Preparing for the Breeders' Cup world championships can be an exciting but also intimidating, almost overwhelming process for horseplayers. There are 14 races, most of them with full fields, with horses coming from all over the world to compete on a racetrack that many of the competitors have never raced over previously.
On top of that, there is a “kid in a candy store” wagering menu that offers so many opportunities for players who prefer horizontal, multi-race bets (rolling Daily Doubles and Pick 3, All Turf Pick 3, All Turf Pick 4, Special Daily Doubles). Vertical players won't feel left out, either, with Exacta, Trifecta, Superfecta, Super High 5 wagers that promise boxcar payoffs. And of course there is win, place and show wagering.
There are multiple past performance and data options that can help a player sort through each race, and replays are readily available on advance-deposit wagering platforms and Youtube for those who bring “trip handicapping” into their decision-making process.
We spoke with three high-end handicappers – two well-known television analysts and the winner of the 2021 Breeders' Cup Betting Challenge (BCBC) at Del Mar – about how they approach this exciting and potentially lucrative two days of racing and gambling.
Matthew Miller, BCBC Champion
Miller won the 2021 Breeders' Cup Betting Challenge (BCBC) at Del Mar, clinching the title with a $33,000 win bet on Knicks Go in the Classic. That earned him a grand total of $543,300, including the first-place prize of $400,500. A Chicago attorney who first played in the BCBC in 2017, Miller will be making his first visit to Keeneland for this year's Breeders' Cup and a defense of his BCBC title.
“My preparation for the Breeders' Cup is unlike my preparation for a normal day playing the races or even a different tournament. While I remain steadfast in my use of a pen-and-paper approach with standard Daily Racing Form past performances and try to stay away from the other sources of data that I think get relied upon by other players a bit too heavily, I do less of my own handicapping for the Breeders' Cup than I do on other days.
“Instead, I focus on two things. First, I have a few sources for information that I believe are absolutely terrific – Pete Fornatale and the In The Money Network have provided me with entertainment and information for years, and I have them to thank for some really helpful advice in this very tournament in the past.
“The HHH Racing Podcast hosted by my friend Howard Kravets is my other go-to source. The content and presentation style are very digestible (it helps that he is a high school math teacher)! I essentially form my own opinions and value lines to match (i.e., what I think the odds should be) and then make adjustments based on what I hear from the Professor's careful analysis of race replays. The second thing I do is look hard at the sequence of races to pick “my spots,” which often has a lot more to do with game theory and tournament strategy than handicapping.
“I look at my plays in two ways – the minimums and the bigger shots I want to take. For the minimums, I try to look for ways to pair a non-key race with a key race by using a minimum ($600) daily double. Then when I get to my key race, I hit it hard. One doesn't have to be right very often to do well in this tournament (other than the last race), but when one is right, one really needs to get paid.
“In terms of how I pick those spots, I try to synthesize a massive amount of information into the most simple risk/reward decisions I can make. I try to keep my plays efficient and focused, and I look for races that give me an opportunity to do that without having to get too fancy. It's hard enough picking winners in these races – I'd rather focus on that than nailing a thin exacta or trifecta partial wheel.
“In this tournament, I truly believe the whole trick is to build one's bankroll to a certain level (not difficult to figure out looking at past results), and I take it as a given that the final piece to the puzzle will be put in place with the Classic. I try not to fall in love with any particular horse or race, but instead to look for value (which doesn't necessarily equate to longshots) and pound away. If I see a path to building that bankroll in a few reasonable steps, I proceed with confidence and execute on that plan. The only real decision-making after that is to make sure that I'm getting the right prices per my own value line and that I'm paying enough attention to the leaderboard late in the tournament so that I can make adjustments if needed.
“Last year, I picked Knicks Go because I thought he would win the race and I set a strategic course for myself that allowed me to bet the amount on him that I thought be required to win the tournament. I suppose it was a good pick given that he wasn't the favorite, but I don't think he was a very difficult horse to land on. What is perhaps more interesting than that pick is what I did to set that up.
“The target bankroll I wanted going into the Classic was $33,000. (Editor's note: BCBC players begin with a $7,500 bankroll.) I entered day two with a balance in the range of $24,000. I'm sure that 100 people would have given me 100 answers to the question of how to most efficiently accomplish that. On an ordinary day of playing the races, that's a sizable jump for any of us to make, and I think most of us would try to do that incrementally with a few good picks. But with a tournament mindset, my view was that Life is Good at 3-5 was as close to a lock as I would find all day, and a simple all-in win bet would be enough to get me where I needed with a little extra to take a small shot on something else to boot (which failed). I figured taking one shot in that race gave me a much better chance of succeeding than catching multiple horses in multiple races. It sounds so simple now, but admittedly it isn't easy to walk up to a betting terminal and punch in $24k of win bets. That was good practice for doing $33,000 a few hours later!!”
Todd Schrupp, FanDuel TV/TVG
(John Duarte photo)
TVG/FanDuel TV host and analyst Todd Schrupp remembers watching his first Breeders' Cup in 1987 as a student at Buena Vista College in Storm Lake, Iowa. Highlight of the day was Ferdinand and Alysheba in the Classic, with Schrupp recalling Tom Durkin's famous race call, “The two Derby winners hit the wire together.” “That's still one of the greatest Classics,” Schrupp said. “That was my introduction to how great the Breeders' Cup can be and I've been a fan of the event ever since.”
