A hidden yet powerful angle that horse players should explore is the pop and stop or gun and fade angle.

This is a situation where a horse shows good speed and stops, sometimes badly, either because he was dead short, had to try to outgun a number of other speed horses or maybe was caught on the most tiring portion of the track.

This angle was pointed out to me by no other than the president of Santa Anita, Ron Charles, when I used to do a radio program with him several years ago.

Often times runners like this give horse players value because the gamblers look at the final line and a runner that finished in the bottom half of the field, or stopped abruptly is usually automatically dismissed.

That can be a mistake sometimes that comes back to bite the horseplayer that looks to the obvious.

A recent winner that had previously showed speed and stopped is Earlswood Pete at Monmouth Park.

Trained by the very cagey Martin Ciresa, the gelding is a distance specialist and excels at 5 and a half furlongs on the grass.

Entered in his third start of the year May 14 at Pimlico against a pretty soft non winners of two other than group, the son of Mojave Moon had a clear lead at the top of the lane only to falter badly having to settle for 2nd at 30-1.

Ciresa wheeled him back 17 days later in Jersey, employed hot rider Elvis Trujillo, watched his trainee settle just off the pace then draw away late to blow up the tote at a fat 16-1.

The runner almost pulled an upset again on June 17 but lost by just over a length after flashing keen speed.

The reason these types usually don’t get played is because the running line looks much worse than it is in reality as a runner that can show keep speed, is more often eligible to win a race then a plodder who just runs around the track and settles for minor awards.

An up and coming runner that just might blow up the tote soon is a gelding named Seven Below.

He’s been a bit off form of late but has been caught wide in 3 of his 5 starts this year.

Capable of going :21 and big change, this Jesus Mendoza student flashed good speed in his final 2008 start at 2-1 but was steadied and ignored on the board in the next start.

Big mistake.

The gelding came back on the 4th day of the Santa Anita meet in January, moved to an aggressive rider, opened up after a half mile, widened his advantage at the end to pay $51.20 in the graduation party.

The feeling is that Seven Below will take to Del Mar and have a nice chance of wiring a field.

The lesson for horse bettors here is that they should pay special attention to any horse that shows good speed and for whatever reason, stops.

These runners are obviously factor in the pace and how the race will unfold and also dangerous if they can get a lonely head and eventually get brave.