Maiden King

In this race, jockey Garrett Gomez was riding the 9-to-5 morning line favorite #3 Bench the Judge. This colt was making its second start and had performed well in its July 5 debut.

Maybe if Bench the Judge was 5-to-2 or more I would have considered him, but with Gomez it wasn’t difficult to forecast this colt’s minuscule 4-to-5 post time odds. And that made it easy to look elsewhere for the winner.

I had a few possibilities: The owner of #6 Runaway Bandido, Judi Partridge,  won with a couple of debuters from a limited sample and Carla Gaines, the trainer of #5 John Scott, has a good record when her first-timers get betting action.

I also saw a few things to like in other debuters #10 L’Il Charlie Rose, #11 Twenty Hawks and #1A Full Effect. 

I was waiting for odds of 10/1 to 19/1 on #6 Runaway Bandido, #10 Charlie Rose and #11 Twenty Hawks. With a minute to post they were all in the range, so I bet them and #5 John Scott, who fell into my 3/1 to 9/1 parameter.

Runaway Bandido broke toward the back of the back, but came with a huge run in the stretch to briefly hold the lead with 100 yards to go. He almost gave me a giant payoff, as he clicked up to 21-to-1 in the final flash. Of course, I couldn’t have claimed the win on the blog, but real money is OK, too.

However, John Scott’s jockey Victor Espinoza was also hitting the gas in the stretch and that colt outran Runaway Bandido to the wire. Favorite Bench the Judge led at the top of the lane, but faded to third.

I had $150 on John Scott and collected $720, however subtracting out my three $150 wagers left me with only a $270 profit.

To watch a replay of this race, go to www.calracing.com.