Targeting Trifectas and Superfectas at the Breeders’ Cup

Breeders' Cup World Championships races, like the 2013 Turf Sprint above, offer a unique betting opportunity to gamblers with a better likelihood of a massive payout on trifectas and superfectas. (Photo by Eclipse Sportswire)
I’m typically a multi-race wager player. The main reason is that I find it a lot easier to pick winners of races than to pick horses to come in second or third, which is what you must do when betting the exacta or trifecta.
If I like three horses in a race, it usually means I think that all three have some shot at winning that is better than their odds. What it doesn’t mean is that I think the three of them will be barreling to the finish line together and come in 1-2-3. So, I mostly bet multi-race wagers and horses to win or across the board.
The Breeders’ Cup is a major exception to this rule for me. With deep, typically competitive fields, picking winners is much tougher. And usually I need a race in a multi-race sequence to be a single in order to afford it. There usually are no solid singles during the Breeders’ Cup. This is why the Pick 6 on Saturday will have a $2.5-million guarantee. It’s going to be incredibly hard to hit it.
On Breeders’ Cup weekend, I find myself investing money into trifectas and superfectas, bets I rarely play on normal race days. One reason I typically avoid these bets is that they can sometimes be huge underlays when a heavy favorite wins and another favorite hits the board. In order to get a good overlay, you need to beat the chalk AND you need a bomb (or at least 10-1 odds) to hit the board. In Breeders’ Cup races, with large fields and talented horses going off at the longest odds of their lives, opportunities for just such scenarios abound.
A TALENTED HORSE AT A NICE PRICE, LIKE MAGICIAN IN THE 2013 TURF, OFFERS AN OPPORTUNITY TO MAKE SOME CASH

Photo by Eclipse Sportswire
Another fact that makes playing the trifecta interesting is that this year Santa Anita has dropped the minimum bet down from $1 to 50 cents. This not only makes it cheaper to go deeper in the race, it also allows you cheapskates to skip out on paying taxes on wagers subject to the 600-1 reporting requirement by splitting your $1 tickets into two 50-cent tickets.
The key to playing the superfecta and trifecta effectively on these races is to remember that it’s always easier to pick the horses that will finish on top than it is to pick the horses that will finish third or fourth. So you want to structure your bets in a way that lets you get many more horses in the bottom rows than on the top ones.
This means you also have to handicap the race in a way that gives you more confidence in as small a number of top picks as you can. The fewer horses you are willing to put on top, the more horses you can afford to spread around on the bottom. Like in this $1 superfecta ticket that costs $36:
A,B with A,B,C with A,B,C,D,E with A,B,C,D,E,F
You have covered six horses on your ticket for only $36 by nailing your hopes and dreams to your A and B horses finishing first. It’s much better to have a larger number of horses on the bottom of the ticket, even if it means having fewer on the top. The opposite strategy — taking horses out of your ticket to allow you to have more horses on top — is harder to hit because you’re giving yourself fewer shots at nailing the most difficult positions to handicap. Have some confidence in your top picks. The alternative means you’re de facto showing confidence in your picks for third and fourth, which is nuts. If one of those top picks is also a decent-priced horse, you’re in good shape.
Remember that the minimum wager for a superfecta is 10 cents, so if you want to play dimes, you can afford to spread it out even more. Maybe even save yourself with something like this (for a 10-horse field):
A,B,C with A,B,C with A,B,C with ALL = $4.20
A,B,C with A,B,C with ALL with A,B,C = $4.20
A,B,C with ALL with A,B,C with A,B,C = $4.20
ALL with A,B,C with A,B,C with A,B,C = $4.20
Total: $16.80
Now you’ve covered yourself pretty well and are banking on A, B and C hitting the board somewhere in the top four. In a 10-horse field it may not be hard to hit that bet, and if you can keep the chalk off the top, you could cash a pretty nice ticket.
The trick with all of these wagers is to figure out where and how you can beat the favorite. If there’s a race where you feel the favorite is incredibly overrated and you really like another horse who may be undervalued by the odds, why not go deep on a superfecta like this?
There are obviously countless ways to play the superfecta (and trifecta) given the number of horses in the race and the number of horses you like.
The key lessons to take away here are a) structure your tickets in a way that allows you to get far more horses in the bottom and b) make sure that you’ve got at least one decent-priced horse in your top three choices. 
If you hit one early, take a stab at the Pick 4. On Saturday, the Pick 4 that ends with the classic has a $3-million guarantee!
And then after this weekend when everything goes back to normal, never bet a superfecta again.
TRIFECTAS AND SUPERFECTAS ARE A UNIQUE OPPORTUNITY AT BREEDERS’ CUP

Photo by Eclipse Sportswire