How I Will Play the Survival At The Shore Handicapping Contest

This contest requires you make 3 picks every Monmouth Park racing day (May 22-Sep. 6, 3 days a week).
If none of your picks finishes 1st 2nd or 3rd, and you have used up your lifesavers (you get up to 3), you are eliminated.
Highest mutuel (WPS) total at end of contest of those remaining qualifies for the NHC.

I am playing for NHC Tour Points.

Since there are so many of these races, I feel that doing ARV for all of them will take too much of my time.
So I am not going to use ARV for this contest.

Instead, I will play like this.

First, I set my overall intent: To finish first in the contest, to get the maximum number of NHC Tour Points, towards winning the annual Points Championship and be eligible for the $2 million bonus.

Specifically, my intent is to pick the horse in each race that has the highest probability of finishing in the money, for at least one of the 3 daily races, while also maximizing total WPS payoffs.

To make the pick, I will look at each horse’s name in the entries, in order of morning line price, starting with the favorite.
If the favorite feels good, it will be my pick.
If not, and the 2nd choice feels good, it will be my pick, and so on.

I am doing this in order of ML price because the shorter odds a horse is, the more likely it is to finish in the money, over time.

So while this is not a contest that makes use of ARV, so is a little off topic for this blog, it definitely makes use of my intuitive knowing – and I do not distinguish that much among tools and methods – it’s results that count.