Still-- first of all, if "we" have ruined win betting, it's because we're in the win pool, which answers your own question.

If you go to the Archives section you will find my suggestions for how to play races involving different situations. Too many people apply cookie-cutter approaches, always looking for a horse to bet to win, or always looking for a longshot to key (Julian), or always playing pick 3's or tris whether the situation calls for it or not. I don't know whether Friedman or I said it first, but that really doesn't matter-- the idea is to have your bets express your opinion, which is not as simple as it sounds.

For last week's ROTW there was clearly no significant value in betting anyone to win, though you could have made a case for keying Galantis at the price. But my real opinions on the race (as expressed in the "Bottom Line" of ROTW) were a) Shakespeare was strong, and b) there were some horses that were going to be on a lot of exotic tickets that didn't figure to get there. What I did myself was make tri and super boxes of all the live ones, then come back heavy with Shake on top in tris, supers and exactas. I got about 11-1 on my total play, much better than the win price, and I could have cashed the race without Shake winning.

This week's ROTW features a similar, but more extreme situation, as you will see. It's unlikely the right play here will be a win bet.

Check out the Archives section.