Quote:
Originally Posted by Poindexter
Unable to find the post I made. But I gave you a blueprint for estimating the chances of your top choice. You can probably use around 33 percent to 35 percent as the probability of your next 2 choice winning. So if my top choice is 6/5 typically I would have a 2nd choice at 4-1 and a 3rd choice of 6-1 which totals 34 percent or maybe 3-1 and 8-1 which totals 36 percent. If I make my top choice 2-1 then my second choice might be 4-1 and my third choice might be 6-1. Obviously with standouts you might have a 6-1 2nd choice and a 8-1 3rd choice thus they would account for only 25 percent. But remember if your top choice is 3/5 you are assigning Him 62.5 percent and you have to leave room for the other horses.
So bottom line pick an odds line that feels right to you on all 3 horses, add up the probability you have assigned the 3 horses, make sure it is reasonable. On competitive races 60 to 65 percent is a good number. Something like 3-1, 4-1, 5-1(about 61.7 percent). More obvious race might be 2-1, 3-1, 5-1 (which is 74.7 percent which is not easily attained so make sure you are not underestimating the rest of the field. Over time you will figure it out. Meanwhile your database will provide you the tools to determine how well you are doing and ultimately how much margin you need to look for to maximize performance (which initially or ultimately may mean losing less and not winning).
By the way you are not limited to your top 3 choices. I am just addressing your
question.
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Thank you very much for taking the time to write out such a detailed response, truly I appreciate it and your suggestions will not go unnoticed.
Although I do want to say this, your suggestion of essentially assigning a percentage of probability between the three selections, essentially ranking them is a fine suggestion however one of the troubles that I have is doing exactly that; for the most part when I handicap a race and settle upon my three selections I honestly for the life of me cannot discern, or rather, I cannot see them as anything other than all three having the same chance of winning. I know that may come off as a bit odd or silly to say, but for the most part every time I attempt to assign a percentage of probability to separate them into rank and order I end up getting much too analytical, to the point where my line of confidence begins to muddy my decision making.
The problem I have is that I'll look at for example the first horse out of the 3 and I'll say something like this horse has the best speed figure by far, then I'll look at the second horse out of the three and I'll say something like but this worse has the best speed at distance today as well as the highest prime power number, then I'll look at the third horse and it'll be something like this horse today is being ridden by a high percentage winning jockey with a positive jockey and trainer combo.
I'm just throwing out super quick examples I'm sure you understand that I'm simply trying to say that I completely agree with your suggestion but I literally have a very hard time making solid decisions and assigning one has more value between the three in order to rank them appropriately.
Another very important point that I also want to make here is that At the end of the day I will always go back and look At the horses that have won and then I will look Over its past performance as well as my data to see if there is anything that stands out that I should have caught or that I know to look for next time and what I discover is that between the three selections the ones that I would think should have came in doesn't and the horse that did come in has Nothing of value that would suggest this horse over the other. I hope I am making sense. What I'm saying is when I go back and analyze what it is that made one horse out of my three come in for the win over the other two it seems to me that I would never have chose that horse to be the winner or to be the better of the other two.
