Posted on 4/21/2008 5:01:41 PM

Betting Online On Horses – The Blowout

By Brian Mulligan

One of the main online horse betting and handicapping concepts has to do with the condition of a horse as he comes into a race and one way of evaluating that condition is examining the work pattern of the runner.

Active horse bettors in California have been spoiled over the years because they way they record workouts there is probably the best in the country. If there is a gap in the published works of either a first-time starter or a comeback runner is it more likely that a work was truly missed because of a setback rather than the fact the experienced clockers at the track ‘missed’ the work.

Back in the early 1980s when I was trying to understand the intricacies of the sport, I chronicled the work patterns of every trainer in Southern California and for the purposes of today’s discussion, we’ll glance at the great work done by Hall of Fame legend Charlie Whittingham.

A head trainer for nearly 50 years, he handled Ack Ack, Ferdinand and Sunday Silence, all who earned Horse of the Year honors.

The ‘Bald Eagle’ as he was affectionately called, seldom pushed his runners early in the career and he won with a first timer about every time a Blue Moon showed up but the tip off to a ‘go’ for his runners that I discovered was when he put a ‘blowout’, a sharp 3-furlong work, into his runner right before a race, usually two or three days from the event.

During the 1982 Santa Anita season, Whittingham saddled 21 winners and 10 of them had a blowout right on top of the race. And some paid handsomely, including a filly named Flying Partner, who blew up the tote at $20.60 after she blew out 3 days before the win.

Five others paid double digits and that was news since Whittingham was always bet.

Horse bettors can look to the blowout similar to a shoot around for an NBA team. The hoopsters usually gather the morning of a game just before noon, concentrate on shooting for about an hour, then go back and rest until game time.

These days, astute horse bettors know that the ‘blowout’ is alive and working. A quick scan of the first several days of April produced result of 5 runners that won after using that sharp 3-furlong move before a race.

Golden Celebrity figured at Tampa on April 6 and she cashed as the chalk after the sharp 3-furlong move. On the same day at Gulfstream, Liscarroll tuned up for his maiden breaker by working 3 furlongs then paying a fat $12 under Eddie Baird.

Three days later at Keeneland on the Polytrack Freedom Alert was coming off a best of the morning :34 3/5 workout, then nailed the speed on the line to the tune of $15.60. The next day at Bay Meadows former jockey/turned trainer Tony Diaz blew out his trainee Mad About Fuzz, then watched him tow-rope a route field all the way home.

The windfall with the blowout came the same day about 500 miles south at Santa Anita when invader Hammett Star came in from Phoenix off a sharp 3-furlong work and proceeded to blow up the tote at 45-1 overcoming trouble.

When the best horseplayers look for a ‘go go’ work pattern, they often look for that clever 3-furlong blowout signaling that a superior effort is in the immediate future.

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