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Hello and welcome to the first of many StableDuel articles that we will be sharing with the Karma community. This is an exciting new platform that allows you to participate in playing horse racing tournaments in a whole new way. Think DraftKings or FanDuel lineup building, but with horses. This brings a new element to the table that doesn’t bring the scary words like exacta, trifecta, and superfecta that the casual watcher may not understand. Instead, everyone has a shot in these tournaments if you can craft the perfect lineup while staying under the salary cap.
The rules are pretty straightforward. You have $50,000 to build your stable lineup consisting of 10 horses from the selected track. The price of the horse is based on the morning line odds. A heavy favorite can be anywhere from $10,000-$20,000 where longshots will be $0-$1000. You can select more than one horse per race and you are not required to select a horse from every race, as long as you fill in 10 horses.
The scoring system can get slightly confusing to anyone that is new to horse racing. The finish position is easy enough to understand, where the horse that finishes first will get 60 base points. The second-place finisher will get 40 points, third will get 30, fourth will get 20, and fifth will get 10 points. If your horse finishes in 6th place or worse, you will get 0 points. In an effort to prevent ties (and where it will confuse some players), the length won or beaten by will also provide positive or negative points. Each length a winner wins by will gain extra points. If the winner is a runaway and wins by 15 full horse lengths, that horse will score 60 base points + 15 length points for a total of 75 points. If your horse comes 2nd place and loses by 15 length points, your horse will score 40 base points – 15 length points for a total of 25 points. Trust me, its more confusing on paper, but I want to report the proper scoring.
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Today we will be focusing on the Santa Anita track which has a $10 and $25 contest. I will share a few horses from each price tier and some notes.
High Price Favorites
Dehydration $8,000 – Race 2
$8,000 is a lot to spend up to a horse, so you don’t want to miss. I think the rematch between the 3 ($9,800) and Dehydration is interesting and the shorter distance of this race should favor our horse here. I don’t want to get involved too much in this race, but the 6 ($7,000) could also play a factor in the top finishing spot.
Cassie Belle $8,500 – Race 5
Race 5 is a tricky race since it is a Maiden race. If you’re new to horse racing, maidens are horses that have never won a race. So, paying up for a horse that has never won is risky, but I do think that if Cassie Belle is beat in this race, she will still find her way on the board and acquire points. I do have other opinions in this race, and to see those, you will have to join us in the BetKarma for those premium takes.
Mid Price Plays
Lucky Peridot $7,000 – Race 1
This is about the top end of a mid-price play. I like the chances of 6 ‘upsetting’ in this race and think spending up to $7,000 should be fine. With one of the top turf sprinter trainers, and only 6 horses in this field (top 5 collect points on StableDuel), I feel okay grabbing the 4th highest price in this tiny field.
Value Plays
Bedrock $750 – Race 8
It’s a large field and taking a horse that’s 12/1 is a scary proposition, but if you need an extreme value play, a horse like Bedrock makes a lot of sense. Don’t read into his history too much as his trainer wanted to run him on turf too many times. He has run 3 races on dirt and has a win and two 3rd place finishes (one of which was run on this dirt track today). It’s okay to use multiple horses from the same race since points are acquired through 5 spots.
Suezaaana $3,000 – Race 10
I am returning to a maiden race to look at an 0/15 lifetime horse that could have some value. In those 15 races, this horse has come 2nd or 3rd 8 times. In terms of top 5 finishes for StableDuel points worthiness? 12 out of 15. Think at 3,000 for a horse that collects points 80% of the time is not a bad option.
