The Right Horse for the WRONG Reason

[classhandicapper]

Lately I've been paying special attention to all my selections that WON and how they did it. I am reviewing the races to determine if my horses won for the reasons I liked them or whether they just lucked into the winner circle for some other reason.

Every once in awhile I find myself cashing...

1. despite the fact that the favorite (who I keyed against) was tons the best but had a horrible trip.

2. because my horse took advantage of a bias that I didn't recognize yet at the time.

3. because my horse had a very favorable trip I didn't predict

4. when I thought the horse would shake loose and set and easy pace but the horse closed and won anyway

5. because a duel occurred that I did not predict and I was lucky to just get up over a far superior horse

6. etc...

By now you get the idea.

What I am wondering is how many other horse players bother to actually determine whether good short term winnings are the result of superior handicapping insights or just very good fortune. In other words "the right horse for the wrong reason".

I am also wondering how many people learn the wrong lessons from some of those winners.

I do understand that this kind of thing should even out over the long haul, but most people dwell on the bad things that happen to them and I'm wondering how much better off we'd all be by noticing when we are getting REALLY LUCKY and not learning the wrong lessons from it.

[Stillriledup]

Lately I've been paying special attention to all my selections that WON and how they did it. I am reviewing the races to determine if my horses won for the reasons I liked them or whether they just lucked into the winner circle for some other reason.

Every once in awhile I find myself cashing...

1. despite the fact that the favorite (who I keyed against) was tons the best but had a horrible trip.

2. because my horse took advantage of a bias that I didn't recognize yet at the time.

3. because my horse had a very favorable trip I didn't predict

4. when I thought the horse would shake loose and set and easy pace but the horse closed and won anyway

5. because a duel occurred that I did not predict and I was lucky to just get up over a far superior horse

6. etc...

By now you get the idea.

What I am wondering is how many other horse players bother to actually determine whether good short term winnings are the result of superior handicapping insights or just very good fortune. In other words "the right horse for the wrong reason".

I am also wondering how many people learn the wrong lessons from some of those winners.

I do understand that this kind of thing should even out over the long haul, but most people dwell on the bad things that happen to them and I'm wondering how much better off we'd all be by noticing when we are getting REALLY LUCKY and not learning the wrong lessons from it.


I remember making a large play at FG this winter and won because the 2nd place finisher was in a bitter duel. I sat far back and got up by a nose with the dueler 'coming again' in a vicious performance. I felt incredibly lucky to have won this race. The dueler was a good grey Pletcher horse who was in that race at Churchill in early May that was won by First Dude in a 5 horse blanket finish. The name of the horse escapes me.

Once in a while even the best of us :D win when we're not actually the best.

[MMM59]

Sure, after lengthy handicapping, I finally come up with the 1 horse being much the best, and........the 1a wins......better to be lucky than good.....just wish I was luckier.

[ranchwest]

It is possible to predict many of the scenarios you list.

I figure there are enough predictable races that it is possible to turn a profit, whether we're performing at that level or not.

The rest of the races, I don't have adequate insight and I'm okay with that, for now.

[Marlin]

It is impossible to know why a horse won, or why you won. I love listening to handicappers explaining why their horse won. You will get many different comments on the same horse. You think you know. You hope you know. But really you never KNOW.

[ranchwest]

It is impossible to know why a horse won, or why you won. I love listening to handicappers explaining why their horse won. You will get many different comments on the same horse. You think you know. You hope you know. But really you never KNOW.

The horse has a path. I have a path. If our paths intersect consistently and frequently, that's good enough for me. I'm not trying to be a philosopher.

[gopony]

if i'm getting the winning horses in number one, then i concentrate on whether i'm getting the horses in number 2 and proceed downward.

there are too many factors to sweat out a win. Sometimes there are too many factors to sweat a loss.

Usually I have a set percentage and if I stop winning below that percentage I stop and regroup, to figure out what is going on. Sometimes there is a bias or something going on and I'm not catching it.

But I did have a win one time I never even looked at twice. I bet the right race and right horse , just the wrong track. 40 to 1 winner.

[ranchwest]

if i'm getting the winning horses in number one, then i concentrate on whether i'm getting the horses in number 2 and proceed downward.

there are too many factors to sweat out a win. Sometimes there are too many factors to sweat a loss.

Usually I have a set percentage and if I stop winning below that percentage I stop and regroup, to figure out what is going on. Sometimes there is a bias or something going on and I'm not catching it.

