Hi winner,
Two weeks out from the Breeders’ Cup and Keeneland is the deepest it gets: twelve-horse fields in both Saturday stakes, the Raven Run and the Perryville, on the same dirt the Classic runs over on the 31st. Ascot stages Britain’s richest day tomorrow morning, five Group 1s before 11am ET, all World Pool. Belmont gives $1.085 million to eleven races for claimers, which is the most New York thing I’ve ever typed. Victor went 3-0. And on Sunday at 1pm ET, the Jets go to Foxborough.
That last one matters more than it should, because Gio sits six feet from me. Gio works on our marketing team, and Gio is a Patriots fan, which until now I’d treated as a medical condition we don’t discuss. The Jets are 2-18 in their last 20 trips to Gillette. Gio has had that number on a Post-it on his monitor since Tuesday. On Wednesday the Post-it had a drawing of a jet on it. On Thursday the jet was on fire.
So we’ve made it official. Loser wears the other team’s jersey into Bobby V’s Stamford next week, full shift, no jacket, and has to answer the door to every regular who asks about it. If the Jets lose, I’m walking in wearing a Patriots jersey and Gio has already bought it, which tells you where his confidence is. If the Pats lose, Gio wears green, and I’ve asked for one with his name on the back so there’s no plausible deniability. Both Bobby V’s have the game on every screen at 1pm ET. Come watch one of us lose a bet with a man he has to see on Monday, and come back next week to see what he’s wearing.
This week’s racing is stacked. Let’s go.
→ RACING THIS WEEK
- 🗓️ TODAY (Fri) · 🇺🇸 Remington Park · OKLAHOMA CLASSICS NIGHT · 8 stakes, $1.04M · 7:30pm ET · 🇺🇸 Scioto Downs · BREEDERS CROWN ELIMS (2YOs, harness) · 6pm ET · 🇺🇸 Santa Anita · $2 Pick 6 carryover $54,223 · 3:30pm ET
- 🗓️ TOMORROW (Sat) · 🇬🇧 Ascot · 5 G1s, £4.35M · World Pool · first race 7:55am ET · QEII 10:20am ET · Champion Stakes 11am ET · 🇦🇺 Randwick · THE EVEREST · Ka Ying Rising · overnight Fri into Sat · 🇺🇸 Keeneland · RAVEN RUN (G2, $400K) 5:16pm ET + PERRYVILLE (G3, $350K) 4:12pm ET · 1pm ET · 🇺🇸 Belmont Park · FALL STARTER CHAMPIONSHIPS · 11 races, $1.085M · 12:05pm ET · 🇺🇸 Monmouth Park · FAR HILLS · AMERICAN GRAND NATIONAL · 6 jump races on the grass, $825K · 12:50pm ET · 🇨🇦 Woodbine · Ontario Derby (G3) + Ontario Fashion (G3) · 1:05pm ET · 🇺🇸 Delaware Park · CLOSING DAY · Endine ($200K) + Wilmington ($100K) · 12:40pm ET · 🇺🇸 Scioto Downs · BREEDERS CROWN ELIMS (3YOs + Open, harness) · 6pm ET
- 🗓️ SUNDAY · 🇺🇸 Keeneland · Rood & Riddle Dowager (G3, $350K) · 4:44pm ET · 🇨🇦 Woodbine · South Ocean + Frost King · 1:05pm ET
- 🗓️ GREYHOUNDS 🐕 · 🇺🇸 Wheeling Downs · Wed to Sun · 1pm ET · 🇺🇸 Tri-State · evenings · 🇦🇺 Australia · overnight · 4% cashback · Free tip sheets in the Handicapping Store
Last week I went to the dogs. Wheeling Downs, Saturday, the free tip sheet, and the rule was simple: only play a race where the sheet’s top pick drew the 1 or the 8 box. There were two. I keyed the top pick over the next three in a $1 trifecta in both, $12 total. In the first, my key dog won and the sheet’s second and third choices ran third and fourth, which is the greyhound version of having all the right horses in the wrong order. In the second, the 8 dog broke like a champion and then went wide at the first turn as if he’d seen something interesting in the parking lot. Zero for two. The discipline part worked. The dogs did not. I’m 2-for-5 in the fall. But not losing faith.
This week: 👉 the Raven Run, Saturday 5:16pm ET. Twelve fillies, seven furlongs, and three of them are clearly better than the other nine. $1 exacta box, Conceit, Mashallah, Percy’s Bar. Six combos, $6. The logic is that two of these three are on three-race winning streaks and one is the only Grade 1 winner in the race coming off a throw-out on turf, so she’ll be the price. Boxing three horses in a twelve-horse field is usually a waste of money. It isn’t when the gap between third and fourth in the field is this big. If Percy’s Bar is 8/1 or better at post time, I’m also putting $5 on her to win and not telling my wife, who has a greyhound coming for a home visit on Tuesday and has started referring to my betting as “the thing we’re going to talk about.”
