"The bridgejumper jumps to his death"

[Kentucky Bred]

When I was going to school a million years ago, I "invented" a sure way to bet horses and find fame and fortune through betting on T-bred horses. Just find the "sure thing" horse and bet it to show and roll the money over and over to larger and larger bets. Well, I rolled that $1000 bankroll over and over until my last show bet was almost $4000! I still remember, to this day, the picture in my mind of that horse fading down the stretch at Santa Anita park and running fourth. That cured me forever from my "sure thing".

Today, I had scoped out a strong contender at Laurel in the 8th race, the number 3 horse "Jorgie Stover". At the last minute I backed off because the track was still wet and one of my horses lost earlier in the card due to speed favoring conditions. The 1-5 shot in the race, the #1 "Crossing Point" had a bit of class but showed a very poor wet track race before and certainly didn't look like death and taxes to win.

Well, old "Jorgie" runs from the back to get second with the 5 horse "Take a Chance on Me" winning at 30-1. The 1-5 shot fades and gets FOURTH. I was happy I didn't bet "Jorgie" to win until I saw the prices.

#5 $71.60 $19.00 $123.40

#3 $20.60 $149.80

#6 $25.20

Say what!! It appears that Mr. Bridgejumper done jump to his death!! If anyone knows how much he put in the pool, let us know. I didn't look at the show pool and notice anything except the favorite was overbet in the win pool.

I have seen some minus pools in my day but never like this. But how do you take advantage of it? If you were to bet the #3 to show, you would have to get the 1-5 shot out of the money in a small field to cash anything. Otherwise your getting $2.10 for betting a 20-1 shot to show.

The next time this is going to happen, if any of you know it in advance, I would appreciate it if you could post it here so we could all take advantage of some good luck.

Can you imagine the little old lady who gives her son $20 to bet either the 3 or 5 to show not knowing what a dumb bet it is, only to cash for $1498 bucks?!!

I'll bet that will stop her heart for a beat or two for sure.

[JustRalph]

I played a horse 20 across on the Great state challenge day at Sam Houston........he runs third . I am pissing and moaning...

the favorite ran out of the money. I got something like 26 bucks to show? I couldn't believe it. $260 bucks :cool:

[takeout]

Talk about your swan dives! This is why the harbor patrol stays on call. :D

I've always wondered why they don't print the win, place and show pools in the result charts instead of lumping them all together. It would be a nice feature, especially in situations like this.

[pic6vic]

KBRED

I happened to have the race on when I saw the 1 run out at 1-5 I checked theshow pool. $186,000 in the pool and $179,000 on Crossing Point.

[hurrikane]

the late George Bloomfield poped a few nice bridgejumpers like this. He'd watch the pool and then bet 2 or 3 horses to show. Last year it seemed to happen every 6-8 weeks.

[PaceAdvantage]

Betting every other horse in the race to show in instances like this HAS to be a VERY profitable angle over the last few years. Didn't someone do a DB run on this angle a few months ago to prove this point??


==PA

[rmania]

Can you imagine getting $26 to SHOW on the favorite?

It happened....

Years ago I was sitting in the stands at Aqua Caliente waiting for the 1st race when I noticed something strange.

Someone had bet $500 to show on a horse that (according to the form) shouldn't even finish the race.

$500 may not seem like a lot, but down there (especially in the first couple of races) it was. I think at the time the favorite had about $20 of the show pool.

And of course, like a dummy, I didn't act. I just sat there.

Well, needless to say, the horse with the $500 show wager finished "up the track" and the favorite won. The payoff was something like $5.80, $3.20, $26.00.

Turns out the whole thing was a scam....

It was a group guys where one went to the track and placed the show wager and the rest went to a Caliente Foreign Book and made gobbs of $20 wagers (required for full track odds) on the favorite to show.

Pretty slick huh?

So slick they did it a second time before anyone caught on.

