You play to win the game. Hello? You don’t play just to play it. – Herman Edwards
Last Saturday, Canterbury Park offered the first of 5 free contests that will be offered each Saturday in August for Saratoga’s race card. The contest is called Saratoga Saturdays, and there are prizes awarded for the top weekly and cumulative scores (top 6 weekly scores and top 15 overall). It works similar to the Road to Kentucky contest, where participants turn in all their picks prior to the first race and accumulate points based on a mythical $20 dollars across-the-board wager, with caps set at 600-400-200 in each slot. The only difference is that there is no double-point bonus race in Saratoga Saturdays, so the scores may be slightly lower.
My strategy in this format is to take longer-priced horses in all the races, with the hope that I will have two or three winners and a few other in-the-money finishes. I try to accumulate my point total in large chunks, understanding that there will be many zeroes on my scorecard. It’s a high risk – high reward strategy where everything is in play from filet mignon to macaroni and cheese. And while the scales tip strongly to that cheesy pasta dish, the fact is that when you compete in these contests against 200 players, every horse in every race will likely be covered by somebody. You can’t counter a 20-1 winner that you don’t have, unless you have opportunities to hit your own mega-bomb later in the card. You have to play to win.
Having said that, last week at Saratoga might not have been the best week to employ this strategy as the maximum points available was only 2,248, and Moreno at 10-1 was the only double-digit odds winner on the card. Palace Malice apologists are still scouring Twitter for an explanation! Preliminary results show that Allen Carrick emerged victorious with 1,240 points (55% of maximum) so congratulations to him on a great week! Mr. Carrick has had other successes in the Canterbury contests this year, and last week’s third place finisher Lannette Sheldon (1,164 points) is also a regular contest player. Out of the 192 participants from last week, 10 were able to post a score above 1,000. The general rule of thumb is that the winning score will be 50-60% of the maximum available.
I checked in with 722 points. I had a few close calls, finishing second at 27-1, 7-1 and 10-1 throughout the card. But ultimately it wasn’t good enough on that day.
If you didn’t get a chance to play Saratoga Saturdays last week, you have four more chances this month. And the lowest weekly score is dropped, so you can still put four big scores together and walk away with the grand prize which is an entry into the Dog Days contest on September 13-14! You can’t beat free, right? Good luck!
The Oracle
