a method based on the top 3 or 4 betting favorites

[fishorsechess]

Ever since I read "Investing at the Racetrack" I thought there would
exist a method of play based on just going to the track and
seeing which horses are the top 3 or 4 favorites. Figuring the top
3 favorites win 67percent of all races, you would figure the winner
would be in that bunch. All you had to do was figure out which of
those 3 is the winner....easier than comparing them to all the horses
in the field. But the same nagging problem exists ..when do you throw
out he favorite? Favorites might be consistent but there is no price in
them. Frankly, I dont think there is ANY method that can tell you which
of the top 3 favorites is going to win. So I dismissed Scott's book.

[Overlay]

But the same nagging problem exists ..when do you throw out the favorite? Favorites might be consistent but there is no price in
them. Frankly, I dont think there is ANY method that can tell you which
of the top 3 favorites is going to win. So I dismissed Scott's book.

If you don't think there's any method that can tell you which of the top three favorites is most likely to win, then what criteria do you personally use to rate or rank a field, or arrive at a selection? Do you yourself ever throw out a favorite? If so, what basis do you make that decision on? The very essence of handicapping is making a judgment as to which horse you believe will win, or as to what the winning probability for each horse in the field is. If (as you seem to be saying) there's no way for you to do that (especially when considering only three horses), then the whole idea of handicapping is futile (at least for you).

No one can guarantee that any horse will win any given race. The approach that Scott advocated took advantage of long-established probabilities by contending that, since one of the top three mutuel choices wins (on the average) two-thirds of all races, then if you could pick the one horse of those three which would win in two races out of every three (rather than in just one race out of every three, since random selection would do that well), you'd win an average of four races out of every nine (2/3 x 2/3), which Scott used as the starting point for his handicapping approach.

[Red Knave]

Ever since I read "Investing at the Racetrack"
You may also want to check out Burton Fabricand's book, Horses Sense (I think that's the title). He explains a complicated manual method of betting low priced horses. It's quite an old publication but he uses a rudimentary type of chaos theory. I think he called it the 'Theory of Maximum Confusion'. It may be worth revisiting now to see if it can be computerized.

[fishorsechess]

Is that they can be used in exotics. Key horses are best to
be horses that have a high probability of coming in.

[oddswizard]

My wagering formula is based on betting on my top three horses. I play to win on 4-1= horses and key exactas when they pay a minimum of $15.00 based on $1.00 exactas. This means that when the odds and payoffs are in my favor I will average a 50% daily profit.

[kenwoodallpromos]

If you (and the tote) cannot decide then multiple longshots are the overlay!
several at 2-1 to 7-2 means they are all underlays- I win a lot of longshots on those!

[Tom]

Actually there are ways to handicap the top three. Hurrikane has posted a method shows vuneravle favorites. If you read Scott's book carefully, you will see the the whole thing a method to seperate the top three using various factors.

[Bruddah]

I have used a system since 1996, which a Dog Track player showed me. He referred to it as a "Shotgun Trifecta" and so do I.

The rules are.

1. select an 8-9-10 horse field, where the M/L fav. is 2-1 or greater. Also, no Maidens races.

2. Depending on the field size, select 2/3/4 horses which cannot hit the board (W-P-S). Irregardless of their M/L odds. As handicappers, we tend to form negative opinions on horses first, before we select our contenders. The object is to get down to 6 contenders.

3. From the six remaining, handicap/determine the 3 that have the best chance of winning. Now construct a $1 tri part-wheel ticket, with those three in the win position, combined with the other three in the place and show position.

Example:

1. You have eliminated the 7-8-9 in a 9 horse field. In your opinion, they have no chance to hit the board. It leaves 1 thru 6 as the horses you will use.

2. You have handicapped the 1-2-3 as the horses, you believe, to have the best chance of winning. (Irregardless of odds)

3. Your $1 tri part-wheel ticket will cost $60 and the tri will need to pay only $120 to break even. Anything above this and you will make money. Anything less and you lose a little. The most you can lose is $60.

