A scratch, a dud but also a 5/1 winner made Thursday a profitable day for the US Extra Place Race column. As always our primary goal is to find horses outside the top three in the betting who can place and we have three selections for the racing this evening…

First up for Friday and we take a trip to Florida to a track I notoriously don’t do well at (just putting it out there) but there are three Extra Place Races at Gulfstream Park today so we really should play at least one of them. In the 19:14 we have a two-time winner priced up as the fifth-choice on the Morning Line, which is a wee bit puzzling. Grande Soiree has won at this track and over this distance this year and has steadily improved as he’s added distance with two wins from three going a mile plus. We go one-mile and 70 yards here and if this Danny Gargan trained four-year-old does indeed go off as the fifth choice, that is a value play.

Race 7 on the card (20:37) has some real quality to it and should be the most competitive of the day. This might provide value as winner of the $100k Carry Back in June, Lightning Tones, is expected to go off as the fourth-choice in the betting. This three-year-old has won twice and finished second on two occasions in his past five. Last time out was the failure of the bunch but that was in a field of outstanding quality putting up big speed figures. This field is good but not as good. If this colt out of multiple Grade I winner Tonalist runs to his career best, has every chance.

In the 21:20 at Saratoga, we have three horses all price up between 9/5 and 5/2 on the Morning Line with the other four entries all at 10/1 or longer. The linemaker clearly thinks the top three are the class of the field but there is scope to find a big priced place. Uncle Mo colt Blue Devil won last time out here at The Spa putting up the best speed figure of his career. His breezes have been strong so far this summer, so if he does go off at 10s or more then an each-way play to finish in the top three looks a very smart play on paper.