On July 1st, 2023, I played a pick 4 on the last 4 races at Ellis Park. Normally I don’t bet on Ellis Park races, but on this day, they were hosting the grade 1 Steven Foster stakes. This was an all-stakes pick 4 on races 8, 9, 10, 11. Race 8 was a 3-horse race with the favorite “A Mo Reay” against “Pauline’s Pearl” and “Bellamore”. I had “A Mo Reay” and “Pauline’s Pearl” to win. “Pauline’s Pearl” passed the two leading horses in the stretch for the win. In the next race I had the two top horses “Set Piece” and “Get Smokin”. Get Smokin led the race from the start with the late running “Set Piece” far behind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As the horses reached the stretch, Get Smokin was still in the lead by about a length. Then out of the nowhere, “Stitched” at 46 to 1, ridden by Flavien Prat, took over the lead and won by a neck. In most cases I would have had Flavien Prat in my pick 4, but this was a last-minute rider change on a horse who had won his last race a year ago at Canterbury Park. And that race was a non-graded race. The race at Ellis Park was a grade 2 stakes race. I was aware of the rider change and briefly considered placing a win bet. But, after looking at the past performances compared to the other runners, I decided against it. In hindsight, it would have been worth the risk to put a wager on Flavien Prat with a horse running from the outside in a 10-horse turf race. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I ended up winning the next two races in my pick 4. That made it all the more disappointing that I had not acted on the opportunity to go with a long shot ridden by Prat. A $2 win bet on “Stitched” paid $94.50 and the pick 4 payout was $738.44. Another pick 4 with only 3 out of 4 correct. Wagering more money on the pick 4 would not have helped, when you have decided, for whatever reason, to not include a horse. It always takes me a few days to get over a beat like that. Hopefully next time things I will go in my favor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On July 1st, 2023, I played a pick 4 on the last 4 races at Ellis Park. Normally I don’t bet on Ellis Park races, but on this day, they were hosting the grade 1 Steven Foster stakes. This was an all-stakes pick 4 on races 8, 9, 10, 11. Race 8 was a 3-horse […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/budgethomepage.com\/gaming\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/budgethomepage.com\/gaming\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/budgethomepage.com\/gaming\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/budgethomepage.com\/gaming\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/budgethomepage.com\/gaming\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=438"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/budgethomepage.com\/gaming\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":439,"href":"http:\/\/budgethomepage.com\/gaming\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438\/revisions\/439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/budgethomepage.com\/gaming\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/budgethomepage.com\/gaming\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/budgethomepage.com\/gaming\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}