By Joe Quillen
Gulfstream Park 12-1-23
The feature race on the Daily Racing Form website for Friday coincides with the start of the 2023-2024 Championship Meet at Gulfstream Park, as the eighth race of the day will be the feature race, a five furlong race on the newly renovated turf course. Twelve horses are entered in this race that should not be effected by the weather has an approximate post of 3:34 pm Eastern Time.
The race is an allowance optional claiming race. I know there may be readers that read some of these terms and would look at me like I have three heads. But don’t worry, I’m here for you! An allowance optional claiming race means that you can enter a horse under allowance conditions, which is used to try to match horses as evenly as possible, or you can avoid those conditions to allow your horse to be claimed. To enter in a claiming race, you are choosing to sell the horse, and if someone wants to buy the horse, they would pay the racing office the amount of the claim. In this race, that “tag” as they call it is $62,500.
In this race, it looks like the 9 Yes I Am Free (5/2 morning line) who finished third last time out in the Parx Dash in August, and the 10 Bad Beat Brian (2/1 ML favorite) are going to gun to the lead. The question is whether or not speed will hold here. The 6 Zarak (15/1 ML) appears to also want to gun for the lead, and may even be faster than the two favorites mentioned.
The 4 Axthelm appears to be about a length or two behind the leaders in the beginning of this race, and if he has the room, he might get first chance to strike the leaders who could be starting to tire at this point. The 8 Rockin Rollerappears to have a nice set up as well for a price.
My picks for this race are 4-8-10-9. My play is a $10 win wager on the 4 Axthelm.
Last week’s results
Last week was not a good week in the results. In the three races last week, I had no winners. That makes me 0 for 5 so far. I had a $20 win wager on the 5 for my father in the 6th race at Del Mar. With Love finished last.
Friday, we stayed at Del Mar for the Hollywood Turf Cup, and my play was $10 to win on the 6 Balladeer. He went to the lead as I expected, but he weakened in the stretch.
Saturday we ended up back at Aqueduct for the Comely Stakes, where I gave a $10 win wager on the 4 Just Katherine. She was wide all the way around the track and weakened to an off the board finish. Those three picks puts me in a $70 hole coming into Friday’s race of the day.
Be on the lookout for more articles this week from yours truly, as I am on vacation this week from my job. Hope everyone as a great day and good luck with all your wagers!
