Using angles to handicap the KY Derby?

[horses4courses]

Faggedaboudit........... :ThmbDown:

Craig Bernick ‏@craigb1818 2m
Last 15 Kentucky Derby's have been won by 15 different trainers & last 27 Derby's were won by 27 different sires. It's all about the horse!
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[Greyfox]

Faggedaboudit........... :ThmbDown:

Good luck on "angles."
When Mine That Bird won at long odds you could have used several angles, from early speed (which wasn't employed in the race), the altitude training at a New Mexico track, Calvin Borel riding the rail, wet track, and on it goes.
The horse and the trip are the most important angles in any Kentucky Derby.
Even then you can be up a gum tree.

[Overlay]

I used to see checklists before the Derby that claimed that, if you eliminated horses in the field from consideration one-by-one by applying each of the criteria in the checklist in the order listed, and then betting the last surviving horse when the field was narrowed down to just one horse, you would have had every Derby winner since 19-- (fill in the blank). Some of those lists were fairly amazing (even though it was based mostly on past-posting, of course), but I don't recall having seen any in recent years. (Maybe I just missed them.)

[thaskalos]

Yeah...it's pretty easy to spot "wake-up factors" in a longshot that just won its race.

[Rex Phinney]

Problem is it's 20 horses on the track at the same time. Given just that info, it's a crapshoot every time.

[PhantomOnTour]

I still use a few rules:

Must have raced as a 2yr old
Must have improved on his best 2yr old figure before the Derby

[Stillriledup]

Funny thing about angles is when a horse is fast enough to win, the angle has a much better chance of working than if you're betting on a slowpoke. Angles are good, but make sure the horse is fast enough in real life to win. (or finish in the spot you need him to finish in)

[burnsy]

Problem is it's 20 horses on the track at the same time. Given just that info, it's a crapshoot every time.

Somewhat true, luck and "trip" play a huge role. The race is way over hyped because the best horse probably wins about half to 2/3 of the time. These days look at how many never win again after that or can't repeat the performance. I think the most useful angle is the pace and a process of elimination. More years than not its a meltdown up front. One of the speed horses may hold on but it usually gets caught late.....the rest are the ones that usually pull up the rear at the end. Sometimes you can eliminate a good portion just by that. Even thinking that way is no sure thing. You can almost do the most good for yourself by trying to figure out who "can't win" especially if its some of the shorter priced entrants. After that, take a deep breath and hope you get lucky that day. It is somewhat of a crap shoot...with that angle this makes the odds on the favorite kind of unplayable for a win bet or to use on top. What makes it good (betting wise) is you can swing for the fences and you can possibly hit a home run.