The $400,000, Grade 3 Falls City Stakes is a traditional Thanksgiving Day feature at Churchill Downs, which is one of the track’s most popular racedays each year and a holiday tradition for families and friends that don’t feel like spending a day or so preparing a feast at home.

Held at 1 1/8 miles on Churchill’s dirt main track, the Falls City typically draws a solid field of fillies and mares age 3 and older, most of whom did not start in the Longines Breeders’ Cup Distaff 3 ½ weeks earlier. That’s the case this year with one important exception: 5-2 morning-line favorite Regaled (#10) comes back after finishing a solid, albeit nonthreatening, third in the Nov. 1 Distaff at Del Mar, a race in which winner Scylla led from start to finish and was never challenged.

Regaled is in the best form of her career for trainer Whit Beckman and can’t be dismissed, but there are several other quality contenders in this year’s Falls City that match up well against her, including two with appealing morning-line odds.

Limited to a $40 budget, I’m going to use Regaled only in a 50-cent trifecta bet and then only in the third-place slot. My top four betting choices are, in post position order, #1 Chilled (20-1 morning-line odds), #2 Raging Sea (7-2), #7 Royal Spa (3-1), and #8 Standoutsensation (#8-1).

Standoutsensation (Adam Coglianese/NYRA)

Raging Sea and Royal Spa are both graded stakes winners on Churchill’s main track and won’t be slept on by bettors. The former won her only career start on this track back on May 2 when she rallied to take the Grade 1 Fasig-Tipton La Troienne Stakes held at 1 1/16 miles. Since then, she’s finished third, third, and fourth in three graded stakes held at 1 1/8 miles and had troubled starts all three times. She’s 5-for-11 overall at a mile and an eighth and her regular jockey, Flavien Prat, will be in Louisville to ride as Aqueduct in New York does not conduct racing on Thanksgiving.

Royal Spa enters the Falls City off of a 1 ¼-length win in the Grade 2 Fasig-Tipton Locust Grove Stakes held during Churchill’s September meet. She led from start to finish when winning that 1 1/16-mile race under Tyler Gaffalione, who retains the mount. Overall, this 5-year-old mare has a versatile running style; in fact, in her other stakes victory on this track, a May 31 score in the Grade 3 Shawnee Stakes held at 1 1/16 miles, she came from off of the pace.

The final two fillies I’ll use will hopefully run well enough to spice up exacta and trifecta payouts. Chilled has fashioned a solid career to date but has not shown much against stakes competition in her career, although she was pulled up in one of those starts last summer at Monmouth Park, making that a toss-out race in her form. She is 3-for-6 in her career at Churchill and comes into this race off of an allowance victory going 1 1/16 miles at Keeneland, where she pressed the pace and then took over late. Luis Saez has ridden her to two of her career wins at Churchill and will be aboard Thursday.

Standoutsensation, trained by Tom Amoss, has been in excellent form since last spring and has won three races in a row heading into the Falls City. The first came in a 1 1/8-mile allowance race during the Saratoga summer meet, followed by another allowance score going 1 1/16 miles on this track in September. In her lead-in race, Standoutsensation went back to New York and won the 1 1/8-mile Turnback the Alarm Stakes Nov. 2 at Belmont at the Big A. All three of her recent wins have come by 1 ¼ lengths or more, and although she’ll be facing the toughest field of her career Thursday, this filly appears ready for the assignment. Jose Ortiz, who is having another superior meet at Churchill Downs, will ride.

I’ll start my betting with a straight win wager on Standoutsensation and then box her in an exacta with the three other contenders discussed. Then, I’ll use all four of those fillies and mares in the first and second slots of a trifecta part wheel, and add Regaled in the third slot as mentioned above.

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Strategy on a $40 budget:

$10 win on #8 Standoutsensation

What to say at the betting window:

Churchill Downs, Race 10, $10 win 8

 $1 exacta box: #1 Chilled, #2 Raging Sea, #7 Royal Spa, and #8 Standoutsensation ($12)

What to say at the betting window:

Churchill Downs, Race 10, $1 exacta box 1,2,7,8

50-cent trifecta: #1 Chilled, #2 Raging Sea, #7 Royal Spa, and #8 Standoutsensation, with #1 Chilled, #2 Raging Sea, #7 Royal Spa, and #8 Standoutsensation, with #1 Chilled, #2 Raging Sea, #7 Royal Spa, #8 Standoutsensation, and #10 Regaled ($18)

What to say at the betting window:

Churchill Downs, Race 10, 50-cent trifecta, 1,2,7,8 with 1,2,7,8 with 1,2,7,8,10