On Tuesdays in April, TVG was offering a late Pick 4 promotion at Turf Paradise. This promo pays back your wager (up to $25) if you only get 3 out of 4 races correct. I had been playing the “Hit It and Split It” pick 4 promos at Gulfstream and Santa Anita last month without success. I often get 3 out of 4, so I thought this would be good to try. I don’t usually play TP, but I am familiar with the track, which is located in Phoenix, Arizona.
To have a chance at winning my pick 4, I decided to use my spreadsheet, but only put in distance, speeds, and finish info from the last 3 races. I also listed average winnings per race and jockey rank with win percentage for the current meet. TP is a smaller track similar to Canterbury Park where many of the horses race against each other week after week. Each race had 10 to 12 entries, so the payouts can be good, even for a small track that runs races in the middle of the week. I waited until after scratches were posted and then picked 3 horses in race 5, 2 horses in race 6 and 7, and 3 horses in race 8.
The next morning, I didn’t get an email from TVG saying that they had refunded my wager, so I knew there was a chance that I might have won the pick 4. I went into Equibase and looked up the results. At first, I was disappointed when the 3rd race didn’t match my picks. Then I realized that I was looking at races 4,5,6,7 instead of race 5,6,7,8. I looked again and saw that I had the winner in each of the 4 races. I checked the pick 4 payout. It was $189.90. Nice! I logged into TVG and discovered that the payout was $379.80! It turns out that there was a late scratch in the 5th race, and they gave me the race favorite, which was already one of my picks. This resulted in a double payout of the pick 4 and my biggest win of the year so far.
If you want to wager on the Derby, use my affiliate link to open a TVG account.