→ SATURDAY, MONMOUTH PARK
THE FAR HILLS RACES, SIX OVER JUMPS ON THE GRASS.
First post 12:50pm ET. Once a year, New Jersey’s horsey set puts on tweed, parks on a hill in Somerset County and watches six races over jumps on the grass at Moorland Farm, and once a year it’s the best-value card in the Northeast, because almost nobody betting it has read a jumps form line in their life. The pari-mutuel runs through Monmouth Park, so look for Monmouth Park in the app, not Far Hills. Six races, $825,000. The American Grand National (G1, $300K, 2 5/8 miles, 4:05pm ET) is the feature, and the story is the same as last year: Irish trainer Gordon Elliott and jockey Jack Kennedy came over in 2025 and won all five jump races on the card. All five. They’re back with Western Fold in the Grand National and Lizzie Twigg, a mare on a three-race streak, in the Foxbrook (3:11pm ET). Last year’s winner Zanahiyr is also Elliott’s, and the home defense is Mr Percy, two straight stakes wins at Saratoga, and Zabeel Champion. The flat two-mile John Forbes Memorial ($150K, 4:50pm ET) closes it with 13 runners and last year’s nine-length winner Fleetfoot back. If you’ve been betting Ascot since 7:55am ET and want to keep the British-Irish theme going into the afternoon, this is the card. Far Hills is ninety minutes from Stamford, if you’ve got the tweed.
Bet Monmouth Park on MyWinners →
→ SATURDAY & SUNDAY, KEENELAND
TWO FULL FIELDS ON THE BREEDERS’ CUP DIRT.
Keeneland is where I learned to bet. A college roommate from Lexington, his uncle’s box, a fall Friday in October when I should have been in a lecture, and a filly in the last race who went off at 9/1 and won by a neck. I’ve been chasing that neck for twenty years. Every October I go back, and every October the place is exactly the same, which in this sport is the rarest thing there is.
This is the week to pay attention, because the Breeders’ Cup is on this dirt in fifteen days and Saturday is the last real look at it. Both stakes are seven furlongs for three-year-olds and both drew the maximum twelve.
The Lexus Raven Run (G2, $400K, Race 9, 5:16pm ET) is the fillies. Percy’s Bar is the only Grade 1 winner in the field after the Ashland in April, but she ran twelfth on turf at Kentucky Downs last time and comes back to dirt with a question mark. The two to beat are both on three-race streaks: Conceit for Brad Cox, who won the Dogwood at Churchill and gets Irad from post 8, and Mashallah for Brendan Walsh, who won the Prioress at Saratoga and has never lost sprinting. Four-for-four. The Perryville (G3, $350K, Race 7, 4:12pm ET) is the colts. Deep Flame has never been worse than second in five starts, won the Maxfield by nearly six, and ran second in the Jerkens at Saratoga. He’s the class. He also drew post 12, which at seven furlongs on this track is a long walk to the first turn. Chief Wallabee ran fourth in the Kentucky Derby and his only career win came at exactly this distance. Obliteration has Flavien Prat. Then Sunday, the Rood & Riddle Dowager (G3, $350K, 4:44pm ET), a mile and a half on the turf, where Fionn brings Grade 1 class into a Grade 3 and hasn’t won this year. Rob has every field: the weekend preview and the Dowager.
Last weekend, for the record: Tam Tam went to the front in the QEII from post 2 and nobody came. Won by 2 1/2 for Phil Bauer and Junior Alvarado, second straight Grade 1 after the Del Mar Oaks. Luster, the favorite I told you the market would land on, sat second, got floated four wide turning for home and finished eighth. The market landed. It didn’t take off. Lambeth won Friday’s Sycamore for Joe Sharp, his first graded win, and Time to Dazzle won the Franklin on Sunday by a nose, for the second year running, with Irad’s third graded stakes of the meet. Keeneland is not a track where the favorites win. It’s a track where the prices are fair. Free PPs in the Handicapping Store.
→ SATURDAY, BELMONT
$1.085 MILLION FOR THE HORSES WHO DO THE WORK.
