Record keeping

[dav4463]

I know record keeping is important, but sometimes it can cause you to lose confidence. For example, in a recent 100 race stretch, my fourth choice is showing an incredible profit to win at odds between 3-1 and 6-1 while my top choice is not winning at all. It is tempting to start betting the fourth choice at that odds range, but it doesn't seem logical to go against a higher picked horse especially when the fourth pick is at the lower odds.

[BIG RED]

"incredible profit", that's as far as you have to go! Answers your own question.

I made my own system once just for 6F. races and had it to 3 steps, being the best. Noticed sometime later, one with just 2 had a much better ROI. Played 2 from there on.

[jorgie]

Dave........
This is interesting...something I think a lot of people come across, at one time or another, when analyzing the results of their handicapping. I agree with your idea that it is NOT LOGICAL to bet your 4th choice in each race. I think that "your 4th choice" is WAY too broad and general a category. Plus, in a 100 race "stretch", a result like this is entirely possible.
Let's just say for a second that you mistakenly happened upon a handicapping "system" in which your 4th choice showed profits on paper over some period of time (like your 100 race example). You would need to question why it's ALWAYS THE 4TH CHOICE - it's just too coincidental. It would certainly be possible, however, that if you kept tracking your results that you could come to a long-term conclusion that "your mid-range choices consistently do better than you would expect them to" (perhaps your 3rd through 5th choices), but my experience tells me that there are just too many variables in this sport for any system to ever profit by blindly betting the 4th choice.
So, my advice would be to not lose confidence...see this trend through....get to the bottom of it and see what it's REALLY about.

[rrbauer]

If I had a way to make money betting nothing but horses that had names that started with the letter "W" that's what I would do. One handicapper's first choices can well be another handicapper's "n-th" choices. So what? If it works don't fix it...use it. There are very few absolutes in this game and the only one of those that matters much is, "If you cash more than you bet, you're a winner."

[jorgie]

This is true, but there is a very BIG difference between "my 4th choice has done very well over the last 100 races" and "in the last 18 months, my 4th choice has shown a 5% ROI".

It's true that in this sport you have to have an open mind, and I could be wrong here, but it just seems strange to me (perhaps not impossible, but strange) that someone's "4th choice" would do great over the long term (again, I'm not talking about only 100 races of mixed distances, different tracks, etc.!).

How many people would give me a strange look if I said, "I've made my living for the last 10 years by betting my 11th choice in any race that has 11 or more runners"?????

What I'm saying is this: Things are relative in this sport - and in life. It is totally possible for your "mid range choices" to perform better than you think, but for your 4th choice (and only the 4th choice) to kick butt without exception would be.........wierd! Just a few more steps, and we'd have something like, "My 11th choice profits if it starts from post position #2 or #6 on a sunny day with a female owner who was out of the money in its last race."

If that ACTUALLY worked in practice over a long period of time and consistently put money in my pocket, then nobody could question it. But, is that really feasible?

[socantra]

When I start seeing my fourth choices come in with increasing frequency over my top three, I just look at the callendar. If its wintertime, I figure its okay and the horses are just not running as much to form as they do in the more pleasant months of the year.

If its summertime, I go into full panic mode, because I've started doing something wrong and desperately need to get my groove back.

socantra...

[Overlay]

Granted, the frequency with which your fourth-choice horse is winning may cause you to question the validity of your overall handicapping model. However, the fact that you refer to these horses as your fourth choice would indicate that your handicapping does provide a means of ranking the horses in a race in an order which you believe corresponds to their probability of winning. The next step would be to find a means of assigning a value to that probability so that you can determine whether those fourth-choice horses (or any of the other horses in a race, for that matter) are offering betting value. There is more long-term profit to be found in betting horses with tote-board odds which are higher than their actual probability of winning (regardless of where they rank within a given field), than in betting top choices which everyone else is zeroing in on too, with the result that their odds are driven down too low to compensate for those inevitable occasions when they will end up losing. Alternatively, if you wish to revamp your handicapping model so that horses like these winning fourth-choice horses more consistently become your top choice, compare the factors which you are emphasizing in your handicapping with the characteristics that the fourth-choice horses possess, and then determine which elements you are apparently underweighing or overweighing (or perhaps not even currently considering), and fine-tune your handicapping procedure accordingly. My bottom-line advice, however, would be to stay focused on betting for value, rather than just trying to pick the most likely winner and then betting on it regardless of its odds.

[socantra]

I have no trouble going to a fourth choice if it offers value, but my selection method should normally place the winner within my top three choices a good percentage of the time. I can then bet the horses that offer reasonable value,or pass the race.

Fourth choices coming in with increasing regularity doesn't make me doubt my handicapping model at all, but it does usually indicate that I've lost my focus during paceline selection, and am including one or more noncontenders among my top three. I've found giving increased attention to my concentration and focus to be a much more effective solution than tampering with a previously successful handicapping model.

socantra...