This past Saturday, I played the late pick 4 at both Gulfstream Park and Santa Anita. I don’t usually do this, but both tracks had stakes races that I wanted to watch. At Gulfstream, they had the G3 Forward Gal, the Sweetest Chant Stakes and the G3 Holy Bull. At Santa Anita they had the G3 Megahertz Stakes. At Gulfstream, I compared my pick 4 to the one that track announcer Larry Collmus had put together. We were very close, but I did make a few adjustments to my picks. I had two horses in the first three races and three horses in the fourth race. The 50-cent pick 4 wager cost was $12. Most of the winners were favorites so the payout was only $18.85.
I then took a look at the late scratches at Santa Anita and found that I could go with two singles in my pick 4. Both of the singles were trained by Bob Baffert. The first race was a maiden special weight and one of my singles. I selected 5 horses in the second race which was the Megahertz Stakes. The third race was an allowance optional claimer with Baffert trained Cornucopian who was coming off of a 9-month layoff. The last race was another MSW with 12 runners. Five of them were first-time starters. I decided to go with two horses in that race. Counterbalance had the best speed in recent races and She’s Limitless was a Baffert first timer.
The Santa Anita pick-4 wager cost was only $5. My biggest worry was all the first-time starters in the last race. But Counterbalance ended up winning by 1-1/4 lengths. She’s Limitless finished last. The payout was $30.15 for a total of $49 on the two pick-4’s. I would have banked more, but none of my side wagers panned out. If you bet against your multi-race picks, they can end up reducing the amount of your winnings. It might be better to put in an exacta or superfecta with your multi-race picks, as an insurance policy.