Get our 2026 Belmont Stakes coverage including, Picks and Odds

For many people, the Breeders' Cup is one of just a handful of days that they spend handicapping the ponies every year. Though it totally makes sense that the more casual racing fans would be drawn to such a huge day of racing, it's a tough day to choose to jump into the fray in many ways. The fields are huge, the horses are mostly outstanding, they come from all over the world, and some are well rested while others are exhausted at the end of a long season. With so many factors at play, choosing a winner on the big day is much harder than it is on a typical day at your local track.

That doesn't mean that you shouldn't try to pick the winners, of course. After all, there is nothing better than spending a day at the races. You just want to make sure that you aren't wasting your time and money. If you keep your eye on these three factors as you make your selections you will be better prepared than a lot of people around you, and you will have a better chance of cashing in at the ticket window.

1. Watch the surfaces. The widespread adoption of synthetic surfaces has added an extra wrinkle to handicapping the races and separating the Breeders' Cup contenders from the pretenders. Though the surface at Monmouth Park is dirt, many of the top tracks on which horses will be making their preparations use synthetic surfaces. Though the surfaces theoretically mimic a dirt track, we have clearly seen that they do not act the same at all. Some horses have taken to the shredded rubber with a flourish and have run better on it than they ever did on dirt, while others just can't find their footing. To add an extra wrinkle, the different synthetic surfaces have acted differently. The new surface at Del Mar was exceptionally slow, while Turfway and Woodbine haven't been so markedly different. To further complicate things, the southern California tracks are holding their first meets on synthetic surfaces, so we will have no clear idea how West Coast invaders will fare on their return to dirt because none of them will have done it before the Breeders' Cup.

Unfortunately, there is no clear, fast rule about surfaces. We can't say that a horse that has run on Polytrack will automatically be slower or faster on dirt. It will be different for each horse. It will be especially important this year to keep an eye on the tracks and surfaces that the horses have run on in recent races to get a clue about their potential form. A horse could look very good coming into Breeders' Cup racing, but that form could be false because the horse hasn't run on dirt all year. Conversely, a horse could have an especially poor race that can be discounted or tossed out entirely because the horse didn't like the surface. Pure speed comparisons will be a challenge as well, because it will be difficult in many cases to know how much a surface contributed to a particularly slow or fast time.

2. Assess the competition. Though there has been a whole lot of tremendous racing this year, even the biggest fan would have to say that there is a bit of a quality problem in many divisions this year. At the top end the horses are excellent, but we have seen more depth in other years. The Classic division provides an excellent example. The retirement of Bernardini, the injury of Invasor, the problems of Lava Man outside California, and the injuries to emerging stars like Flashy Bull and Tiz Wonderful has meant that a lot of the top races for older horses, and for three year olds later in the summer, haven't been particularly deep. As such, horses have been emerging from races that haven't featured a lot of competition. Any Given Saturday, for example, has won three in a row including his last outing against older horses in the Woodward, but critics would argue that the field in that latest conquest was very weak, and that Any Given Saturday should have won by more. Grasshopper is another good case, because not only was the field in the Super Derby not very super, but the horse went off as 1/5 favorite and still found a way to lose. In this division and others it will be important to put the time into looking at not only the record the horses have put together, but who they have raced against.

3. Ignore the hype. Hype is always dangerous on big racing days, but it has proven to be especially dangerous this year. Every time we have seen a three year old be crowned as the best out there we have been disappointed. Street Sense's sure Triple Crown turned into the crowning of Curlin at the Preakness, and that was trumped by the great Rags to Riches at the Belmont. That filly was tremendous, then she lost and now she's out for the year. Curlin has been disappointing. Many other youngsters have come and gone. In the Juvenile division we've already seen the emergence of super horses, and we've also already seen those super horses get beat. Trainers have looked absolutely unbeatable, and then have gone through stretches where they couldn't win a race if their horse was the only one entered. In the next month you will hear endless hype about horses and trainers and jockeys. As is always true in horse racing, you will be best served to ignore it all completely. Just do your work, figure out who you like, and don't worry about what the 'experts' think.