How many contenders?

[dav4463]

When you handicap a race, how many contenders are you usually left with? My problem is when I narrow it down to two or three, that's when my third or fourth choice comes in at 26-1 ! Am I better off going with four contenders in a majority of races? It's hard to know when the bombs are going to hit, but frequently my best longshots are my third or fourth ranked horse that I mark as a non-contender originally.

[bobphilo]

When you handicap a race, how many contenders are you usually left with? My problem is when I narrow it down to two or three, that's when my third or fourth choice comes in at 26-1 ! Am I better off going with four contenders in a majority of races? It's hard to know when the bombs are going to hit, but frequently my best longshots are my third or fourth ranked horse that I mark as a non-contender originally.

I don't narrow the contenders down to a set number. I try to include whoever has a reasonable chance of winning or placing and split hairs later in the selection process. One way is to exclude horses who are not likely to run within a certain number of Beyer, or other points, of the top rated horse or class par for the race.
I tend to be more liberal during the primary elimination stage because I'd rather spend a few more minutes handicapping a couple more horses than missing a longshot winner.
There are several methods but the point is that the number of contenders can vary and should not be set to an arbitrary 2 or 3.

Bob

[Hajck Hillstrom]

I don't narrow the contenders down to a set number.This point is key, but keep in mind, your contender analysis may be predicated by the type of wager that you are placing. Horizontal wagers, such as the Pik4, will require a different perspective than say a superfecta, and a WIN wager will require yet another standard all together.

My contender criteria is simple: I seriously consider any horse that has more than a 10% probability of winning, and then determine if they will receive value that exceeds that.

Carry on, Carry on,

Hajck

[kenwoodallpromos]

If you have a 4th choice at 25-1 bet it! It is an overlay!

[ratpack]

I don't know if you are using a program or not but when I used All in One V6 I let the program do the work.

I configured the program not to eliminate anything right off the bat then I ran it through the program, then I took the top 4 or 5 contenders and ran it through again.

You would be suprised how many 20-1 shots would have be eliminated under there guidlines and won.

I just believe in using the program you bought, you spent $500 and 100 a month let the computer do the work JMHO

[Tom]

At first pass, I just to throw out anything with little chance of winning. Any doubt and I keep it in for now.

I try to get it down to 5, for modeling purposes, but frequently mark the 4th and 5th horses as "no bet."

Fro what you describe, I would suggest you check out the 4 Quarters O Horseracing by Steve Fiero - it might take care of the problem you are having.

[ranchwest]

Eliminating to a certain number of contenders seems too contrived to me. I'd rather see what naturally evolves in evaluating the race. As someone else said, the type of wager is going to dictate how the contender list is structured.

[Overlay]

To me, one of the advantages of using a full-field fair-odds line in betting is that it helps avoid getting hung up over trying to draw handicapping or wagering distinctions based on which horses are "contenders", and which aren't. After you've arrived at fair odds for each horse, the public will then decide which (if any) is/are worth betting by the odds they set in comparison to each horse's fair odds. I view betting value as the main determinant, rather than any preset odds figure or fixed number of horses.

(Just as an aside, though, if I had to come up with a rule of thumb for separating contenders from non-contenders without reference to the relationship between fair odds and actual odds, I would say that contenders would be those horses that I rate as having a better-than-random chance of winning based on the size of the field (for example, horses with assigned fair odds below 7-1 for an eight-horse field, below 8-1 for a nine-horse field, and so forth).)