A track where favorites win 40%
 

How do you look at such a track? Do you think in terms of betting differently or
just not playing or some other idea?

Personally, I would play it for verticals; tris and supers, since it's easier to fill the top slot. Even though the payoffs would be smaller, I don't mind a $100 tri or $200 super. And also put the fav in the 2nd slot underneath and get bigger payoffs since most people will only use favs on top. Favs don't win all the races and do come in 2nd a lot at tracks with high fav win%.

Sounds good.

Is it because of small fields or some trainers and jockeys are doing very well?

Learn who these people are and whether a change to or from them is positive neutral or negative.

Watch the pre-race and warm-up to see if there are any longer priced horses you should include or shorter priced horses to drop.

If favorites are winning 40%, they are losing 60%. If you find a favorite that looks like they will not win or place, there will be overlays in the race. Find and bet them.

Since the national average is now around 39%, this would refer to MOST tracks.

Good point. :)




General question high% favs winning - Be wary of short fields, be wary of noncompetitive fields, be wary of super-trainers...
Basically, you want to understand the 'why'.

Your race-screening process eliminates those specific races from consideration.

If you are concerned with favorite win pcts -- the twin spires tv screen has a window that has handicapping ,track stats, etc. ---- you can get the win pct for favorites for the particular race that you click on, in addition to winning pct for horses' running styles.

Favorite winning 40% of the time? Did somebody say Finger Lakes and Sam Houston?

Tracks like this i tend to stay away from if there's a horse below 1-1. A lot of these tracks with high favorite win %s tend to have 5 and 6 horse fields so even if youre betting exotics, not much money to be made.