HOT SPRINGS, AR – After betting an entire card on Friday at Oaklawn, I decided to zero in my best bets of the day for Saturday. It’s an 11 race-card with the $150,000 Nodouble Breeders’ Stakes for Arkansas-breds as the feature of the day.
This is more my style, picking and choosing the races I like the best on a card and trying to hammer them home.
Here are my best bets for Saturday:
Race 5: $20,000 Claimer for 3-Year-Olds and Up
I like #3 Niles Channel trained by Federico Villafranco. He broke his maiden two starts ago in a $30,000 claimer and earned a decent speed figure. He’s coming off a disappointing 6th in his most recent race, which is an issue, but is spotted better today. Villafranco wins a lot of these level races and I like the 7/2 morning line.
The Bet: $10 to Win on #3
Race 7: $20,000 Claimer for 4-Year-Olds and up
The #4 Intrepid Heart goes in this one for Karl Broberg. He won his last time out and was very impressive in doing so, so we’ll keep it simple here and bet him back again.
I’ll also be starting a Pick 3 in this race as well. We’ll go with 4,7 here with 1,7 win 2,3,6.
The Bet: $1 Pick 3: 4,7/1,7/2,3,7
The Bet: $10 to Win On #4
Race 10: The $150,000 Nodouble Breeders’ Stakes for Arkansas-Breds
I like the #4 Tempt Fate trained by Carl Deville. This horse is 2 for 2 at the meet, earning good speed figures in both efforts. I like the 5/2 morning line and hope he goes off around that price.
The Bet: $10 to Win on #4
Race 11: Maiden Special Weight for 3-Year-Olds
teve Asmussen sends out the #1 Caerus. Coming off a 2nd place to his stable mate in his only start, it is hard to figure why the morning line odds are 7/2. We won’t get that for sure, but hopefully we get somewhere in that ball park.
The Bet $20 to Win on #1
Papa Dude’s Sports Play of the Day
My final pick has nothing to do with horse racing. While I love horse racing, other sports have been a big part of my life for many years and I’ve coached high school athletics for over 40 years, so I’ve been around the block a time or two when it comes to sports. Since it’s March Madness, I thought why not throw in a wager on one of the four Sweet Sixteen games on Saturday in Indianapolis. This has been an unpredictable basketball tournament so far and we have had some major upsets. I’m hoping for another one on Saturday.
I’m going to pick Oregon State to upset Loyola Chicago. As of this writing, Loyola is a 7 point favorite over the Beavers. Oregon State is on a five game winning streak that includes wins over UCLA, Oregon, and Colorado in the Pac-12 tournament (who all were in this tournament) and have defeated No. 5 Tennessee and No. 4 Oklahoma State, a team that was playing as good as anyone to close out the regular season. I banking on them to continue this hot streak and I’ll take the 7 points against the Ramblers.
The Play: Oregon State +7