Suspicious Drops
 

Another one bite the dust @the big A yesterday Wild Tonga finished dead last at odds on..dropping down to the basement...the public made this horse odds on..
I ask the question should horses with suspicious class drops be scratch?
Me personally i just pass on the race..IMO i think they should be scratch..

You think they should be scratched? What would possibly give you that idea? Should Cantrushperfection have been scratched in the nightcap today?

NT

Why scratch them? They were entered! :confused:

If you know the horse is a bad play, then there's money to be made.

You make money by being smarter than all the other handicappers and you can make a lot of money betting against a vulnerable horse dropping in class, if you truly believe he can be beaten.

No reason to scratch though, unless the horse has a life threatening injury.

They win just often enough to screw you over no matter whether you bet on them or against them. I often look for a horse coming out the same race.

hopefully I think he means scratched from his handicapping of the race, of course I could be wrong :bang:

[QUOTE=only11]Another one bite the dust @the big A yesterday Wild Tonga finished dead last at odds on..dropping down to the basement...the public made this horse odds on..
I ask the question should horses with suspicious class drops be scratch?
Me personally i just pass on the race..IMO i think they should be scratch..[/QUOTE I like to pass the races with major droppers from the top trainers because they drop to win at low odds.

I think that they need to announce claims before the race. That way, you would know if a horse has a 'hole' in him or not. (not always, but if i'm betting a horse dropping from 40k to 10k and he has 7 claims entered, i'd feel much better than if he has 0 claims)

You can bet them, but I won't. Hollendorfer is/was well known for dropping horses to the bottom in NorCal, each with multiple claims in, up to 10(!), in the days when there was more claiming done i.e. when people had the money. The droppers' win and ITM percentages were okay but not like Hollendorfer's normal win rate. ROI was a minus number. Someone here might still have stats to that effect. Quite a few of those horses never ran again much less win another race. Similar thing happened when Hurd (sp?) was going nuts in the '70s in a claiming war with Frankel. IIRC Frankel's ROI was pretty good, not Hurd's. And on and on and on.

Bingo!agree 100%

7 claims or 0 claims, the horse has a 'hole' in him. The question is how big is the 'hole'.

One thing you need to remember when these horses are dropped to the bottom they don't need to give a huge effort to come away a winner. Happens all the time where a former allowance or stakes winner who may have won a race with a 90 beyer runs a 62 beyer and still wins for fun.

Frank Passero Jr. used to make a living off of these races at GP and did it well, why should they be automatically scratched? It's always been part of horseracing, though I rarely play big with these type it is a necessity to wagering and playing races. Favorites are often beat and that is when $ is made.

Charlie Whittingham once said -horses are like strawberries, they can go bad over night. A horse can win for 25,000 and be a mere shadow of that 3 weeks later. Most small outfits never seem to drop "a horse gone bad " far enough to either win or risk losing the horse.