I'm really not all that worried about money coming in that late since I don't think its "smart" on the average anyway. I'd like to see a study on how the time at which a bet is placed would affect the value of an overlay. Even something as simple as just looking at the top speed horse would provide a good basis for comparison. My guess is that betting early, say at 10 minutes to post and betting late, at maybe 1 minute to post would both be good and betting at 3-6 minutes would be bad because that's when the well-informed money comes in. I think good handicappers frequently get off of a horse because the odds go down a bit in that time period and it's usually a mistake. You've got to separate the dumb money from the smart money and try to calculate your overlays against the dumb money only. Smart money will take care of itself because it will just result in making the horse more likely to win. I think someone with the proper data could set up better guidlines than what I previously mentioned though, because what I know about it is pretty sketchy and largely subjective.
|