posted May 23, 2008 at 14:49 EST in Triple Crown Betting Trends

The successful problem solvers in the world can always turn a negative into a positive and the best off track betting enthusiasts can do the same thing with a little imagination.

A couple of races in mid May showed why clever bettors look to the past to see how much money they can make in the future. Big Brown and the Belmont Stakes may or may not be an indicator of that.

We’ll examine races in Chicago, Kentucky and New York to show that by reading into past performances and the way horses perform can pay dividends if a bettor shows some ability to project.

At Belmont, the horse is the claiming filly Malasia. She graduated at Belmont so there is a reason to figure she’ll excel this meet but she had to hit the bench after that win and was dull in the three subsequent races.

In the May debut, the daughter of Hennessy was bet big, she was the second choice in the field but she reverted to her old habits and that is what cost her.

Cagey horse bettors that scrutinized the past saw that Malasia stumbled badly in 2 of her first 3 outs of the year and that can indicate a runner that is not intrinsically feeling good.

So at 5-2, what happened to her? She checked at the break, was only a brief factor and ran 7th. Bettors that could have eliminated her may have been able to turn that negative to a positive if they tossed her as the second choice, teed it up on the chalk and key that runner with some longshots.

Those that wheeled eventual chalky winner House Quest got paid in superfecta as it came back over $21,000.

On to Chicago. The example is the $10,000 claimer Kanskat. She was bet like a good thing in her second race of May, down to even money, but those astute betters that paid attention to the past wanted no part of her.

She had been wide in her last 2 races at Hawthorne and in her local debut she acted up at the gate like a miss that didn’t want any part of a race.

So those that took even money should have expected her to come out of the gate uninterested and dead last as she was only able to beat 2 horses home.

Horse bettors that were paying attention isolated the dropping second choice, threw in a couple of outsiders and got paid in the trifecta to the tune of $419 for a deuce.

The final example of a way that sharp horse bettors can turn to a negative into a positive is a runner trained by Hall of Fame conditioner D. Wayne Lukas.

The suspect is named Starbank, a son of Fusaichi Pegasus who cost $575,000. He was making his first start at Churchill Downs, his first start for a claiming tag and was in for only $30,000.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that this is a potential $545,000 loss on paper.

Day in and day out bettors go bonkers on droppers but that thinking may be outdated. As far as Starbank is concerned, he was dead last year, beat one home at 7-5 and those that took a shot at the third choice in the race got paid.

That runner was up in the nick of time and held off some prices to key a $12,000 and change superfecta.

The best information can be negative in this game. If horse bettors can learn to digest that info, they can turn a negative into dollar signs.

Check the BetUS Locker Room for the latest info on Horse Racing, Big Brown the Triple Crown and the Belmont Stakes.

Keep checking the Locker Room all through the Triple Crown season, as we will cover the trainers, horses and jockeys in each race. You can get your early Belmont Stakes at Belmont Park bets in now in the BetUS sportsbook in the Future / props section, under Horse Futures: 2008 Belmont Stakes.