One of the more exciting sports betting opportunities with horse racing has to do with picking the order in which specific horses will finish. The exacta bet involves which two horses will finish first (“win”) and second (“place”). Adding the third-place horse (picking the horse to “show”) rounds out the trifecta bet. If you want to add the fourth-place horse, you’re picking the superfecta. How would these wagers have paid off at Belmont a year ago? Well, Tapwrit (4/1 odds) won the whole thing, passing favorite Irish War Cry (5/2) down the stretch, and then Patch (12/1) (who just has one eye) came in third. If you’d put down a $2 trifecta pick correctly, you would have walked away with $624. The $2 superfecta would have paid out $4,486, with Gormley (9/1) coming in fourth. It’s hard to match that kind of return on investment with mutual funds — if you can get it. Take a look at our horse racing betting thoughts for the finishers at the 2018 Belmont Park on Saturday.

Trifecta, Superfecta and Exacta Picks for the 2018 Belmont Stakes

Feel like you’ve seen this movie before? If this #TripleCrown season and #Justify have inspired a feeling of deja vu, @BobEhalt says you’re not alone. https://t.co/dylRXmcSRf

— America’sBestRacing (@ABRLive) June 5, 2018

2018 Belmont Stakes Contenders and Odds

• Justify                                     4/5
• Hofburg                                   4/1
• Bravazo                                   7/1
• Vino Rosso                              8/1
• Tenfold                                                10/1
• Blended Citizen                       14/1
• Gronkowski                             25/1
• Noble Indy                               33/1
• Free Drop Billy                        50/1

So how should you pick your horses for these prop bets? Well, closers tend to do well — especially in the third- and fourth-place slots in the superfecta. The 1 ½-mile course at Belmont leaves plenty of room for finishers to gain in the traffic at the end of the race as the fast starters start to lose their momentum. However, only 5 of the 14 first- and second-place finishers at Belmont in the last seven years have been closers. As Horse Racing Nation notes, in the last ten years, there have been 40 possible finish slots in the superfectas. Twenty-five of those (63%) were considered closers or deep closers. That runs about the same as the Kentucky Derby over the same decade. However, when you look at the third- and fourth-place positions, closers took 16 of those 20 slots, or 80 percent. In seven of the ten years under analysis, closers took up both of those spots. 2014 was the only year in the last ten when there were not at least two closers or deep closers in the superfecta. That trend actually goes back to 2000, as 2014 was the only year when that did not take place. At Belmont, only two “pace” horses have won Belmont since 2000. One was Triple Crown winner American Pharaoh in 2015, and the other was Da’ Tara in 2008, who took advantage of a late slowdown by Big Brown, who was racing for a Triple Crown of his own. However, there has been either a “presser” or “pace” racer in the exacta in each of the last seven years. Some of these have been value horses: Palace Malice (13/1), Oxbow (10/1), Tonalist (9/1), Commissioner (28/1) and Destin (8/1). The “wire” types often end up fading late and finishing second — which has happened five times in the last ten races.

Who Will Win First Place?

I see Justify finishing in first place at Belmont and claiming the 13th Triple Crown. He has the size and the strength to hold up over the full 1 ½ mile course. He also has picked up two victories in challenging conditions — the rain-soaked course at Churchill Downs and the thick fog at Pimlico Park. In second (and rounding out the exacta) I have Hofburg. He has fresh legs as a result of taking off the Preakness Stakes, and his training work has shown that he has the speed and stamina to fare much better than the seventh-place finish he brought at the Kentucky Derby. The Belmont field is much smaller, so the traffic that snared him at Churchill Downs shouldn’t be a factor. In third and fourth I see Tenfold and Bravazo closing late again, but coming up short of the winner’s circle. If you want to hedge yourself against losses in these bets, consider boxing your bets. This means that, for example, if you pick Justify and Hofburg in your exacta but box it, as long as those two horses finish first, no matter which order, you still win. Your payoff is smaller, but you still win. You can do the same thing for the trifecta and superfecta bets.