Rating the Morning Line Makers

[Ray2000]

Small sample but I was just looking for a rough guide.

Betting the Morning Line Pick Apr 1 - Aug 17 this year
Does not include Maiden Races or Races with Coupled Entries.
Tie breaker goes to inside post.

Best Win% Northfield 42%
Best WPS% Harrington, Ocean 76%
Best ROI% Meadowlands -8%

Worst Win% Woodbine/Mohawk 29%
Worst WPS% Woodbine/Mohawk 62%
Worst ROI% Woodbine -30%


Track Races Win% OTB% ROI%
Northfield 806 42% 71% -11%
Ocean 266 41% 76% -14%
Hazel Park 498 40% 70% -10%
Freehold 244 39% 71% -10%
Maywood 420 39% 70% -12%
Harrington 507 39% 75% -14%
Chester 772 38% 71% -16%
Scioto 424 37% 66% -13%
Saratoga 965 37% 70% -17%
Yonkers 976 37% 70% -18%
Balmoral 346 36% 66% -16%
Grand River 428 36% 69% -16%
Georgian 350 36% 67% -20%
Monticello 882 36% 72% -24%
Meadowlands 353 35% 71% -8%
Meadows 980 35% 64% -11%
Tioga 397 34% 65% -9%
Cal Expo 249 34% 71% -17%
Plainridge 397 34% 72% -23%
Raceway Park 338 33% 67% -8%
Buffalo 765 33% 67% -13%
Pocono 999 33% 67% -21%
Pompano 325 33% 66% -26%
Rideau-Carleton 704 33% 68% -28%
Hoosier 566 32% 64% -16%
Vernon 499 32% 62% -20%
Flamboro 566 32% 62% -25%
Woodbine 251 30% 62% -30%
Mohawk 509 29% 62% -26%


small sample
Batavia 147 29% 65% -37%

[melman]

Ray--This may not be "doable" so don't go to a lot of trouble. How about win and ROI on ML 2nd pick or 3rd pick? From the old contest days at Tioga I was very impressed with there ML odds maker. It's a slower time of the year for me with all the 2 yr old races and FTS. Still having great sucess with the pic bets Ray. Love it when I can start a pic bet (either a 3 or 4 pic) and I do not like the favorite. From reading the very good posts of Traynor I think he has shown that money can be made off the 2nd, or 3rd or even 4th contenders on your list. In the just completed BigM meet if you looked at and agreed with or used Pandy's "fair odds line" for contenders you could have made a good amount of cash. "Putting a ticket together" has become a lot of fun for me. More so than the old days of waiting for win bets. One thing for sure Ray the hit rate on pic bets is much less but the returns (at least for me) have been far better. I know it's not for everyone because the lower hit rate can cause heartburn. :) Was very glad to see that Balmoral was one of your good return tracks. That's if I read your previous post correctly. Tonight's Balmoral card is an example of what I mean by a "slow time" for me. Lot's of 2 yr old racing. First half of card is a snooze fest for me. Do like the 2nd half of there card however. Nice size pic pools to bet into out there. Have a great Sunday Ray and I think at Chester today Major Look may be good overlay play.

[Ray2000]

... How about win and ROI on ML 2nd pick or 3rd pick? .



Hey mel, hope you're doing well with those Pic3s...

Here are the numbers for Morning Line 2nd Pick.
Some Pick2s were scratched so those races were deleted.
Ranking Ties becomes a bigger issue with 2nd and 3rd ML picks. Inside horse gets preference.

I was surprised at the overall reduction in Strike rate and Win%
but ROIs stayed in same range...

Best Win% (ML P2) Pompano 26%
Best WPS% (ML P2) Harrington, Ocean 63%
Best ROI% (ML P2) Pompano -3%

Worst Win% (ML P2) Vernon 17%
Worst WPS% (ML P2) Woodbine/Mohawk 47%
Worst ROI% (ML P2) Vernon -35%



