Alberta tracks to open next weekend
Marquis Downs in Saskatoon cancels meet this year

Woodbine opened to an empty grandstand last Saturday, Alberta tracks will start up in nine days (Michael Burns photo)

Century Mile in Edmonton will open for thoroughbred racing a week from this Sunday and Century Downs near Calgary will open for harness racing the following day, race secretary Rob MacLennan has told The Insider.

Spectators will not be allowed. The casinos at both tracks remain closed but other casinos in Alberta have been given permission to reopen this Friday, Rob said.

Century Mile will race Fridays at 8:15 CT and Sundays at 6:15 CT. Century Downs will race Mondays and Tuesdays at 3:15 CT.

Last year’s leading rider at Century Mile, Rigo Sarmiento and leading trainer, Tim Rycroft, have been racing at Assiniboia Downs where Sarmiento is currently third in the jockey standings and Rycroft is second among trainers.

Meanwhile, Marquis Downs in Saskatoon has announced it will not hold a race meet this year.

Hastings Park in Vancouver has yet to announce an opening date for live racing.

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HANDICAPPING FEATURE


Yes, you deserve sympathy . . .
. . . when a "chaos" horse beats you but here's how to catch that kind of horse next time

I’ve been obsessed lately with chaos. More precisely, the chaos horse. A horse that doesn’t figure. A horse that eludes the best handicappers. A horse that upsets your pick-4, pick-5 and pick-6 wagers.

We are given various percentages and stats for horses, jockeys and trainers but have you ever heard of a statistic for chaos? Yet, the chaos horse is as much a part of racing as the favourite.

Let me throw this at you for consideration. In my estimation, the chaos horse wins about one out of five to seven times, depending on race conditions and the size of fields. And a chaos horse will figure into triactors and superfectas in one out of five to seven POSITIONS. In other words, you have three positions in a triactor and four positions in a superfecta and one out of five to seven of those positions will, on average, have a chaos horse.

For this reason, you shouldn’t be hard on yourself when you miss such a horse. You’ll twist your mind into a pretzel trying to figure out how you might have picked that horse--but, in the end, you can chalk up the loss to horses not being machines. Or, if you wish to be poetic, you can blame the racing gods.

So, you ask yourself, is there a way to add a chaos horse to your tickets--besides just guessing? Here are my suggestions:

• Copper Chalice (#13) at 74-1 wins by nose in a heart-stopping drive

  Get to know what race conditions are more chaotic. At the Downs, a $1,500 claiming race and a non-winners of two races are races that tend to be more chaotic. So pressing the “all” button or looking for an equipment or jockey change or simply looking for the horses with the best LIFETIME speed figure may help.
  


• Be open to chaos. The player you’ve frequently read about in The Insider, Les “Longshot” Buzzell, relies on chaos. He looks for little things; trouble lines are a favourite. But he caught a 74-1 first time starter at Belmont last Friday in a race for maiden New York-breds simply by saying to himself: “This is a pretty even field; he has as good a chance as any to win.” The horse, Copper Chalice, came flying down the stretch to win by a nose. Buzzell collected on a $60 win wager and picked up $11,000 for a $2 triactor. (See the program page for that race here and watch the heart-stopping race here. Click on June 5, race 4.)
  


• Capitalize on wagers in which you can play “all” in various positions at relatively low cost--with the chance of a nice score. That’s why I like superfectas. One of my favourite wheels in maiden races with first time starters is “all” with favourite with “all” with second choice. An outlay of $24 netted me $2,300 when a 70-1 first-time starter beat the favourite in a race at Charles Town.
  


• Play the percentages. For example, you know that roughly two of six horses in a pick-6 will be won by the favourite (favs win 33 per cent of the time) but you also know that 15 to 20 per cent of the time, one of the legs will be won by a chaos horse. What leg will it be? Will you press the “all” button? (This is how an “I won bigger” pick-6 ticket at Santa Anita last Saturday hit a 90-1 horse.)
  


• Play hunches. It’s not what you think. It’s not a stab in the dark. Hunches are based on the fact you’ve watched tens of thousands of races and unconsciously absorbed thousands of bits of information and a hunch is simply your mind seeing something you can’t necessarily put into words.

The thing is, don’t beat yourself up for not having a chaos horse. It’s part of racing. By following the suggestions above, however, you may have fewer such misses.

If you wish to add to the “chaos” discussion, email theinsider@ASDowns.com. (Please do!)