Every track has stars. Belmont’s Saturday is for everyone else. Eleven races, $1.085 million, and every horse in every one of them has run for a claiming tag since July of last year. These are the horses that fill the Wednesday cards, the ones you’ve cashed on at 4/1 in a $25,000 claimer in February, and once a year NYRA gives them a day with six-figure purses and their own names on the races. The Creme de la Fete opens it. The Voodoo Song at a mile and a sixteenth on the turf is the deepest race on the card. The Battle Bling and the Royal Posse are for the cheapest horses on the grounds, and the Royal Posse is worth $75,000, which is more than some of them have earned in their lives.
Why bet it. Linda Rice, the leading trainer on the circuit, has 16 horses entered across ten races, including both Commuted and Cool Andy in the opener. When one barn has that many live ones on one card, the Pick 5 and Pick 6 get interesting fast, because the favorites are all from the same place and the prices are on everyone else. Rice’s horses win. They don’t always win at a price. Build around her and against her in the same ticket. First post 12:05pm ET, which means you can finish the Champion Stakes at Ascot at 11am ET, make a sandwich, and be in the Belmont opener with time to spare.
Last Saturday at Belmont: Third Coast won the Hill Prince in a track record 1:54.93 for Tom Proctor, and Doubting Thomas won the first Bricks and Mortar by a length. New Yorkers: this is your first full Belmont Saturday as MyWinners customers. Welcome. The claimers are yours now too.
Bet Belmont Park on MyWinners →
→ SATURDAY MORNING, INTERNATIONAL
ASCOT, SYDNEY, AND THE RACES THAT POINT TO KENTUCKY.
🇬🇧 Ascot, tomorrow morning. British Champions Day is £4.35 million ($5.7M) across seven races, five of them Group 1s, and the whole card is World Pool, which means your bet at 7:55am ET goes into the same pool as Hong Kong and London. First race 7:55am ET. Long Distance Cup 8:30am ET. Champions Sprint 9:05am ET, with Almeraq at around even money, the shortest price on the card, after winning at Royal Ascot and Haydock. Fillies & Mares 9:40am ET, where Kalpana goes for a third straight win in the race, having already beaten Calandagan in the King George this summer. Queen Elizabeth II Stakes 10:20am ET, where Godolphin paid to supplement Talk Of New York and he’s the favorite over Rayif, the French Guineas winner, and Gstaad. And the Champion Stakes at 11am ET, the £1.3 million main event: Calandagan, last year’s winner, against Ombudsman, last year’s second, with Bay City Roller in off his Arc second thirteen days ago and Constitution River supplemented late by Aidan O’Brien. Rob’s full Champions Day guide has every runner.
Now the part you asked for: why a Connecticut bettor should care, beyond the money. Because Ascot on Saturday is the last stop before Keeneland. Kalpana runs in Juddmonte’s silks, and Juddmonte Farm is in Lexington, about fifteen minutes from the Keeneland gate. John Gosden, who trains Ombudsman, spent his first decade as a trainer in California and won the very first Breeders’ Cup Mile in 1984 with Royal Heroine. Hotazhell, the 50/1 Irish Champion Stakes winner, was entered for the Champion Stakes and pulled out this week so he can go straight to the Breeders’ Cup instead, so that’s one Ascot horse you’ll see at Keeneland in two weeks. And the names. The QEII has Talk Of New York, Hawk Mountain, which is in Pennsylvania, and Puerto Rico. Coolmore has been naming horses after American places for years, and now you can bet them from the Bronx. The Ascot going is good, good to firm in places. Dry, cool, fast. That suits the speed horses and the favorites. My Champion Stakes read: Calandagan is the horse, Bay City Roller is the price, because thirteen days off an Arc second is either too soon or exactly right, and the pool won’t know which.
🇦🇺 Sydney, overnight. Royal Randwick Racecourse. The Everest, the richest turf race on the planet, goes at Royal Randwick in the small hours of Saturday morning ET. Ka Ying Rising, 21 straight wins in Hong Kong, drew barrier 11 of 12 and is around 2/5 to win it for the second year. Tempted, five straight, has the inside gate and is the one they’ll throw at him. Trainer David Hayes said the only thing that scratches him is a heavy track, and the Sydney forecast has been drying out all week. Bet it before bed Friday.
🇬🇧 Newmarket, last weekend, three lessons. Musical Times won the Fillies’ Mile at 4/9, as advertised. Desert Castle did not win the Dewhurst at 10/11. Darkness Falls got him by a neck for Aidan O’Brien, and your Guineas favorite for May has changed in the space of a neck. And the Cesarewitch went to Alphonse Le Grande at 18/1, with the 4/1 favorite second. I told you not to bet the favorite to win in a 29-runner race. I’d like that noted somewhere.
