1/ST BET Horse Racing Predictions from Santa Anita:

We are excited to announce a renewed partnership with the fine folks and handicappers at 1/ST BET. Jeremy Plonk and Jeff Siegel will be sharing their expertise on a weekly basis to pass along some ponies that they like for races at various tracks around the country, including Santa Anita.

For this Friday, January 3 article, Jeff Siegel shares everything you need to know for the racing card for Santa Anita.

Santa Anita Race 2: Post: 12:30 PT
Top Selection/Prime Play: 1-Just as Fancy

Forecast: We love the two-sprints-and-a-stretch-out pattern for Just as Fancy in this main track maiden miler for sophomore fillies. The daughter of Volatile exits two highly rated and productive sprints, draws the good rail, adds blinkers, runs for the first time with Lasix, picks up Flavien Prat, and projects to be the controlling speed. Also, she produced a nine point Beyer speed figure improvement in her second race and should continue to step forward with age and experience. Simply put, she’s our kind of play.

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Santa Anita Race 9: Post: 4:13 PT
Top Selections/Prime Play: 2-Burning Rubber

Forecast: Burning Rubber offers an excellent gamble in the nightcap. He was used hard, sprinting inside in a hot race in his debut and understandably faded to finish far back. Based on what we’ve seen of him in the morning, the son of Flameaway will be much better around two turns and especially so on grass, for which he is bred to like. The pace projection of this much softer maiden $50,000 field will be entirely different and could very well enable the Sean McCarthy-trained sophomore to inherit the role of the controlling speed. Given that type of trip and following a bullet half-mile breeze (:47 2/5) that was fastest of 55, he could easily dominate this bunch as a strong win play and major push in the various exotics.