With the completion of last Friday’s card (February 9), Hollywood Casino at the Meadows has now offered 16 cards of racing so far in 2024. Both the leading driver and trainer races are shaping up to be potentially competitive this year. In the drivers’ race, perennial leading driver Dave Palone had a strong week to grab a share of the lead with Ronnie Wrenn Jr. with 35 wins each. Aaron Merriman is breathing down both of their necks in third place with 34 wins so far on the season. The top three are well clear of the rest as Hunter Myers is a distant fourth with 18 wins. While it’s still very early in the year, Palone could potentially be on upset alert for the leading driver title in 2024. On the training side of things, Michael Burke is off to a hot start to the year with 24 winners, but he’s being chased by Brandon Presto, who is in second currently with 18 wins on the season. Dirk Simpson rounds out the top three with 11 winners.
Regarding other statistics of note so far at the Meadows in 2024, favorite players should be satisfied to know that favorites are scoring at a 45.7% clip so far this year. This number is significantly higher than the industry average of 33.3%. As for post positions, Post 5 is leading the way as would be expected. 19.5% of winners come from the middle of the gate. The rest of the winners are pretty well spread out amongst the remaining post positions. Even the two outside spots, Posts 8 and 9, have combined for 13% of the winners so far in 2024. These statistics are obviously a small sample size so far this year, but it will be interesting how the trends developed so far evolve in the coming months.
As for this week’s racing, the Meadows has three great cards coming up on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. In particular, Thursday and Friday’s cards feature many full fields of nine and great betting opportunities. A sequence I’ll be focusing on is the Late Pick 4 on Races 10-13 on Friday afternoon. The sequence offers four full fields of nine and a great chance for a score. Race 10 starts the sequence and offers my best bet on the card. #1 BIG BANG BANG was beaten just a length and a half last time out against much tougher and won just five starts ago here at the Meadows. He’ll be a single on my ticket and will be the key for me to hit this Pick 4 ticket.
Race 11 looks to be a very tricky race and I’ll take significant coverage in the form of four horses to survive and advance to the next leg: #3 DURACELL, #4 SOUTHWIND CAINE, #7 GARRETT SCORES, and #8 BACKSTREET ROMEO. Race 12 is another tricky one that will see me use three horses: #2 PATRIOT WAY, #3 ATTHEBEACH HANOVER, and #8 TOUGHSONOFABEACH. #2 PATRIOT WAY in this race is my price play of the sequence as that last line will likely help out our price a bit, but he found traffic trouble in that race and reunites with Jeremy Indof, who found success with him two and three back. I see Race 13 as #4 ROCKED N LOADED’s race to lose, but I can make a case for including #3 SNEAKY HILL as well. My complete ticket for Friday’s Late Pick 4 is 1/3,4,7,8/2,3,8/3,4. This ticket costs $12 for a 50-cent ticket. Best of luck with all your plays and enjoy the remaining February racing coming up at the Meadows!