→ MORE RACING THIS WEEKEND
🐴 Scioto Downs · tonight and tomorrow · first post 6pm ET. The Breeders Crown eliminations, harness racing’s championship weekend, come to Ohio. Two-year-olds tonight, three-year-olds and the Open divisions tomorrow, with the finals next Friday and Saturday worth more than $7 million across twelve races. Eliminations are where the prices are, because the sharp money waits for the finals. Rob’s Breeders Crown elims preview has every division. 3% cashback on every harness bet.
🏇 Remington Park · tonight · first post 7:30pm ET. Oklahoma Classics Night, eight stakes for Oklahoma-breds worth $1.04 million, which on a Friday night is the richest card in the country. The Classics Cup ($175K) and the Distaff ($145K) are the features. Same logic as Charles Town last week: closed fields, horses that have been beating each other all year, form holds.
🏇 Delaware Park · tomorrow · first post 12:40pm ET. Closing day of the 2026 meet with the Endine ($200K) and the Wilmington ($100K). Last call for Delaware until next spring.
🏇 Woodbine · tomorrow and Sunday · first post 1:05pm ET. The Ontario Derby (G3) and the Ontario Fashion (G3) tomorrow on the Tapeta, $175K each. Creed’s Gold for Mark Casse has won three of four on synthetic and is the one in the Fashion. Sunday it’s the South Ocean and Frost King for two-year-olds.
🏇 Santa Anita · today through Sunday · first post 3:30pm ET. The $2 Pick 6 carries over $54,223 into today. Nothing big in the stakes department until next weekend.
🏇 Charles Town · last Saturday. Jubawithatwist won the Sam Huff by ten lengths at 5/2, with the 7/10 favorite and defending champ Teachintherelease second. Ten lengths, in a $300K race, over a horse that had won it the year before. If you had the favorite, see the Worst Beat section. If you had the winner, see the P.S.
🐕 Wheeling Downs + Tri-State + Australia · every day. The dogs got a lot of you last week. Keep going. Free tip sheets in the Handicapping Store, 4% cashback on the Australian dogs overnight, and Rob’s greyhound betting guide if you’re still learning the boxes.
Bet This Weekend’s Racing on MyWinners →
🤑 Carryovers. Santa Anita’s $2 Pick 6 is $54,223 going into today. Belmont had a $121,890 Pick 6 carryover into last Sunday’s card. [CONFIRM WHETHER IT WAS HIT AND ANY NEW CARRYOVERS BEFORE SEND.] Bookmark this so you can always find the live ones:
Check Live Carryovers →
→ SPORTS THIS WEEK
🏈 NFL Week 6 · Sun Oct 18 1pm ET: Jets @ Patriots · Saints @ Giants 1pm ET · Pats -7 or -7.5 depending on your book · Jets 2-18 in their last 20 at Gillette · get your bets in early
⚽ EPL · Matchweek 7 · Sat Oct 17 10am ET: Brentford v Liverpool · Everton v Chelsea 7:30am ET · Sun Oct 18 9am ET: Leeds v Man United · Forest v Arsenal 11:30am ET
🥎 Jai Alai · Pelota Miami Season X · Pari-mutuel matches Tuesdays and Wednesdays, 11:30am ET · 3% cashback on exacta/trifecta at MyWinners · Rob wrote the rules if you’ve been nodding along
→ AT BOBBY V’s THIS WEEK
- 🏟️ Stamford. Jets @ Patriots on every screen at 1pm ET on Sunday. Half the room in green, half in blue, me in one corner, Gio in the other, and a bar in between us for safety. Giants fans, you’re welcome too, and the Saints game is on the other wall. The EPL is on the soccer screens both mornings. Sports betting at the counter, Keeneland and all racing on the walls.
- 🏟️ Windsor Locks. Same game, same screens, slightly fewer Pats fans, which is a feature. NFL from 1pm ET Sunday. Breeders Crown elims on the racing screens tonight and tomorrow from 6pm ET.
🏈 WIN AN NFL JERSEY. Watch our socials on Sunday. There’s a giveaway going up for 24 hours only, and the prize is an NFL jersey. Which team is up to you, which is more choice than Gio or I are getting next week.
🎄 Christmas parties. Both Bobby V’s are taking holiday bookings now and the good December Saturdays are going. Office party, family thing, a table of six or the whole room with racing on every wall. If you want a date, get it in this month.
→ 🏈 VIC’S PICKS: WEEK 6
Victor went 3-0 last week. The Eagles covered +7.5 by losing by two. The Vikings covered -1.5 by winning by ten. The 49ers won outright in Seattle at +135, which was the first time all season he’d taken a money line, and he hit it. That’s 7-2 over three weeks, two straight weeks without a loss on one of ours, and a man who has stopped saying “good luck” at the end of his picks and started saying “you’re welcome.” Play the video for this week’s tips.
