Percent of Favorites in the Money
 

With the percent of favorites winning in the low 40's nowadays.....does anyone have handy the percent of favorites finishing out of the money?

Thought one of the databasers would have responded. In roughly 2012, favorites out about 31% of the time...

http://agameofskill.com/how-well-do-...rites-perform/

Couldn't have dropped much in 5 years...maybe 29 or 30 % out of the money?

This year favorites winning at 38.5% and in the money 74.25%.

Hey Maddog

I can only speak to NYC racing and I have only been looking at the Morning Line Favorites so you have to take it with a grain of salt

However, from what I’ve seen at Aqueduct since January 1st 2017 up until yesterday the Morning Line Favorites that were less than 3-1 won at 32.9% they were in the money at 72.1% which means they were out of the money at 27.9%

The average win price was slightly over $5.20

Let me know if this helps

David Schwartz showed the following data in his book "Percentages and Probabilities, 2012". Based on 309,709 races:

Morning line favorite = 31.7%
2nd morning line fav = 20.6%
3rd morning line fav = 14.8%

On the board-- top 3 = 67.1%

I thought the OP was talking about Post Time favorites and not ML fav's. The research I've done showed PT favorites in 2012 at 35% for all tracks in USA. In 2016 it was reported that all races at all tracks in US at 36.6%, but 10 tracks were up over 40% and a larger number of tracks up to 38.5%. I'd think the increase of winning favorites is related to diminishing field sizes more than the public being sharper.

Sorry. David also covered the actual favorites. Again for 309,709 races:

Actual favorite= 36.3%
second favorite= 21.7%
--third favorite = 14.7%

On board top 3 = 72.7%

Thanks guys. I really appreciate it. I've been looking at patterns of when favorites might run out of the money. This really helps.

I think a further breakdown by total betting interests in the race would be of interest, as I assume favorites do better in 5 horse races than favorites in 10 horse races.

Some sports writer for a now defunct NJ newspaper once wrote that at Garden State park, he used to always bet the favorite to show, when he was a teenager, and once lost 22 in a row. Not sure if he was exaggerating. It seems like a lot.

As sjk shows, already up to 74.25%, and will probably keep trending upwards with the path sport is currently on.

I find that one impossible to believe if he were playing every race.

The place and show stats as well as the 2nd and 3rd favorite stats are fairly similar and the numbers are fairly close to what they should be.. Assuming the favorite wins 36% of the time there is a 64% chance it will lose. Of that 64% chance there should be a .36 *.64 chance he beats the rest of the field and comes 2nd. So he should come 2nd 23.04% of the time. So there is a 59.04% chance he should come 1st or 2nd so if he doesn’t he should have a .36*.4096 chance of running 3rd or a 14.75% chance of running 3rd. Thus when the favorite wins 36% of the time he should run 2nd 23.04 % of the time and he should run 3rd 14.75% of the time. SJK has the winning favorites winning 38.5% of races(which should mean they come second 23.68 % and that they come 3rd 14.68%. So 38.5% winning favorites should mean 76.88% itm% and he shows only a 74.25% itm%, so a couple percent was lost. I would attribute that to the win only nature of some of the favorites(horses that can easily win, but can also easily run off the board).

With 2nd favorites and 3rd favorites the assumption would be that the favorite win % would transfer over to the 2nd favorite beating the 3rd favorite and the 3rd favorite beating the rest of the field. If that is the case on average over all the races then the numbers for 2nd favorites winning would be the same as the number for 1st favorites coming 2nd and the number of 3rd favorites winning would be the same as favorites coming 3rd.This could be a faulty assumption, but from the numbers presented in this thread it doesn’t seem to be too far off.

Obviously venue and field size is going to play a huge part in percentage of winning favorites . Some tracks card bigger fields and competitive racing others have parades of obvious 6 horse fields.

using the 67.1% ITM, the max. consecutive probable losses = 8

if we use 50% to cut some slack for era difference and random race selection = 13

In order for the max. probable consecutive losses to be 22, the hit% would equal 34% (which is closer to typical favorite win% than ITM)


so, yea, he was improbably unlucky if true, or story was conflated with consecutive losing favorites.

59% running first or second seems kind of high, I usually expect it to be about 55%. Does anyone have any stats on how many times the favorite places? (finishes either first or second).

Someone called me the other day asked me how to bet longshots, he said he bets win and place. I said you shouldn't bet a longshot to place, you're better off betting it to win and boxing it with the favorite in an exacta. If your longshot finishes second, half of the time you'll hit the exacta. Sometimes the exacta will pay very well if you are betting a 20-1 shot. The exacta payoffs more than compensate for the times your longshot finishes second and the favorite doesn't place.