WAIGR — Belmont Stakes Day at Saratoga

This is the day's theme. In parimutuel wagering, there is no angle more powerful than a fairly priced favorite. When this occurs, you get the compounding effect of the most likely winner plus value for your dollar. Taken together, it's a big boost for your bankroll.

For context: Rhetorical was our "favorite IS ALSO the value" play at Churchill. He went off at 1.96/1 and won. The exacta cashed at $55.80. Same principle applies here.

Nine horses. 1¼ miles, not the traditional 1½ miles.

Race Key: 5 horses eat up 90.55% of the win probability. Our aim is to price hunt in the win pool and then spread out in the multi-race wagers and use all five underneath in exactas and trifectas.

If his live odds are anywhere close to 9/5, this is the single best value on the entire card. The model gives him a 42% (7/5 in odds terms) win probability — that's a meaningful overlay on the most likely winner of any race today. If this price holds or improves, this is a win bet without hesitation.

An old friend lurks in this field: Knightsbridge at 3.5/1 ML. We faded him at Churchill Downs (6th at 1.76/1), and the model still doesn't love him — 15.52% (5.44/1 fair value). He's an underlay again. Behind Nysos, Journalism at 5/2 ML (model says 4.84/1 — underlay) will attract sharp money but the model says the public is being too generous. Saudi Crown at 8/1 (model says 9.14/1) is close to fair.

The Waigr model does not value Crude Velocity in the way we anticipated it would, third choice at a value of almost 6-1. The horse he just beat is a more likely outcome for us.

This is worthy of self-interrogation; so, what did we find?

• Earlier speed figures: even though Crude Velocity beat Englishman in his past race, it's Englishman who has compiled better speed figures (Waigr internal) in the two races prior.
• Jose Ortiz over the past 90 days has significantly outperformed Florent Geroux with 29 wins above what we'd expect from a random jockey, compared to Geroux's ~1. Adjusting for rate (Ortiz has way more starts), it is still about a 10x difference in Ortiz's favor.
• The model prefers Bob Baffert over Cherie DeVaux, but the margin is much slimmer than the jockeys. In raw numbers, Baffert has about 4x the wins but adjusting for rate it's less than 2x.
• Trainer-jockey combo: Ortiz has ridden for DeVaux 34 times last 90 days (compared to 13 for Baffert/Geroux) and has won at ~2x the clip.

Knowing all this, we will focus our efforts on #5 Solitude Dude and #7 Englishman, who look like value with Crude Velocity soaking up the favorite's share of the money. However, don't be surprised to see Crude Velocity included on our Pick 4/5/6 tickets.

Wesley Ward/Dylan Davis in a turf sprint. At 20/1 on the morning line with a 13.35/1 fair value, this is the biggest longshot overlay on the card (+31.7%). In a 10-horse field where several horses are likely to be overbet (Reef Runner at 4/1 ML vs. 8/1 fair value, Ag Bullet at 3/1 ML vs. 5/1 fair value), Clock Tower is a use, maybe as a win play, but clearly needs to be included in exotics of all kinds.

Litigation (#3) at 21.81% (3.59/1 fair value, 3.5/1 ML) is the one near-overlay in the Jaipur — essentially at fair value. If you're looking for a Jaipur win bet, that's the spot if the price holds. Maybe we pair Clock Tower and Litigation in an exacta box and use them both in multi-race bets.

Rhetorical (#7) is our Turf Classic champion from Churchill who cashed us a $55.80 exacta. The model still loves him. But this Manhattan field is deeper than the Turf Classic; Bright Picture (18.11%, 3/1 ML), Deterministic (14.05%, 3.5/1 ML), and Make Me King (10.00%, 8/1 ML, who ran 2nd behind Rhetorical last time) all might have a say. At 2/1, Rhetorical is a slight overlay by the model, but not a screaming one. Use him as a single in multi-race play and consider an exacta with Bright Picture or Deterministic underneath if you want standalone action.

Our main goal is to extend our reach in legs 3, 4 and 5 while respecting our sentiment convictions in legs 2 and 6.

The architecture: two singles on high-conviction favorites (Nysos, Rhetorical) fund the spread in the Belmont where no horse breaks 29%. The Woody Stephens uses the two overlays and fades the biggest underlay.

Why does the architecture of the Pick 4 and Pick 6 differ? The pathway to outsized payouts in the Pick 6 usually revolves around finding some higher priced horses in legs 3 and 4, not necessarily so in the Pick 4. The first commandment of multi-race wagering is "survive and advance" and to do that in the Pick 6 we need to extend the range of our ticket against two of our strongest favorites. But isn't that the key to good gambling, being able to act on contradictory thoughts when that's what the situation demands?