High Price Place Horse test

[Ray2000]

This is a list of horses who paid more than $12 (P-Paid) finishing 2nd last week.
Testing how they do this weekend.


Track Race P-Paid Horse
Fri 24-Jun
buf 11 $14.80 Vagra
hop 11 $18.00 Fox Valley Ruby
haw 5 $14.20 Hope Hotspur
haw 10 $12.40 Iced Out
hop 8 $23.20 Tater Twister
M 10 $15.00 Inittowinafortune
M 3 $14.00 Enjoy the Journey
tgd 8 $53.80 Cheyenne Patti
scd 11 $14.40 Marky Mike
vd 1 $13.40 Deaks Sweetie Pie
Sat 25-Jun
buf 9 $12.40 American Anthem
haw 1 $28.20 Evergreen Elite
haw 11 $24.80 Dante Seelster
haw 9 $20.20 Bright Future
haw 10 $13.20 Walker Meister
mea 13 $14.20 Blissful Voyage
pcd 2 $16.40 Rockin Rumble
pcd 13 $13.60 Achilles Blue Chip
vd 3 $14.60 Total Freedom
yr 8 $13.40 Somewhere in L A
Sun 26-Jun
aces 5 $12.60 Ya U Bet Cha
haw 7 $12.60 Ok Heavenly
haw 11 $15.20 Daggy
haw 11 $17.60 Wisconsin's Best
pcd 8 $13.80 Tick Tok Tag
Mon 27-Jun
mea 14 $37.20 Harmony Hudson
mea 9 $20.00 Taylor Rosa
prc 4 $18.80 Jus' Like a Virgin
prc 1 $16.60 Putnams Attack

[Jess Hawsen Arown]

What is the reasoning behind following high place prices? Are you trying to identify them as indications of form reversals?

A general assumption of mine is that short priced horses will duke it out during that race (except for the lineup) and usually one of them suffers from the battle enabling a horse with less form to benefit.

Place prices are also a function of the other place horse. Finally, I believe that in this age of small pools, place prices can be deceiving.

Where are these assumptions wrong?

[Ray2000]

Where are these assumptions wrong?

Not wrong

A high place price can be had from its own very high "off-at" odds or a moderate odds but sharing the place pool with another longshot.

I'm simply curious of what the ROI impact would be on this factor. I'm doing a deeper study right now on a large sample size of starters. I'll put up the results later.

My guess would be that these starters are going to show a miserable ROI, much less than what their fair return should be.

Why so?

IMHO, there are horses that are "in it" but not "to win it". Possible reasons are big exacta prices available to insiders, staying in the same class and (I believe?) 2nd place finishers are not routinely drug tested.

[Ray2000]

Fri-Mon test results
29 starters
19 off the board
2 winners $3.00 and $12.00
5 placed
3 showed

I went back and looked at a sample of 6288 starters
who's last race was a 2nd place finish

Base data
112581 Starters
14472 Wins 12.8% ROI 0.728

Horses with last race place price >= $12.00
728 Starters
98 Wins 13.5% ROI 0.798

Horses with last race place price < $12.00
5560 Starters
1072 Wins 19.3% ROI 0.726

High price place horses do seem to return better than expected on next start. .798 vs .728

[Jess Hawsen Arown]

Not wrong


IMHO, there are horses that are "in it" but not "to win it". Possible reasons are big exacta prices available to insiders, staying in the same class and (I believe?) 2nd place finishers are not routinely drug tested.

There is a lot of chatter in the grandstand about trainers who purposely target purse money -- but not win -- so that they can stay in the same class. Personally, I consider it BS started by those trainers to justify their inability to win races to their owners -- and soothe their own self esteem. To be fair to the trainers who can't win, it is probably because they are not druggists and play the game fairly

As far as fixing exactas, where the driver of the second place horse only wanted to be second-- virtually impossible. There are only two sure ways. One is a lineup and one is by a master thief and driver who can live first over -- and Herve Filion does not drive any more.

I am not up to date on the current status of who does and does not get tested.

"Back in the day" when handle was larger enough to justify trying to set up bets in lieu of winning races, you might see some questionable races. In today's era of high purses and diminishing handle, I hardly ever see a race where I would question the driver's intention. In fact, the races that seem the most dubious are elimination races where the purse money in the elimination is a fraction of the purse money in the final -- and cashing a bet is not a criteria.