Seeking Nice Score with Longshot Reride in Jim Dandy

July 26th, 2018 by J. Keeler Johnson

Fans at Saratoga respond to picking a winner on opening day at the 2018 meet. (Penelope P. Miller/America's Best Racing)

While it’s not a strategy I would recommend employing with regularity, on certain occasions when betting on horse races I think there can be advantages to being contrary simply for the sake of being contrary.

Allow me to explain in further detail.

On Saturday, Saratoga will host the $600,000, Grade 2 Jim Dandy Stakes, a 1 1/8-mile prep race for the Grade 1 Travers Stakes later this summer. With just five starters, the field is small and you won’t be able to get much of a price on well-regarded runners such as Tenfold (#2) and Vino Rosso (#5), well-bred veterans of the Triple Crown series.

I certainly can’t argue with anyone who likes the chances of Tenfold or Vino Rosso. They certainly have good credentials — Tenfold missed by less than a length when finishing third in the Grade 1 Preakness Stakes, while Vino Rosso won the Grade 2 Wood Memorial Stakes Presented by NYRA Bets back in April and wasn’t disgraced when coming home fourth in the Grade 1 Belmont Stakes Presented by NYRA Bets.

But as of late, the Jim Dandy Stakes has not been kind to experienced Triple Crown competitors. The grind of the prep season and the stiff tests of the classic races themselves can take a toll on the participants, and the last three winners of the Jim Dandy — Good Samaritan, Laoban, and Texas Red — all skipped the Triple Crown series and seemed to benefit from their easier schedules when defeating more heralded rivals in the Jim Dandy.

The other two Jim Dandy competitors, Flameaway (#1) and Sporting Chance (#4), also competed in the Triple Crown. They’ve both been very busy this year, with Flameaway running six times and Sporting Chance racing on five occasions, and their recent efforts (a sixth in the Grade 3 Ohio Derby for Flameaway and a sixth in the Preakness for Sporting Chance) suggest that they might be starting to regress a bit.

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So with all of this in mind, I’m tempted to be contrary and skip the step of trying to split these accomplished contenders — especially since they figure to offer short prices — and instead take a shot with Reride (#3), the only horse in the field that did not compete in the Triple Crown. That makes him something of an unproven commodity, and while he was beaten in his last two starts, one was the Group 2 United Arab Emirates Derby Sponsored By Saeed & Mohammed Al Naboodah Group (held halfway across the world in Dubai) and the other was the Mystic Lake Derby on turf.

Reride’s most recent start on a North American dirt track like Saratoga was the Mine That Bird Derby at Sunland Park, in which he defeated the future Grade 3 Sunland Derby winner Runaway Ghost in decisive fashion while earning a career-best 91 Beyer Speed Figure. That’s not a huge number but it’s also not far off the best figures earned by the Jim Dandy favorites, and if Reride steps up his game at all while returning to dirt, I think he’ll have a big chance to outrun his odds in the Jim Dandy.

For good measure, Reride has enough speed to work out an ideal trip on Saturday — I expect to see him stalking Flameaway early before bidding to take command around the far turn. From there, perhaps he can win or hit the board as perhaps the longest shot in the field.

Here’s how I would play the race:

Wagering Strategy

$4 exacta: 3 with 1,2,5 ($12)

$4 exacta: 1,2,5 with 3 ($12)

$1 trifecta: 1,2,5 with 1,2,5 with 3 ($6)

Total: $30

Good luck, and enjoy the race!