Casual sports bettors tend to pay attention to horse racing during the Triple Crown racing season that starts with the Kentucky Derby as the single-biggest horse race of the year in the United States. Anyone who follows the sport on a regular basis will tell you that the best betting event of the year is the Breeders’ Cup in early November.
This year’s Breeders’ Cup will take place at Churchill Downs in Kentucky on Friday, Nov. 2 and Saturday, Nov. 3. There are five events on Friday’s card with another nine events on Saturday that add up to $30 million in total prize money. The biggest event on Friday is the $2 million Sentient Jet Juvenile for the top two-year old juveniles looking to get an early start on the 2019 Kentucky Derby Trail. Saturday’s Breeders’ Cup betting action culminates with the running the $6 million Classic for the “best of the best” in thoroughbred racing. In between, there are plenty of great opportunities to cash of few winners over two of the most exciting days of major graded stakes betting.
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With 14 different events on the board, the first step to betting the Breeders’ Cup is to create a separate betting bankroll apart from your overall online betting account. One strategy is to divide that total by 14 to come up for a set betting amount for every race. Another strategy would be to quickly break down the field for every event in an effort to come up with a short list of the races that you would like to wager on. This task is made much easier once the actual field is set and the post positions have been announced.
Many of the races are crossover events that could appeal to the same horse based on the trainer’s preference. These are all million-dollar events and the trainer’s job is to find the best opportunity for their entry to finish in the money.
As mentioned, the Juvenile is the biggest race on Friday’s card, but fans of turf racing might be more interested in the Juvenile Turf with a $1 million total prize purse. Some of the best up-and-coming fillies will get a chance to show what they got in the Tito’s Handmade Vodka Juveniles Fillies and the Juvenile Fillies Turf. The fifth event on the board for two-year old thoroughbreds to get things started on Friday is the Juvenile Turf Sprint on the grass track at Churchill as a distance of 5.5 furlongs. Post time for this race is 3:21 p.m. (ET).
Saturday’s Breeders’ Cup action at the home of the Kentucky Derby starts off with the running of the Filly & Mare Sprint for females three-year old and up. This $1 million sprint over seven furlongs has a post time of 12 p.m. From there, the racing action is non-stop with roughly a 40-minute gap between the next eight events.
Other than the Classic, some of the other big-money events on Saturday’s card starts with the $2 million Breeders’ Cup Mile at 3:36 p.m. Many of the top dirt-track horses that bypass the deep field in the Classic will choose to run in this event. It is open to thoroughbreds three-years old and up. As the lead-in race before the featured event of the day, the Longines Turf with a post time of 4:56 p.m. offers a total prize purse of $4 million. This 1 ½ mile run on the grass at Churchill features the best turf racers three-year’s old and up.
The Breeders’ Cup Classic is a 1 ¼ mile run on the dirt and its slated post time is 5:44 p.m. While the 2018 Triple Crown winner Justify is already enjoying an early retirement, this year’s field is expected to consist of Accelerate as the likely morning line favorite along with Discreet Lover and Pavel as previous Challenge Series Winners in a pre-qualifying event.
As one last betting tip, you have to keep in mind that the field is deep in talent for all 14 Breeders’ Cup races, which gives the lean towards the favorites when it comes to finding the best value in the betting odds.