by John Mucciolo
Three weeks are in the books at Woodbine and my Daily Selections at Brisnet.com continue to remain afloat. With a 28% win rate from my top selections, I was slightly in the red over the three cards last week, with a strong Saturday and Sunday (7 winners and +ROI) making up for a Friday that was nothing to write home about.
A few things I have taken away from this very young meeting as I attempt to get more acclimated with the surface, connections and massive amount of runners coming off of layoffs:
- A horse must be able to finish on the main oval here. I would not call the Tapeta synthetic strip at Woodbine biased, though many winners are coming from off the pace and that is a trend that could surely continue going forward. That’s not to say that early foot has no importance, but a closing run is vital in order to get best results and I pay close attention to the BRIS Late Pace Ratings in the Ultimate Past Performances.
- Trainer Mark Casse had a superb week and has come into this meeting ready to roll. Conditioner racked up six winners from the 29 tilts held over the weekend and it’s the way they are doing it that impresses. While the well-respected trainer did send out one wire-to-wire winner, many of his pupils are rolling home in the lane with excellent energy and he has won with first-time starters, claimers, allowance and stakes runners alike.
- There is money to be made here early in the meeting. For example: Casse ripped off a trio of winners in succession on the Sunday card ($8.90, $7.30 and $5.50) and the Pick 3 returned a generous $111.70, which tops the win-parlay for the same sequence for the most notable barn on the grounds.
- It was good to see RIKER get back on track, resembling the horse of his juvenile season who opened his career with four straight wins on this oval including three stakes. The dark bay son of Include toiled as a sophomore and again in his 2017 debut, but the speedy colt gained the edge early and rolled home. Riker registered a solid 93 BRIS Speed figure and will likely be back in with stakes foes before long off this performance.
Woodbine has been added to the Daily Selections page