Track Races Win% WPS% ROI%
Pompano 318 26% 60% -3%
Hazel Park 487 23% 58% -9%
Saratoga 955 23% 58% -15%
Harrington 500 22% 61% -12%
Rideau-Carleton 683 22% 56% -13%
Freehold 241 22% 58% -19%
Monticello 866 22% 58% -20%
Cal Expo 245 21% 59% -15%
Buffalo 755 21% 59% -17%
Grand River 419 21% 54% -17%
Ocean 262 21% 63% -26%
Northfield 794 21% 59% -27%
Pocono 989 20% 58% -21%
Plainridge 387 20% 56% -22%
Chester 757 20% 60% -22%
Flamboro 557 20% 57% -22%
Maywood 417 20% 57% -25%
Yonkers 957 20% 58% -26%
Tioga 392 19% 57% -19%
Woodbine 244 19% 47% -20%
Balmoral 340 19% 53% -31%
Meadowlands 347 19% 52% -34%
Meadows 967 18% 51% -18%
Hoosier 557 18% 52% -23%
Raceway Park 334 18% 54% -28%
Georgian 347 18% 55% -29%
Mohawk 502 17% 47% -21%
Scioto 418 17% 54% -27%
Vernon 490 17% 51% -35%

[Sea Biscuit]

According to many experts the Morning Line is not about the horse/s what the morning line man thinks will win the race. Its all about the horse/s who he thinks will be the post time favorite.

I fail to understand this concept though.

[Ray2000]

Point well taken, Sea

It's hard to tell which philosophy the morning line guy is using at the different tracks, but one thing for sure, the correlation between assigned odds and real time odds is bad at all tracks. Management does not want to see Odds-On MLs, thinking it will discourage bettors, but we all know the frequency of 3/5s-4/5*s and owners complain if their horse is listed at 50/1+ (but should be):D



BTW
I'm seeing some "1/4's" pop up occasionally (at Twin Spires) for real time odds.

Is this new or a mistake?


.

[Sea Biscuit]

Point well taken, Sea

It's hard to tell which philosophy the morning line guy is using at the different tracks, but one thing for sure, the correlation between assigned odds and real time odds is bad at all tracks. Management does not want to see Odds-On MLs, thinking it will discourage bettors, but we all know the frequency of 3/5s-4/5*s and owners complain if their horse is listed at 50/1+ (but should be):D



BTW
I'm seeing some "1/4's" pop up occasionally (at Twin Spires) for real time odds.

Is this new or a mistake?


.

The thing I do is to forget about the morning line altogether and make my own odds line for 3 or 4 contenders in a race if not for the whole field.

If my first two contenders constantly finish up the track, I know then my handicapping process needs some major over hauling.

A horse I make an even money favorite should go off at least 9/5 or better to be an overlay and a bettable horse.

On Saturday (Aug 18) I made #7 Apprentice Hanover in race 9, which I gave out on another forum before the race, an overwhelming favorite at 10 cents to a dollar if not 5 cents as he figured to win the race by open lengths, and he went off at 2.70-1, a tremendous overlay, and won by an incredible margin of 9 lengths. Had the $50 exacta and the $179 tri as well.

Don't like to toot my own horn but I am still exited at the way the horse won.

Maybe next time I will start putting up my picks on this forum like I used to.

[Sea Biscuit]

In 2008 I wrote an article and posted on this forum on how to go about making your own odds line.

If anyone is interested they can read it my clicking on this link

http://www.paceadvantage.com/forum/showthread.php?t=46540

[melman]

Ray--Do me a favor please. Put up the Robot's top four for each of Balmoral's late pic4 races, races 11 thru 14 for last night. Biscuit---I do the same that you are talking about with 3 or 4 contenders even five in a very close margin of differance race. IMO ml is used some much differently by various tracks that it's worthless or near worthless. Chester, Meadows, and Flamboro seem to be the worst. Picked a couple of horses here on this forum that were 20-1 on the ml and I was hoping for 2-1 :lol: I think old Roger has been using the old "formula" for the last 25 years to determine the ml. Ray would know about that.

Also Biscuit go ahead and toot your own horn. :) You have been around this site long enough we know your good. Also Biscuit take a look at the racing at Balmoral. No post bias no speed bias and a lot of full 10 horse fields. And no one driver is "the man" and gets most of the live drives. Maybe we could get some of this site's cappers to look over Balmorals late pic4 races from time to time. It's been very good to me. BTW on that bet it's 50c min and 15% takeout. Also I live near Philly and get no "kickback" from Balmoral on all my favorable posts about them. :) Just about all harness tracks are down or way down in handle this year. Not Balmoral they are up 27% and if you watch the racing they have people show up to watch the racing. :) The pools are large enough to not have to worry about killing your own price.