4. Obviously, you are looking for a Big Tri payoff, because of the field size of 8-9 or 10 and the M/L favorite is listed as 2-1 or greater. The tri pay offs, usually, will be well above the breakeven point.

Your ticket will look like this:

1-2-3 (win)
1-2-3-4-5-6 (plc)
1-2-3-4-5-6 (shw)

Try a few on paper and you will be shocked at the return on investment. (ROI). I tried 100 on paper before it made a believer out of me. This is the only way I bet today (10 years later) It makes you play only 2 or sometimes 3 races on a card per day. The rest of them, I just watch. However, I go home winner over 65% of the time and when I lose, I don't lose much. Certainly no more than I can recover on the next card.

Summary: (think about it)
There are only two ways to lose.

1. If one of the horses you eliminated (does finish) win-place-show.
2. If one of the 3 horses you selcted to win, (does not) win.
3. Otherwise, you will collect on this ticket.

[Binder]

Because the book Investing at the race track and then
How will your horse run today? were written
Now ,Many years ago Mr Scott also included betting one of the top
favorites to Win and Place I'm sure exactas are better today,
His plan was that the winner of the race
was one of the top 3 favorites like 66% and the win or place horse was one of the top 3 almost always. I am not sure of this percentage
I have gone back to this method many times to get my head
back when tap outs start to grind down the confidence.
I never make too much profit but it does build up a bankroll
and restore the confidence

Binder

[jk3521]

Mr Scott suggests to play the "most likely" across the board I believe.

[twindouble]

Binder;

I really question if it's a good idea to latch onto any fixed wagering strategy that wrapped around the chalks. Not that on any given day or week you couldn't come out ahead but to sustain yourself over a long period of time there's more to it than that. Lets just take what you said, your going bad so you switch to the chalks, well what I've seen happen many times those chalks don't hit the board because of the prevailing conditions your confronted with, could be an off track, key horses getting scratched and so on. What do you do when your going further in the hole?

In my opinion there's no absolutes when it comes to wagering strategies, you have to be flexable, do your handicapping and wager accordingly. I'm not suggesting that you can't make money by using chalks but I am saying have a better reason to wager on them. That or pass.

[dav4463]

I like that "shotgun" trifecta approach. Why not maiden races or 11+ horse fields ? Also, I guess the 2-1 or higher m/l helps the prices.

[Binder]

Hi Twindouble

Thanks The thing is Mr Scotts method asks me to focus on the "best"
of the top 3 betting choices and bet that horse Win and Place
I use the Sartin Methodology program Val 3 for my daily handicapping.
the methodology asks me to hide the favorites
To switch to the Scott method ,All I need to do is "hide" down to the
top 3 betting choices and bet the best of these 3. Adding Mr Scotts
form factors from "How will your horse run today" helps even more
What I mean by a benifit is

The program does a good job
I'm betting a strong contenter Win and Place
I cash lots of tickets which gets my confidence back
I make very little profit , just a few bucks
and...
I can see how the higher price winners that beat me rate on Val 3
by just unhiding them
This gets me back to the Wow! look at how well I would have done
If I just used the program as instructed

I just use this method once in awhile

[acorn54]

i remember "investing at the track", by william scott. as i remember he used what were called "ability times". he claimed if his betting method was religiously applied it would show a profit. needless to say it was just another betting book filled with mumbo jumbo. i could never figure out why the author of that book, william scott gained any kind of respectability in the horserace betting arena.
acorn

[cj]

I read Mr. Scott's book, and as soon as I realized he was using closing fractions to try to pick winners of dirt races, I was done with it. I knew enough even by then (I think I was 18) to know it wasn't going to work at that time, the 1980s.