Hold him to his record. We’re keeping score all season, and his score is starting to get rather impressive.
→ Live promos this week.
For anyone new: Leon is our head of promotions, a Brit, a horse racing nut, and a Liverpool fan, which we ask you not to hold against him. Liverpool are at Brentford tomorrow at 10am ET, which is twenty minutes before the QEII at Ascot, so Leon will be watching two screens and talking to neither of us. Here’s what he’s giving away this week: Bet & Get at Mountaineer + Finger Lakes · 3% cashback on all US & Canadian harness · 4% cashback on Australian greyhounds · 3% cashback on jai alai exacta/trifecta at Pelota Miami · Pelota Miami jersey giveaway, $2,500+ in jai alai bets wins a game-worn jersey.
→ WORST BEAT OF THE WEEK
The mailbag is open and you’re not holding back. This week’s winner is Adam from Greenwich, who wrote in on Sunday morning and, by his own admission, hadn’t slept.
Adam’s beat, in his words: “Keeneland Pick 4 Saturday, $48, and I singled Luster in the QEII because every preview I read, including yours, said the market would land on her. I was alive through three legs, sat and watched her get floated four wide on the turn and finish eighth, and then read on the way home that the horse who beat her went wire to wire from post 2 and was never headed. I’ve never been so right about the race and so wrong about the horse.” Adam, that’s the Keeneland experience in one ticket. We said the market would land on her. We didn’t say she’d land. The tee is at Bobby V’s Stamford with your name on it, and I’d go on Sunday, when there’ll be plenty of other people in the room having a bad day.
The house beats, in order of pain. Everyone who had Luster on top at Keeneland, the horse the whole market landed on, who sat second and finished eighth. Everyone who had Teachintherelease at 7/10 in the Sam Huff, defending champion, beaten ten lengths. And everyone who had Desert Castle at 10/11 in the Dewhurst, the shortest price on the card, beaten a neck by a stablemate of the horse that beat him in the spring. Three favorites, three different countries, one weekend. The favorite is not your friend. The favorite is just the horse everyone else likes.
Reply with yours from this weekend. The most painful one gets a MyWinners tee “Better Luck Next Time” or the classic (above), and this spot next Friday.
→ LIVE FROM THE BLOG
Rob has had a week. Six new posts since last Friday, and all of them are worth the click before you bet.
- 📰 British Champions Day 2026: World Pool race times, runners and betting preview. Every race in ET, every Group 1 field, and how the World Pool works.
- 📰 Weekend preview: Champions Day, Keeneland and the Breeders Crown, October 16 to 18. Full Raven Run, Perryville and Dowager fields with posts and jockeys.
- 📰 Dowager Stakes 2026: Keeneland Sunday field, post time and picks. Fionn, Venencia, Speed Shopper, and a mile and a half of turf.
- 📰 Breeders Crown eliminations 2026: Scioto Downs fields and betting preview. Every division, both nights, and the six horses whose owners paid $72,000 to supplement.
- 📰 Jai alai rules: how the game is played and scored. For everyone who’s been betting Tuesdays and Wednesdays and nodding along.
- 📰 How to read betting odds: fractional, American, decimal and tote. Send this to the friend who asked what 9/2 means.
See you at the rail. Or at Bobby V’s Stamford next week, where one of us will be wearing the wrong jersey.
See you at the track.
| Mike B VIP & Community, MyWinners |
Tel: +1800 468 2260 (support)
P.S. Longtime friend of MyWinners and Stamford’s own Curt flew to London for Eagles @ Jaguars on Sunday, after placing his bet at the counter at Bobby V’s Stamford on the way to the airport. Correct order of operations. He sent us this from Parliament Square: green jacket, Big Ben, and for once in October, blue sky. The Eagles lost 19-17 on a 57-yard Cam Little field goal with one second left, after a 53-yard kick return nobody saw coming. Three straight losses for Philly. But Victor had Eagles +7.5, a two-point loss covers, and so Curt flew 3,500 miles to watch his team lose and still cash a ticket he bought in Stamford. That’s the most MyWinners thing that’s happened all season. Safe flight home, Curt. The winnings are waiting at the counter.
P.P.S. Tonight’s Mega Millions is $403 million. Tomorrow’s Powerball is $600 million. Seven people were one ball away on Tuesday. Tickets at all nine MyWinners venues, and if you hit it, please remember who told you about the Raven Run.