[takeout]

I wonder if the guy that lost the big show bet on the Lrl race noticed the name of the winning owner: Ben Dover Stable

[cj]

Some things to look back on to predict this horse running poorly:

1) Despite winning, he finished up his last race at Aqueduct horribly, slowing to a walk, at 3-5.

2) This is a 6 yo with only 21 lifetime starts. He was entering the 6th race of his current form cycle! Seemed to me they were pushing a horse with obvious problems too hard!

3) This horse had no form on a sloppy racetrack. The official track designation may have been good, but it sure looked sloppy to me.

4) Horse running in a $36,000 allowance after winning an 80,000 stakes, trying to steal one last purse.

There is more to this game than speed and pace figures!

CJ

[Chico]

I have seen some minus pools in my day but never like this. But how do you take advantage of it? If you were to bet the #3 to show, you would have to get the 1-5 shot out of the money in a small field to cash anything. Otherwise your getting $2.10 for betting a 20-1 shot to show.


I played the race from PHA and spotted the disproportionate show pool. With 4 minutes to post
the chalk had $65,000 of $66,000 bet on it. All other 5 horses had about $200 each. That being the case I loaded up on what I felt was the 2nd best in the race to show, which ended up finishing third and paid $25.20. Somebody must have pounded that horse heavy in the last few minutes (relatively.)

As P-A points out, you should always take a position against the bridge jumpers in the show pools. Common sense will tell you that in order to
BREAK EVEN a bridge jumper must win 20 of 21 wagers. Even "sure things" don't finish in the money with that consistency.

Sure, in 5 and 6 horse fields over a period of, say 100 races, you'll lose about 30 - 35 outright,
and win 2.10 about 60 times. But 5 to 10 times you'll collect boxcars, as in the Laurel race.

Regards,
Chico

[Kentucky Bred]

Thanks Chico, CJ, Pic6 and all those who gave me a lot more info about what the heck happened. First evidence I had is when I doubletaked on the screen when the payouts came up.

But CJ is right, that horse had no business being that price, especially on an off track that was clearly changing with nearly every race. There were pockets of puddles everywhere and the jockeys were shifting there horses all over the track to get to the best spots. Anything could happen there. But with a short field of six, the track was forced to take show wagers and hope they don't go into a minus pool in which they ARE booking the action. They avoided a big loss too.

But I blame the track handicapper. What was that horse doing in that field with a morning line of 2-5!! What was he thinking? I could make a case for at least three, maybe for of those horses. The line dropped and then went up and then kept dropping. I have personally seen some great horses with my own eyes, John Henry, Vigors, Alysheba and I can't remember if any of those were every 1-5 in a race. Probably happened but not often.

Second lesson, at least to me is, to always remember that we are watching a horse race, with live animals. Jerry Bailey, Gary Stevens and other great jocks can't carry the horse around the track. Any horse can lose in any race on any day!

That's why people play horses that are offering a higher price, we are hoping to be betting in those races when the obvious horses don't win. The risk is to look foolish when we lose races to the horse that to everyone else thinks is obvious. That really sucks.

Kentucky Bred

[cj]

Anyone find it odd that this race received ZERO coverage? No DRF, Handicapper's Edge, Bloodhorse, thoroughbred times, Baltimore Sun, Washington Post, etc? I couldn't find a single word about it anywhere!

CJ

[Kentucky Bred]

I don't think "Bridgejumper" races fit their marketing strategy. When those horses lose, it reinforces the randomness of the sport which I'm not sure is what they want.

Kentucky Bred

[cj]

Finally found something!

http://www.marylandracing.com/cgi-bin/news/viewnews.cgi?category=2&id=1046642780

CJ

[JustRalph]

Bend Over Stables? the owner of the winner?

[takeout]

Yeah. Cute, huh. It kind of takes on a little more significance due to the outcome of the race, at least as far as the show bettors of the fav are concerned. :D