US Horse Racing Tips: Four Extra Place Picks for Monday

Last week was only the second-time since starting this column back at the launch of the site in July where we weren’t profitable. Boo-urns.

Can’t win ‘em all as they say and we are back with four picks for Monday’s races stateside with all of the selections coming from the Extra Place Races and from outside the place paying positions according to the Morning Line…

We start our day over at Finger Lakes where the fifth choice of seven is the first horse to catch my eye for the day, as the five-year-old Jacoba is in the best form of his career.

Throughout his 2022 campaign and up until the middle of June this year, he failed to get his Equibase speed figure into the 70s even once. Four times in his subsequent five races though he’s managed to get to that number and he’s won once and been runner-up twice in that span. This is not a flashy pick at all but a horse who has every chance to hit the board for a small each-way profit.

Off to Horseshoe Indianapolis next where we have an Extra Place Race paying out four places rather than three and any time you have a Brad Cox trained horse not in the top four according to the Morning Line outside of a Stakes race then you have to dig a little bit deeper.

He sends out the three-year-old filly Beyond Doubt who has had bad trips in both of her previous races having been bumped badly last time out and getting blocked off before that.

In her first two races on the turf, this daughter of Breeders’ Cup Classic winner Arrogate broke her maiden first time out (here at this track) and followed that up with a good runner-up finish. Clearly a good horse, who with a clean trip, should be where the action is coming down the stretch.

The future of Golden Gate Fields is still very much uncertain but it looks as though a long winter-spring meeting will go ahead in 2024 to give the local Horse Racing community in Northern California more time to plan a schedule without its premier track.

That news will be a relief to many but this isn’t a news column, it is very much tips focused and I’m liking the chances of Twirling Derby to outperform his odds in the 00:44 there tonight.

This six-year-old has enjoyed relatively good form in recent months and went on a run between March and July of six straight races without finishing outside the top three. He’s had a couple of poor runs since but one of them was on the turf. Back on the all-weather today and with odds of 8/1 on the Morning Line, worth an each-way play.

We round off the night in the very early hours over at one of my favourite tracks to play – Mountaineer Park – where I’m backing the fourth choice on the Morning Line to come good.

That horse is the three-year-old Best Choice Baby who has been an absolutely model of consistency. A lacklustre ninth-placed finish in his debut back in November of last year was nothing to write home about but in no fewer than nine races since, every time he’s finished in the top three. Every time.

With three wins in his past four including going two-for-two here at Mountaineer Park over the last month there is plenty to like and being potentially being priced up as the fourth horse of seven makes him even more likeable as it were.