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Originally Posted by Capper Al
Let's say we have a horse we believe is worth 3/1 odds (prob 1/4). Let's say we use a 50% fudge factor, prob 1/6 or 5/1 odd. But now just consider if the connections are going to try today. This happens a lot. May we say a prob 1/4 that they won't try today. If we were right with odds of 3/1, now we must factor this in, prob 3/4 (he'll run) * 1/4 (his assumed value) equals 3/16 or about 5.33/1. We out ran our fudge factor on this alone.
And given the who made the odds line does really work either. That's a tautological argument saying if he's good he's good. Nothing is proven by this. Some line makers do excellent jobs picking winners. But making money on these odds lines is next to impossible because of the necessary fudge factors and getting the odds leftover from the best handicapper, the public.
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Yes, the public is more collectively accurate than any individual handicapper at setting odds on a cumulative, race-in/race-out basis. But that doesn't mean that it is not also capable of regularly making significant misjudgments about individual horses or combinations of horses in specific races on any given day.
Even though the public does indeed get the "first crack" at setting a horse's odds, leaving only the "leftovers" (as you put it) for handicappers, the handicapper (unlike the public) is not obligated to bet on any given race, but can wait until one of those misjudgments by the public offers a sufficient return to compensate the handicapper for the risk of challenging the public's collective wisdom. And a fair-odds line is one of the means that a handicapper can use in making those go/no-go betting decisions.