But I did have a win one time I never even looked at twice. I bet the right race and right horse , just the wrong track. 40 to 1 winner.

I suggest being careful about changing methodologies too quickly. It has been my experience that when I'm doing exactly the same thing, I have to look at 100 races or more as a "segment" that might suggest a trend. Really, that may be a conservative number.

This is why paper plays are a good idea. By the time you have a reliable fix on how you're faring, you might be broke if you're playing real money.

[Robert Fischer]

i like catching a race I didn't bet,

when favs won for the "wrong" reason

[pondman]

I am also wondering how many people learn the wrong lessons from some of those winners.


I bet strictly on condition. In my own mind my picks have a class advantage.

Sometimes I get the feeling the jockeys toy with the rest of the field-- relaxing the horse off the pace waiting for the stretch. But many can run from anywhere.

I win enough over time to believe I've got the selections process down for the right reason. It's just an issue of the horse firing or not.

[CBedo]

I definitely try to get feedback on my play from the the amount and how it was won, the quantity and the quality so to speak. Sometimes you just get lucky.

Today provided a concrete example. In the fifth at Prairie Meadows, I thought the 3/5 favorite was vulnerable and thought three horses had a chance. Normally, I'm not a fan of boxing three horses in the exacta, but with me hating the favorite, I didn't want to out think myself, so even though I liked the :10: slightly more than the :3: and both more than the :2: , I just placed an old school exacta box. (I also bet the trifecta with the same three horses, using the favorite in the third spot).

As they are coming down the stretch, the :2: , the horse I liked the least looks like an easy winner at 16/1 with the :3: taking second. When the favorite completes the trifecta, and even though the horse I liked the most runs out I still feel like I did a helluva job of handicapping, and am patting myself on the back while waiting for the payoffs.

I'm pretty happy with myself when they post the 190.60 exacta (multiple times) and tri pays 419, but then I notice the name of the winning horse and realize that my stellar handicapping wasn't as good as I thought. The horse that won was the 2b, not the 2, a horse I gave absolutely zero chance of winning.

I've never been such a fan of coupled entries, lol. So my handicapping wasn't nearly as good as I might have originally thought. It was just barely good enough! ;)

[classhandicapper]

I definitely try to get feedback on my play from the the amount and how it was won, the quantity and the quality so to speak. Sometimes you just get lucky.

Today provided a concrete example. In the fifth at Prairie Meadows, I thought the 3/5 favorite was vulnerable and thought three horses had a chance. Normally, I'm not a fan of boxing three horses in the exacta, but with me hating the favorite, I didn't want to out think myself, so even though I liked the :10: slightly more than the :3: and both more than the :2: , I just placed an old school exacta box. (I also bet the trifecta with the same three horses, using the favorite in the third spot).

As they are coming down the stretch, the :2: , the horse I liked the least looks like an easy winner at 16/1 with the :3: taking second. When the favorite completes the trifecta, and even though the horse I liked the most runs out I still feel like I did a helluva job of handicapping, and am patting myself on the back while waiting for the payoffs.

I'm pretty happy with myself when they post the 190.60 exacta (multiple times) and tri pays 419, but then I notice the name of the winning horse and realize that my stellar handicapping wasn't as good as I thought. The horse that won was the 2b, not the 2, a horse I gave absolutely zero chance of winning.

I've never been such a fan of coupled entries, lol. So my handicapping wasn't nearly as good as I might have originally thought. It was just barely good enough! ;)

I wouldn't classify this as "right horse wrong reason".

It appears part of the reason you boxed the horses was because even though you preferred one of the three, it wasn't strong enough to key. I do things like that all the time. Sometimes I bet two horses to win when they are reasonably close in value or there are issues I'm not totally clear on.

However, if the favorite you hated got in a 3 way hot duel on the outside, put away the other speeds badly, but weakened in the last 70 yards to give you the exacta, I would feel differently UNLESS the reason you keyed against the horse was because you foresaw that he was likely to get into a savage duel. If not, you were lucky to win because the favorite ran the best race.

We all notice when we lose because of bad trip or an extremely lucky trip by another horse (happened to me in the 6th at Saratoga on 8/31 with Versaille Road). However, some of us are so busy celebrating when we win, we don't notice how lucky the horse was to get into the winners circle or twist the result in a biased fashion and perhaps learn the wrong lesson.