The Nomination Is In: The Grade 3 San Juan Capistrano at Santa Anita

Welcome friends to the Turk and the Little Turk blog, now in our fourteenth year of writing handicaps. The Turk would like to thank the good people at The Thorfan for the opportunity to bring my thoughts to you. The Turk took a break from racing when the pandemic came, and I'm only coming out of it now to focus on the sumnmer and fall turf racing circuit. When something doesn't make you happy anymore, you need to let it go. I'm not sure that the races make me happy anymore. I love the horses, I love the sport, the humans and the business of horse racing I have a deep dislike of. The situation surrounding Arlington Race Track, my favorite North American turf venue, and the pathetic state of Illinois racing, put me in a very sour mood. If there is a future for me to stay in this sport, I have to get past the heartbreak that the demolition of Hollywood Park, and potentially Arlington, would bring to me. I'm trying.

The Santa Anita Turf Chute is at least one new innovative idea that I can get behind in racing. The Chute gives a beautiful sweeping downhill 6 1/2 furlongs before crossing the dirt and opening up to longer distances. Today's handicap, the marathon 1 3/4 mile Grade 3 San Juan Capistrano gives us the full downhill and the full turf oval. The only downside to me is field size, with only six scheduled to go in Saturday's 11th and final race of the day, a 9:29 ET start. No amount of innovation can cover up the smaller field sizes that takes away upside in turf race investing. Anyways, I've attached a link to an article that lays out how the betting has gone on the chute through asmall sampole size. Lets get after this! Generally I'd post recent race video of the horses competing against each other at relevant distances. This is such an odd ball, and the longer chute is so new, I'm not going to bother. My handicap also didn't identify overlays as compared to the track handicapper or what I suspect the public and the tote board will assign as fair odds. So, what to do with this? Quite frankly, I'd pass on betting this race. I don't believe in action betting which is the equivelant of playing squares on the Big Game or Bingo. If I absolutly wanted to play it, and the purpose of this blog is to play the ponies, then I would clearly define my bet limit and I'd look at some interesting angle. That's the downside of the small field: Where would an interesting angle come from? Acclimate is 35.7% win odds Ward n' Jerry and Red King 28.6% each: 92.9% of the morning line odds of 129% (takeout/breakage/yada yada) 72% of the win potential is in these three. In my fair odds, it's 70 of 100%. The reality is some combination of these three in a boxed exacta is the most likely winning ticket, but a $2 dollar, 3 horse exacta box is $12, and the take would harly justify the risk. I'm instead going to put 3 over Acclimate, a $2 dollar Bet for $6 investment: Astronaut, Pilar Mountain (Ire) or Lure Him In over Acclimate. I'd rather lose $6 in this case than be conservative and have a poor risk-reward proposition. Have fun with it friends! Turk Out