jose Delgado must be given a long look no matter the price when entered in restricted claimers, with the exception of when his horses have broken a condition in their last start.
Finally, I leave you with a few random handicapping angles to consider. Horses exiting $75,000 turf optional claiming races at Tampa in their last start have produced two wins and a second in as many entries in the 5-1 to 10-1 range. FYI, in the 4th race this coming Friday there’s a Mike Dini horse with Ferrer aboard coming out of a Tampa turf OC- that’s three key angles in one shot- and you bet I’ll be playing #4 Real Doozie if that race stays on grass. Allowance and maiden races from Tampa have been less potent, but horses from all levels at Tampa are doing well in general. But anytime you see a horse exiting a high-priced Tampa turf optional claimer, circle it. While the following isn’t an exact formula, in general shippers from Laurel have been performing pretty well while horses from Parx have not. Monmouth horseplayers are well aware of the John Stephens effect particularly on turf. He has saddled two second-place finishers trying turf for the first time so far at the meet, but one other ran awful with the same angle. So he’s been pretty hit and miss- the same can be said (though less so) for Chuck Spina who has saddled three wins, a second, and two thirds from 10 starts with no discernible pattern as to particular strengths. As I’ve mentioned before, Paco Lopez has been getting bet down significantly but he’s been hitting the board (and winning) regularly with just about any horse that’s shown a trace of ability. He is getting the best mounts and it’s been awfully hard to leave him off tickets, though when he is saddled on a relative pretender he’s been an easy toss- the same cannot be said for Jose Ferrer.
I hope these angles will continue to prove fruitful for all heading into the third weekend of the Monmouth meet, including a phenomenal Haskell Day card on Saturday. Have fun and let’s cash some tickets!