[Ray2000]

mel

Robot picks for Balmoral Sunday 8/20 (256 tkts?)

BMLP R11.....8241
BMLP R12.....5748
BMLP R13.....1472 race rejected coupled entries
BMLP R14.....7619

Pick 4..... 1-8-4-9 paid $6,668.80 pool $31,714

[melman]

Tks Ray just wanted to give people an idea of the big money payoffs on the pic bets at Balmoral. Good sized pools. I though races 11 and 13 were huge overlays. And race 11 was a whooper of a way to start a pic bet. :) Just some food for the old mill. Without betting just "putting a ticket" together can be fun and a learning experince.

BTW Ray it seems Pitts/StLou like baseball so much they deceided to play a doubleheader even thou only one game was scheduled. :lol: Go Buc's.

[melman]

Ray---Just something for the Robot to take a look at today at Monticello. Some pic3 "maybe's" that could offer some decent prices.

R2 25
R3 31
R4 34
R5 241
R6 467
R7 418
R8 452
R9 3

[CHeCK EyE]

My luck has been dry as the dessert of late and I keep reading about balm oral. Maybe its time to try a new track. Especially with Meadow lands closed!

[Ray2000]

I was out doing some brake work on my car, Damn rusty piece of...

My bets for Monti are already sent in (all trifectas here)

Race 6 13/13/48
Race 8 24/24/57

And the ones I really like at The Meadows

Race 5 5/268/268
Race 12 5/26/26378

Hang in there Checkeye, we all go thru those spells...


Good Luck everyone...

[melman]

Not bad at all Ray.

Pic3 races 678 4-4-4 paid $499

Trifecta R8 4-2-7 paid $301 :)

[Ray2000]

Just came back in....You had it cold mel NICE :ThmbUp:

East-West Pa collects !!!

I see Palone beats my deuce in R5 at The Meadows (as usual when I leave him off the tkt).

[Oskar]

The high-low boundaries of the morning line can shift radically at a track, depending on who is making it as well as shifting instructions from above. Last year Tioga would go as low as 2/5 on a 1/9 shot, and as high as 50/1 on an outsider in that race. Now that 1/9 shot is more likely to be 8/5 or 2/1 in the ML and the highest odds on an outsider would be 20/1, but more likely 15/1.



Yonkers will go to 3/5 on a 1/9 shot, but the ceiling on longshots tends to be conservative.



The WEG tracks have a broad spread. Mohawk will go to 2/5 on a favorite and as high as 50/1 on an outsider. The Meadowlands tends to be more conservative top and bottom.

[Ray2000]

Thx Oscar, good to know

Several years ago I tried (several times) to write a computer program that would produce a better Morning Line, reasoning that I would know who the driver is where as many ML guys had to get in their line before they knew for sure.

Statistically correlating my computer line and the program line to the Final Chart Odds only showed a slight improvement, not worth the effort, so I gave up trying. :bang:

BTW

If anyone wants to convert a point system of handicapping to an Odds Line,
...A point system is assigning points for speed, class, driver, post etc..

A good formula is :

(Starters -1) * 2.718^(-1 * (Points - Ave Points) / StDev Points)

Example (using TrackMaster Greg's points for Indiana R12 today)

Starters = 10

Points
582
548
519
511
510
490
486
479
471
447

Ave 504
St Dev 39.2

Odds for Pick1 = 9 * 2.718^(-1 * (582-504)/39.2) = 1.23

Odds for other picks

1.23
2.96
6.20
7.63
7.78
13.05
14.35
17.23
20.84
38.69

[barn32]

Thx Oscar, good to know

Several years ago I tried (several times) to write a computer program that would produce a better Morning Line, reasoning that I would know who the driver is where as many ML guys had to get in their line before they knew for sure.

Statistically correlating my computer line and the program line to the Final Chart Odds only showed a slight improvement, not worth the effort, so I gave up trying. :bang:

BTW

If anyone wants to convert a point system of handicapping to an Odds Line,
...A point system is assigning points for speed, class, driver, post etc..

A good formula is :

(Starters -1) * 2.718^(-1 * (Points - Ave Points) / StDev Points)

What is the 2.718?

[Ray2000]

The Natural Logarithm, e = 2.718...

In Excel you can use EXP() if you prefer