“My job is busy daily, especially when we are out at the racetrack. But for Breeders' Cup it's as busy as it can possibly be because we are doing several shows. We are doing the FanDuel show, and then we are doing the Breeders' Cup Players Show, which goes to an international audience, and those are different sets. This year we are doing a social media show on Twitter, and so I'm rotating throughout the day and get very few breaks.
“I've never really had a chance to express this, but that is one of the main reasons I'm a horizontal player. When I sit down, I'd rather have my Pick 5 in and then I can follow it as it goes. I don't want to figure out my trifecta or superfecta while taking a short break or while we're away for a commercial break.
“So I'm primarily a horizontal player. One, because I really do like those wagers, but it's also because of my job. I get very busy throughout the day, so I like to have something I can follow race to race to race. There's nothing more disappointing than getting knocked out in the first race, because then I've got a long work day ahead of me.
“I have an inherent advantage because I'm working on shows that are helping players get prepared for the Breeders' Cup. In my opinion, there's no better show than “Breakfast at the Breeders' Cup” (7 a.m. daily on FanDuel TV/TVG). It's not just the workouts that you see. I still believe those are just a snapshot in time, it's just one work. Maybe a horse has an off day that day and then goes on to win a Breeders' Cup race. It's the discussions we have about the horses and how they come to that race, how they qualified for the Breeders' Cup, the strength of the part of the country that they came out of, the strength of the European shippers. To me, “Breakfast at the Breeders' Cup” is three hours every day of preparation for the races. We start it about 10 days out, so it's 30 hours of preparation.
“For me, by the time we get to decision day on Friday and Saturday, I feel that from a handicapping point of view, I've got a great grasp of where I want to be. The biggest issue for me, and I've always said this, I honestly believe the game is 20 percent handicapping. Everybody picks winners, no matter how you approach it. It's really about how you wager. It's 20 percent handicapping, 80 percent ticket structure. Most of my time after we're done with Breakfast at the Breeders' Cup and I kind of know where I want to go in each race, is putting my ticket structures together, and I'll spend a lot of time on Thursday night for Friday and then Friday night for Saturday.
“There are so many opportunities at the Breeders' Cup that you just have to budget yourself. It sounds like simplistic advice, but it's true. One of the first things I heard from a seasoned horseplayer when I was just getting in the game was, 'If it hurts for more than 30 seconds, you bet too much.' Every race is playable at the Breeders' Cup, so at the end of the day you have to make decisions. You're not going to sweep all 14 championship races, not to mention the races on the undercard. You have to look at your prime opportunities and you have to have a game plan.
“Putting my situation aside where I'm locked in on a desk and working that day, a horse player at the track, a horseplayer playing at home, they have an opportunity to bet every single race. You really have to step aside and say, 'What is going to be my plan today?' And you really have to budget it according to what you can handle, because every race looks playable at the Breeders' Cup.
“I love the Pick 5s, I love the value that they bring. But if you're a superfecta player, it's a fantastic day. One thing I have to get a handle on and I say this on a daily basis, is the win pool. There's so many great win betting opportunities at the Breeders' Cup. You might get 10-1 on a potential Eclipse Award winner because the field is so deep.”
Andy Serling, NYRA/Fox Sports
Racing analyst for the New York Racing Association and part of the “America's Day at the Races” broadcast team on Fox Sports, Serling is a longtime horseplayer who said he's had a great deal of success betting the Breeders' Cup “except when it's at Keeneland.” Serling produces videos analyzing each championship race that can be found on the New York Racing Association Youtube page, calling the videos a “labor of love.”
“I do the same thing for these races that I do for any card. Stakes races are usually less work because I'm familiar with the horses. I'll print the past performances, I use DRF Formulator for certain things that I want to look up, and I'll watch a lot of replays, especially out of town races.
“The most work I do is on the Euros. I go to the Racing Post website, which I use a little like Formulator. You can go in and look at the horses they ran against, take a good look at those horses. I watch a lot of replays of Europeans, because they pretty much are all available on YouTube or through NYRA Bets.
“I try to get a feel for the races and try to get to a point where I'm comfortable enough that when they draw post positions I have a good idea. I look at TimeformUS., their pace projections and their figs. So when they draw the races on Monday, I feel like at that point I'm 15-20 minutes per race away from having an opinion. I'll put out picks, a top four for every race. It's a fairly arduous project.
“I don't bet the Breeders' Cup significantly differently than any other day. If I don't like a race I'm not going to bet it, other than a few dollars for fun. If I have eight opinions I'll bet eight of the races; if I have three opinions I'll bet three.
“With Europeans, I look for horses that are being pointed for the Breeders' Cup by sharp trainers, not these horses that are more of an afterthought, especially the non-2-year-olds. I look for horses where I think their connections were really thinking about the Breeders' Cup, the Group 2 or Group 3 type horses, not the best horses who came to the Breeders' Cup as an afterthought. I've found that over the years you get some prices for situations like that. Talismanic (14-1 winner of the 2017 Turf) is a good example.”
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