[Kasept]

This gets back to the Litfin discussion in the paddock. It all depends on how you view/utilize selections, and some of that chat should include familiarity with the approach of the specific handicapper. Are the 1-2-3-4 tabs a written-in-stone ranking that says the top pick is the only horse that can win? Somewhat, but hardly an imperative of how to employ the selections in wagers.

In that 6th Thursday, I suggested using the top three in the P4 including Page by Page, who felt like the third most likely winner to me, and to Andy too. Obviously, using horses in multis is confirmation that someone believes that horse can win the race. (And I think Seth's bon mot was a nod in that direction for including Page by Page on the quad ticket.)

I didn't play the race individually Thursday. But as I've explained for years, I'm an exotics and multi-race player first and win bettor second. I use several horses in boxes and/or keys, typically building around the win candidate horse with the best price intra-race and with big prices inter-race, trying to snare large mutuels. I'm not keeping score of my 'top pick' for ROI because it hardly is indicative of how I'm doing at any time.

I know what Andy is saying because he tweaks me about 'liking every horse' all the time. He is much more focused on individual horses as win candidates than I am, and is certainly the single best handicapper/presenter in North America when it comes to putting the public on a race's likely winner -- regularly at outrageous overlay prices. He also has the opportunity on the daily broadcast and via twitter to point out those horses on a timely basis based on situations that arise as the race card unfolds.

I'm ranking horses based on my opinion of them likely winning and being in the exacta, tri and super. How people employ that opinion is up to them. Some take my 4 and box them for dime supers or exactas. During Saratoga, Tina boxes them in trifectas. I typically key the likely and the best value with the rest. A sidebar to Thursday's 6th is that the 15-1 winner wasn't key to success in my mind (other than for the multi-race bets)... it was ignoring Tagg's 7-2 Proud Dame in favor of including Hushion's 30-1 Senora Dubai. She ran third triggering the $363 tri and $945 super, so if there was something clever that I did in how I saw the race, it was that.