[twindouble]

Hi Twindouble

Thanks The thing is Mr Scotts method asks me to focus on the "best"
of the top 3 betting choices and bet that horse Win and Place
I use the Sartin Methodology program Val 3 for my daily handicapping.
the methodology asks me to hide the favorites
To switch to the Scott method ,All I need to do is "hide" down to the
top 3 betting choices and bet the best of these 3. Adding Mr Scotts
form factors from "How will your horse run today" helps even more
What I mean by a benifit is

The program does a good job
I'm betting a strong contenter Win and Place
I cash lots of tickets which gets my confidence back
I make very little profit , just a few bucks
and...
I can see how the higher price winners that beat me rate on Val 3
by just unhiding them
This gets me back to the Wow! look at how well I would have done
If I just used the program as instructed just use this method once in awhile

Sorry Binder I don't know what Sartin Methodology program Val 3 is all about or any other computer program when it comes to handicapping or wagering. Heck, I didn't get online until 2000, also haven't I read any published books out there on the subject. Was going to read the books just for the sake of conversation but didn't because I wouldn't want to throw a wrench into what's been working for me for many years. If it's not broke, don't fix it. Right!

[hurrikane]

you could check out Fierro book but the bottom line is.

you don't bet,
you don't converse
you offer nothing

I think you are PA putting up post just to keep us ranting so the forum will be interesting. :bang:

again

blah blah

[superfecta]

I read Mr. Scott's book, and as soon as I realized he was using closing fractions to try to pick winners of dirt races, I was done with it. I knew enough even by then (I think I was 18) to know it wasn't going to work at that time, the 1980s.
I guess you don't use pace in your analysis of the races?Although its pretty rough on figs,there is some substance to the method.If you can refine your method of finding who can run late it can help in exotic bets by including horses that dont "figure".Often a horse that can't win will hit the board by running his race oblivious to whos running in front of him.Contenders get burned up chasing the pace and those plodders come in.

[cj]

Of course I use pace, and even a late pace rating. But, it is never THE factor I use to pick the winner of the race, which is what Mr. Scott's book did basically. I tried out the ratings as he suggested on paper, they were horrible at finiding winners. I don't recall him mentioning picking horses to fill in the bottom slots of exactas and trifectas.

[fishorsechess]

you could check out Fierro book but the bottom line is.

you don't bet,
you don't converse
you offer nothing

I think you are PA putting up post just to keep us ranting so the forum will be interesting. :bang:

again

blah blah

Complain! Complain! Complain! Complain!
"Think not what your country can do for
Think what you can do for your country"

[hurrikane]

I wasn't complaining.

I offer you a book to read

then offered you my opinion.

[ryesteve]

Of course I use pace, and even a late pace rating. But, it is never THE factor I use to pick the winner of the race, which is what Mr. Scott's book did basically.
To be fair to Scott, if my memory is correct (it's been what, 20+ years since the book came out?) it wasn't a pure late pace fig... there was an early pace adjustment as well. Depending upon the profile of the track you're playing, this could be a completely appropriate factor to use to separate contenders. Given that his kids ended up working the NYRA tracks, I've always assumed he was a NYRA player... and based on my memory (does anyone have a speed and pace fig database going back to the late 70s early 80s??) Belmont in particular was a track where the last place you wanted to be was on the lead. Sitting a few lengths off the lead with a few other horses in front was the comfortable place to be, and these are the sorts of horses who'd get good numbers using Scott's method.

[fishorsechess]

you could check out Fierro book but the bottom line is.

you don't bet,
you don't converse
you offer nothing

I think you are PA putting up post just to keep us ranting so the forum will be interesting. :bang:

again

blah blah


Out of curiosity, I would like to know the name of Fiero's book.

"you don't bet " -- How would you know, you don't even know my real name.
"you don't converse"-- Give me your number and we can converse.
"you offer nothing"-- No one else in the racing world does either. Let me
know when someone offers you a winning system or method.

[PaceAdvantage]

"you offer nothing"-- No one else in the racing world does either. Let me
know when someone offers you a winning system or method.

Now that would take all the fun out of doing your own research to come up with your very own method!

Everybody wants things handed to them in life! Sheesh!

[Tom]

Tippy Canoe and Tyler too. (exacta box???)

[oddswizard]

The title of Fierro's excellent book is "The Four Quarters of Horse Investing." Steve is a great guy, 100% honest and an excellent handicapper.