Study: What's in a name?

[pmd62ndst]

My best friend occasionally comes out to the track with me but to call him a horseplayer is truly stretching it. He goes because he loves the atmosphere and tends to be very chatty with others while my nose is buried in the Racing Form. He is able to socialize because he picks horses rather quickly using his unorthodox handicapping method which involves picking a horse based on the NAME alone.

Now, he doesn't pick all horses that are named FAST, GOOD or WIN. In fact, he looks for horses that have negative connotations, like SLOW or BAD or LOSE, reasoning that many horseplayers may ignore these horses >subliminally< and would be underbet.

I told him he was crazy. He told me to run some numbers on my "computer do-hicky thing" and we wagered a nice dinner.

The following is a result of the study, based on a Horse's Name that contain a certain word. The results are rather mind-blowing:


ROI (%) Wins/Entries (%) ($/Win) Avg Odds

Win: $ - 830.20 (-15%) 382/2819 (13.6%) (12.59) 4.32
Lose: $ + 39.20 (+22%) 12/89 (13.5%) (18.10) 4.94

First: $ - 674.60 (-34%) 113/999 (11.3%) (11.71) 4.88
Last: $ - 212.50 (-16%) 78/656 (11.9%) (14.10) 5.47

Good: $ - 471.10 (-30%) 94/797 (11.8%) (11.95) 4.75
Bad: $ - 133.70 (-13%) 62/509 (12.2%) (14.26) 5.20

Fast: $ - 464.80 (-31%) 82/740 (11.1%) (12.38) 5.20
Slow: $ - 32.60 (-37%) 4/45 ( 8.9%) (14.35) 5.03
* Enough "Slow" races?


"Lose" produces a positive ROI! Notice that the ROI %, $/Wins and Avg Odds are higher for the "negative" words while the win % remains relatively the same.

Important to note that the database was looking for the phrase in the entire name because a phrase is often times embedded in a name. For example, the word "bad" would include a horse named Onebadhorse along with something completely irrelevant like Borabadura.

This study includes all Thoroughbred races from 2/1/2003 to today at all tracks offered by DRF.

I owe my buddy dinner but is this truly an "angle"?

PMD

[mikekk]

Mark Cramer in (I think) "Thoroughbred Cycles" made the same point. He gave a bunch of examples of horses that were a flat-bet profit for their careers and theorized that it might have something to do with a negative connotation in their names.

One of the "negative" words was "precious". I still remember using that information (must have been 10-15 years ago) and making a killing 2 years in a row on a local horse called Precious Dreams. Hit her one year for a $40+ win payoff; caught her the next for $82.60 in a race where she sure looked like the only speed. She was.

I think your friend has something.

Mikekk

[PurplePower]

When teaching foal and yearling breaking and training classes in the 80's, I taught our students to avoid names with strong negative behavior connotations like "Outlaw, Rascal, Bad 'anything'" or unusually tentative names like "precious, angel or baby "anything". There were the "stable names" and not the registration names but a similar implication exists. A student breaking a horse named "outlaw" would go into stall with an "expectation of misbehavior" and those "baby dolls" were allowed to develop bad habits (such as biting) because that behavior was considered "cute" from a "baby doll". Not totally surprising that a similar concept would be found in selecting a horse on which to wager- - only in reverse for those wishing to capitalize.

[Rick]

PMD,

There was a study a few years ago that looked at horses' names. Those that included the first or last names of people had average odds of 8.38, the rest had average odds of 11.95. And, it was a pretty large sample (1002 races). Of course it would be difficult to do a query for all of the possible names, but you might be able to verify that some of the more common names have a worse ROI. Maybe someone could come up with an algorithm to rate the unpopularity of various names.

[kenwoodallpromos]

Jockey club says the name I will choose for my first horse "Also Ran" is not taken!!

[Tom]

LOL.
If I were to get a horse, I would want to name it They're Off!
Just to hear the caller yell it throughout the race HeHe!

A friend of mine, who did have a horse, was denied permission on several cool names:

Oddabazzadzingzang
Hugh Jardon
Fonda Peters

...and a couple others that we won't even mention :eek:

[mikekk]

One that did make it by the Jockey Club was a horse that ran in Vancouver back in the 80's called "Hoof Hearted".

The track announcer called her "Who Fear Ted" during the racecalls. She was a closer; it was a gas waiting for the announcer to make a mistake. Never happened though.

Mikekk

[Early]

One that did make it by the Jockey Club was a horse that ran in Vancouver back in the 80's called "Hoof Hearted".

I spent some time at Exhibition Park (Hastings) in '83/'84. Your post brought back memories, since I was there an exacta came in:

Hoof Hearted - Mark Did It

Now, that's an ex you could hit straight. Just doesn't sound right the other way around.