A handicapping tip that I have been playing on paper.

[Igeteven]

When I play a pick 3, pick 4 or even a pick 5, I normally play a pick 3 for 24 dollars, a pick 4 or even a pick 5, it's 48 dollars,

Most of the time when I get blown out to kingdom come. The horse's morning line was 12-1

I review my last 100 plays, and it's always 12-1

The horse may go off at 25-1, but still the morning line is 12-1

So I adding now the morning 12-1 shot, no matter what I play. When the spa starts. I will play my doubles for a dollar, I will never leave it out.

Lets see what happens over the next few weeks.

Any comments.

[Overlay]

Has your analysis indicated whether the winning 12-1 ML horses went off at actual odds of above or below 12-1?

[Igeteven]

Has your analysis indicated whether the winning 12-1 ML horses went off at actual odds of above or below 12-1?

most of the time, they were higher when the bell went off.

[salty]

If you are playing a pick 3,4,5 or 6. Then how would that information even help?

[jeebus1083]

At several tracks, the linemaker will not set odds higher than 12-1, and this is done for many reasons. Despite the fact that the job of the linemaker is to guesstimate how the betting will unfold, many linemakers do not want to assign odds of 20-1, 30-1, etc, as it may offend certain horsemen.

Sometimes, it works in reverse, as some linemakers assign higher ML odds to the favorites to allow themselves a margin of error. There are places where the linemaker will not assign odds lower than 2-1 on a favorite, unless they feel that the outcome is a given to occur. Some linemakers do this to encourage betting, giving it the feel that the race might be more open than it really is. It's not an accurate practice, as it doesn't necessarily reflect what the "real" betting might be, but people would rather bet on a race where the ML odds are arranged tightly.

If you can find value by including 12-1 ML horses in your DD/P3/P4, etc, the more power to you.

If anything, I would find this angle more powerful when playing Southern California on non-P6 carryover days. It's a documented fact that the powers that be crave P6 carryovers, and will arrange the races as such to give the player a headache/sweeten the pots. The Thursday and Friday cards in SoCal are often notorious P6 carryover-building days, as management would love to see a 6-figure P6 pool on a Saturday. Why do you think that the common SoCal nightcap is a MSW or MCL race with 10-12 horses? Why are Starter Allowance for horses having broken their maiden for a tag and are non-winners of 1/2 other than with 10-12 horses usually part of the sequence? Because these are competitive headscratchers that are non-orderly. In other words, there is value in expecting the unexpected in these heats.

Best of luck to you!

[thaskalos]

These 12-1 morning line "surprises" seem like coincidences to me.

I doubt that the linemaker obsesses over these odds as much as you think...

[carlonr]

As a pick6 syndicate ticket creator, I have noticed the same dynamic, however because of the overall price of the ticket I usually try to identify which 12-1 has the most upside (post position, trainer angle, breeding angle etc.) Another scenario you might want to play around with on paper is: whenever there are 3 or more horses in a race with the same odds of either 5-1, 6-1 or 8-1.

[Overlay]

As a pick6 syndicate ticket creator, I have noticed the same dynamic, however because of the overall price of the ticket I usually try to identify which 12-1 has the most upside (post position, trainer angle, breeding angle etc.)
That's the point I was trying to make with my earlier post about ML overlays and underlays. (As salty commented, I got my vertical versus horizontal contexts confused.) Thank you for expressing it more clearly.

[Steven Kolb]

The last chapter of my book - The Result Charts - has the Morning Line Odds for over 2,000 Pick 6 winners over a variety of tracks.

If you have the book (thank you), it will take you a just a few minutes to add up the number of 12-1 shots that won over those races. Then (of course) you will have a percentage to look at and think about.

If you (or anybody else) don't have the book, you need not buy it. Just send me a message with an address, and I will e-mail that last chapter. Most Pick 4, Pick 5 and Pick 6 players should find it of interest.

Best Wishes!

sk

[Shemp Howard]

In ghe old days the Armstrong Daily rarely posted odds of 12-1.

When it did, it was a tip-off to the bookies that there was anticipated heavy action on the horse and to limit accepting bets and shaving the max odds on DD's and exacta's.

[BeatTheChalk]

Brian was never to shy to quote horses at way over 12 to 1 With comments
like " can't find last win " " hits bottom today " etc.