Making a line

[AAcoolguy]

Ok, I have been reading about "making your own line". The only advice I can get about doing just that is: "if this race were run a hundred times, how many times will this horse win out of that hundred". Jeez, if I knew that...

There's gotta be a better way. Any suggestions?

[Robert Fischer]

Accurately estimating probabilities of the outcomes is the key here.

It is going to maybe be counter-intuitive at first. That horse you feel is a "sure thing" is really probably only about 50-60% at MOST win probability. He feels like he is an 80% winner. You knew Curlin was going to win today, and he won easy! Yet an accurate win probability for him was probably something like .45 +- 10.

[K9Pup]

Ok, I have been reading about "making your own line". The only advice I can get about doing just that is: "if this race were run a hundred times, how many times will this horse win out of that hundred". Jeez, if I knew that...

There's gotta be a better way. Any suggestions?

Odds are a representation of the percent probability of each horse winning. To create odds you need to estimate the probability. HOW you do this really depends on HOW you handicap. Somehow you need to create a "weighted" ranking of the horses. IF you actually score each horse then those scores can be used to create the probability. Just total all scores for the horses in the race and divide each horse's score by the total. Then to convert that percentage to "odds" simply use (1/prob%) - 1 or ((1-take)/prob)-1

[stu]

For a week, circle the most likely winner in every race at the track of your choice the day before the race. Tally up your strike rate. Start with that as your lowest odds.

Keep refining this process by keeping track of surface, distance, class, and field size.

Next circle every horse at that track that you think has "no shot" of winning. You will get burned by one or two. Tally up your strike rate. Start with that as your highest odds.

Depending upon your circuit, those numbers will likely be around 2-to-1 and 40-to-1.

Iterate until you fill in the middle.

[Overlay]

I envy people who can assign accurate probabilities intuitively, or just on the basis of experience, and do it consistently race after race. For me, the process takes quantitative performance data on the various handicapping areas (class, condition, pace, speed, etc.), grouped by factors such as distance, running surface, sex, and age.

[kitts]

I may made the mighty struggle when first setting my odds line and was mostly flummoxed. Then I found software that does a pretty good job as far as I am concerned. There is more than one software out there giving a "fair odds" line. I have always been happy with the line generated by All-In-One (now V6)