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Originally Posted by JPinMaryland
I was actually shocked to find Orb had dropped to 3-5 on sat afternoon, after morning line of what? even money? I didn't see all the broadcast but it seemed every body was picking ORb. That was so odd no one was taking a stand against. Like some have said, it seems like everyone wants to see a TC winner.
Personally, I just try to enjoy one race at a time. If it happens, OK but there's so much fascinating stuff going on it's no big deal to me.
I guess one way to spot an underlay in a big race is to see if there is some sort of psychological effect at work on the crowd. And perhaps a good handicapper can take advantage of it. In this case, there definitely seems a need for a TC winner and so the media was all over this. Plus lets face it, they don't follow horse racing like they used to so they have to try to get peoples attention.
Plus other stuff. He didn't seem like a great dominating horse. He seemed to be just getting it done. His final fractions in Florida did not scream out at me. And there were at least a couple of others in the Ky derby that finished almost as fast as him.
So there's the specific factors at work in Orb's case but then there's also the general factors, that apply to races in general. This years ky derby was a huge meltdown on the front, how much can you learn from that? Plus it was run in slop. That had to effect things too.
So just based on general handicapping principles there were a couple of things that told you he cant be this great.
OTOH what really worried me was that these types can be underestimated. Big Brown was like that. He seemed to be just getting it done, and only later I realized that those even fractions are hard to turn out. Wasn't Drosselmyer like that.
That plus everyone in the media kept picking him, and even if people here weren't picking him, they kept saying things like "he's still probably more likely than the others but he's not a good value bet. "
Finally this was going to be what his 6 race of the campaign? WOw in this day and age it's hard to believe he's that likely to get his 6thin a row. Is he really like a Slew or Majestic Prince or something like that?
I might have come up with Oxbow if I had studied the derby charts a little harder but I dismissed him because of his recent record plus it took like 4 times to break his maiden, come on.
So I figured there was a lot of value in a longshot, I couldn't pass this race. The exotics are often very huge in this race. Just really couldn't put my finger on any of the long shots, I came up with Gov Charlie...
So if you tossed the favorite last week, how did you go about picking a longshot???
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Well, first of all, my program told me to pass the race, regarding a win bet. I have 11 different rankings methods in my program, and a couple of other rankings for class, form, and distance. Orb ranked 2nd in 1 ranking method, which assumed all horses would run their best race that day. Orb ranked 1st in Class and Prime Power+class, largely due to his winning the Derby, which I discounted due to the pace and surface conditions. So, in my superfecta ticket structure I did not have Orb on the ticket and I used the top 2 ranked horses from the method I always use for these big races, Governor Charlie and Goldencents, on the win line, then filled out the other 2 lines with the next highest ranked horses in that method, Mylute, Itsmyluckyday, and Titletownfive. So, I missed the winner, Oxbow (who ranked high only in distance and no better than 6th in any other ranking method) and the 4th place finisher, Orb who I had already tossed completely (ranking high only as I mentioned above and no better than 6th in all other methods). I placed a 10 cent super bet that cost me a total of 20 cents, basically telling you that I had almost no confidence in hitting the ticket, just taking a shot at a decent payout.
By the way, my program assumes a legitimate pace for the pace pressure existing in the whole field, which as we know did not happen.
