Thursday Thoughts with Jason Beem for June 5, 2025

A good Thursday morning to you all! Hope everyone is having a good Belmont (G1) week and I’m very much looking forward to one of the best cards of the year on Saturday. I’ll be doing some live blogging along with some other friends from here at TwinSpires over on The Edge page Friday and Saturday, hope you’ll join us. 

I wanted to give my Belmont thoughts but also talk about a handicapping situation that comes up a lot on most race days, and will come up on Belmont day as well. That’s the “Logical Top Two” where in a race there’s kind of two obvious top contenders. These races come up often where you have a 7-5 and an 8-5, or in bigger fields a 2-1 and a 5-2 and everyone else is 9-2 or higher. They’re often legs in the Pick 5s where people will just try and use those two and get through the leg, even though they rarely gain much equity by doing so.

Saturday’s card looks like it has several races with logical singles. Zulu Kingdom is probably going to be the big single of the late pick 5, although Think Big in the Jaipur (G1) will be alone on many tickets as well. But the Met Mile (G1) is kind of a classic Logical Top Two with Fierceness and White Abarrio in the 1-2 wagering roles. There will be tons of people in the horizontal wagers who will use both of these horses. A smaller number will single one or the other, and another group of folks will add Just a Touch and Raging Torrent to their tickets, hoping to get some real separation from the rest of the pack, as both those horses should play decently in horizontals compared to the top two. 

The Logical Top Two situation comes up so often and part of how you approach it can certainly depend on the legs around it in your wagers. If you’re playing a Pick 4 and the other legs are really wide-open, tough races, most players will plant their flag with both horses or just single one to allow spreading in the other legs. This is a situation where if you can beat one of those Logical Top Two, you really have a chance to get some major separation from the public and possibly a nice score if you can connect in the other legs. 

Horses outside of the Logical Top Two can often play much bigger in horizontal or vertical sequences than their win odds might indicate. Because so many people just use those top two, hoping to get through that leg with the obvious choices. I often talk about on the show how not every 6-1 shot is the same when it comes to horizontal wagers like Pick 4s and Pick 5s. A 6-1 shot that is in a race with a Logical Top Two will often represent a much bigger payout down the line than a 6-1 in a wide open race where everyone is spreading. Both paid $14 to win, but they will play very differently in the horizontal wagers if all the other legs are created equal. 

Of course every horizontal sequence is different, but it’s amazing how often the Logical Top Two situation is presented to horseplayers on a given card. Even the Belmont Stakes this year kind of has that with Journalism and Sovereignty lining up. Sure Baeza certainly is in the mix, but he will almost definitely be the third choice and likely a couple points higher than the top two. 

Baeza is my top pick in part because his price will be a bit higher, but also, I just think he has a lot of talent and some upside. He certainly won’t have to deal with as much traffic as he did in the Kentucky Derby (G1) and if he’s 4-1 or 9-2, he’s a win player for me.  

Best of luck to everyone in the Belmont!

Jason’s Belmont Picks: 

1. Baeza
2. Sovereignty
3. Journalism is obvious but let’s go Hill Road just to be a tiny bit creative