Six of the East Coast’s top older horses will try to get a win in their final prep for the 2021 Breeders’ Cup when they leave the starting gate in the 2021 Woodward Stakes on Saturday at Belmont Park. Grade 1 winner Maxfield has seven wins in nine career starts and has been installed as the 7-5 morning-line favorite in the 2021 Woodward Stakes odds. He is coming off a second place finish in the Grade 1 Whitney Stakes on August 7 at Saratoga. Code of Honor, who has won more than $2.8 million in his career, is the 5-2 second choice in the Woodward Stakes 2021 field. Art Collector, who won last year’s Blue Grass Stakes, is the 3-1 third choice.
Post time is 5:45 p.m. ET. With a well accomplished and evenly matched field set to enter the starting gate on Saturday, you’ll want to see what racing insider and Beyer Speed Figure maker Bob Weir has to say before making any Woodward Stakes picks of your own.
Based in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., Weir has been handicapping and following horse racing since reading Andy Beyer’s landmark handicapping book “Picking Winners” in the late 1980s. Weir is highly invested in the Beyer Speed Figure, a number assigned to every race run by a horse that measures how fast the horse ran. He uses the figure as the backbone of his handicapping. In fact, thanks to his proficiency with speed figures and top-tier handicapping, he landed one of just eight spots on Beyer’s figure-making team in 2017, a position he holds to this day.
Weir’s methodology has produced multiple five-figure days. In 2014, he hit a $60,000 Pick 6 at Del Mar. The following year, he nailed a $31,000 Pick 6 at Gulfstream Park. In 2016 and 2017, Weir qualified for the prestigious National Horseplayers Championship in Las Vegas.
This year, he has been on fire in the 3-year-old races. He hit the exacta in the Sam F. Davis Stakes, Tampa Bay Derby and Peter Pan Stakes, the trifecta in the Risen Star Stakes, Blue Grass Stakes and Pennsylvania Derby and the superfecta in the Belmont Stakes, with the Tampa Bay Derby score returning $1,414. Those are just some of his scores in 2021.
Now, he has handicapped the 2021 Woodward Stakes field, made his picks and constructed his bets. You can only see his picks and horse racing analysis at SportsLine.
Top 2021 Woodward Stakes bets for Belmont Park
One surprise: Weir is fading Code of Honor, even though he is the 5-2 second choice on the morning line. Trained by Hall of Famer Shug McGaughey, Code of Honor has seven wins, four seconds and two thirds in 17 career starts. He is coming off a win in the Grade 3 Iselin Stakes at Monmouth Park on Aug. 21.
But Weir does not like that Code of Honor has not improved since winning the Grade 1 Travers Stakes two years ago. “He’s hard to dismiss, but I’m not convinced this horse will build off his return win at Monmouth,” Weir told SportsLine. Weir prefers three horses over Code of Honor.
How to make 2021 Woodward Stakes picks
Weir’s top pick is a horse who “has improved this year.” He also is high on a horse whose “odds should be more inviting.” Weir is including these horses in his 2021 Woodward Stakes bets, and so should you. He’s sharing which horses to back and which Woodward Stakes bets to make only at SportsLine.
So who wins the 2021 Woodward Stakes? What horse with inviting odds is a must-back? And how has Weir constructed his wagers? Check out the latest Woodward Stakes odds below, then visit SportsLine to see Weir’s picks for the Woodward Stakes, and find out.
| Post Position | Horse | Odds |
| 1 | Dr Post | 6-1 |
| 2 | Maxfield | 7-5 |
| 3 | Art Collector | 3-1 |
| 4 | Mo Gotcha | 50-1 |
| 5 | Code of Honor | 5-2 |
| 6 | Forza Di Oro | 5-1 |
