in Triple Crown Free Picks

I’ve never been a Grade 1 kind of a guy. Sure, I love the big races, get pumped up during the Breeders’ Cup races.

But I knew from the very beginning to become proficient at this game, in a day in and day out sort of a way, a player would need to be able to correctly analyze claiming races. These are the races that make up the bulk of the racing cards daily around the country and if you want to hit that horizontal gimmick, the Pick 3, Pick 4, and Pick 6s of the world, you have to be able to grind with claimers.

When I first started handicapping, I would practice by making my selections on paper for tracks like Charles Town, Liberty Bell, and Penn National and then monitor the results. Claimers dominated the programs there then and still do.

The reality is that claimers account for about 75% of the racing cards throughout the country. Since they are not as sound as the better horses, they hold their form for a shorter period of time and are less formful as a whole.

Early speed, as with top-notch horses, is tantamount to being successful. In the olden days, handicapping books would advise to bet only claimers with recent activity, say horses that have run within a couple of weeks or so. But in this day and age, things have changed.

Horses, cheap ones at that, can win off the layoff and they do it all the time. In fact, cheap horses often fire their best shot first time out after a layoff. They are not tired from the racing grind, they are mentally sharp and whatever was ailing them and forced them to the sidelines may have abated and they are generally in better physical condition when they return.

Bettors love horses that drop. It makes all the sense in the world. A current Southern California trainer recently said on TV that the best hop is a drop. But horses that drop seldom offer good value at the windows. Players assume since at one time they were capable of performing at a certain level, that when taking a big drop down the claiming ladder they will even be more effective. It works sometimes, but not always and the payoffs are usually on the small side.

I have found that one of the best and most lucrative situations occurs when a sharp trainer jumps his claimer up the ladder. It tells the bettor that the trainer thinks the horse is doing so well he can stand the raise.

Nothing is achieved in this thing we call life without hard work and a handicapper has to work hard to know the horses on his circuit and also the humans who are pulling the strings back at the barn.

Some trainers are just great with keeping sore horses going. Most claimers have problems like veteran athletes and those that know the tricks to keep those runners happy and ready to roll are the ones that win the cheaper races.

In Southern California guys like Mike Mitchell have been winning with claimers for decades. Marty Jones, who learned at the heels of his father Gary who was one of the best SoCal trainers ever, knows how to keep less talented runners on the job.

Lesser lights that train with class but fly under the radar are guys like Paul Aguirre, Jack Carava and Richard Matlow.

There are many ways to approach claimers and the game as a whole, but you have to put yourself into the trainer’s mind and try to figure out what a particular horse’s intentions are in this claimer TODAY.

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