Posted
Tuesday, June 2, 2020
Players on DerbyWars.com should be excited about Wednesday's opening of Belmont Park and the opportunities ahead.
DerbyWars' $1,000 Survivor contests drew large fields -- often near full capacity -- for cards at Tampa Bay Downs while Aqueduct and Belmont were closed at the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The daily $1,000 Survivor costs just $5.75 to play, and the purse money swells beyond $1,000 after 200 entries are received. Players are allowed to buy up to 12 entries with the goal to advance by successfully selecting horses that finish in the top three of each race.
Expect a large field with savvy survivor players fronting multiple entries in order to navigate the overflow fields that were drawn for the opening day card of the Belmont Park spring/summer meeting. You are going to need plenty of chances to survive several contentious races.
Let’s take a look at Wednesday’s Belmont Park Survivor Contest sequence spanning Races 3-10 with a few horses that might help you make it through all eight races.
Race 3 – The first 2-year-old race of the year in New York has a Wesley Ward runner shipping up from Kentucky named Fauci. He’ll take the bulk of the action, but Garoppolo and Prisoner are both out of stakes-quality mares who have produced quality runners. Play one of those two in case of an upset of Fauci.
Race 5 – Remoane debuted in March at Aqueduct and had a tough trip when he got rank while bottled up in traffic down the stretch. This trouble does not show up in her past performances, and experience gained should move her forward. This is a wide-open field of 12 New York-bred maidens set to sprint on the turf.
Race 7 – Fourteen go to post in this state-bred maiden claimer where you’d be wise to use a few horses to survive here. Posted outside, Inside Info and Forest Spirit make the drop to the claiming ranks from maiden special weights.
Race 10 – Trainer Linda Rice knows how to place her horses to optimize success, and it's notable that Justice of War drops in here for a $16,000 tag. Rice claimed him for $20,000 last summer. He returned to win a maiden for $20,000 in February and then was third in a N2L condition for a $40,000 tag.
