Mage was a clear overlay

[Bill Cullen]

n his last race Mage broke dead last in a field of 12, circled the field 3,4,5-wide on the turns. At the top of the stretch he took the lead only to lose the race at the wire by just 1 length to the scratched presumptive favorite in the Derby, Forte.

He also sported the best Brisnet breeding rating for the distance.

At 15/1 I have to feel Mage was minimally at fair odds but was probably a pretty good overlay.

[MJC922]

Originally Posted by Bill Cullen

n his last race Mage broke dead last in a field of 12, circled the field 3,4,5-wide on the turns. At the top of the stretch he took the lead only to lose the race at the wire by just 1 length to the scratched presumptive favorite in the Derby, Forte.

He also sported the best Brisnet breeding rating for the distance.

At 15/1 I have to feel Mage was minimally at fair odds but was probably a pretty good overlay.

In any other race he made an awful lot of sense. People tend to bring extraneous baggage into handicapping the derby. I too loved that he brushed past Forte in the prep. He has a good turn of foot heading to the quarter pole that will continue to be useful in the Preakness. The 12 furlongs in the Belmont is sufficiently different and might mute that turn of foot somewhat. We'll have to see. I had the double with mage and I wish I'd pressed on him a bit letting logic do some handicapping for me, he was just part of my spread though. I didn't like Trice (that was my real bet against) so I left him out as well as Angel whom I thought was overbet. I tried to beat the latter because on my numbers he didn't really look any faster than anyone else. Anyway it was a profit so I can't complain, my original plan was a win bet on Forte who prob would've got beat considering he wasn't 'right' if he went to the post so I got lucky I suppose. On paper I thought Forte looked awful tough to beat and the price wasn't going to be too bad. Was Mage an overlay? probably, on the trip elements as you mentioned he's gotta be 10-1 or less in there without Forte in and paid off @ 15-1 right, definitely wasn't an underlay.

[Aerocraft67]

Originally Posted by MJC922

In any other race he made an awful lot of sense. People tend to bring extraneous baggage into handicapping the derby.

The traditionalists dismissed him for lack of sufficient foundation for a race that especially requires that. Of course, there’s merit to that reasoning, but I think it was the key to his value.

He earned categorically higher figures in his first three races than anyone in the field at that stage of their career, and many of them beyond that. He was certainly the superior choice to Kingsbarns, also entering his fourth race.

If anything, I was worried that his early performance was more a matter of precocity than superiority. In that sense, he certainly could have stumbled here. Couple that with his propensity to break poorly, and his price seemed pretty reasonable.

A few of us here had him, but he was consistently dismissed by the prominent public analysts I follow. I don’t know about “clear overlay,” but definitely a square price.

Gratified to see him prevail after backing him consistently in his last three races, but dismayed that I just missed him somehow in the wagering. He drifted from my top pick to my second pick, used him on top, but not singled, and didn’t have the place horse, even though I considered throwing him in as a saver in the waning minutes. Unfortunately, I remained disciplined.

[burnsy]

The bottom line is he was definitely an overlay . Didn’t listen to my friend who said he made a run at Forte and he’s out . He hit a pretty good pic 3 , I got squat. And it’s what I always want to play . The Florida circuit during the “preps “ always produce consistent contenders and winners . I avoid the Blue Grass and Wood because most of them are not good enough yet by May. The other smaller tracks occasionally come up , like last year , but the Florida Derby , Ark Derby and Santa Anita derby produce an overwhelming majority of winners recently. With Baffert out, it seems like that narrows it down. Like a fool I went with Kingsbarns instead . Figured a moderate pace but once again this year they tore it up early . I knew Kingsbarns and Verifying were probably dead after the first quarter. You sit with people that don’t know racing on derby day and they are saying , “Hey one of yours is in front .” But you know damn well they are going too fast for the experience they have at that distance. I screwed the pooch this year . Didn’t listen to my own theory and on to the next race . At least someone I was with hit it good .

And I really don’t believe in the , “has to race for foundation “ theory anymore. What foundation? 5 horses scratched. These trainers understand it’s a small window . They are finding results basically training up to the derby when the prep season starts . Break your Maiden and see if you can move up in 2 or 3 races . The other thing about doing this is no one will know who the best horse is yet . Some have improvement left in the tank . Others are not going to last the summer . I’ve been around for many a derby , I’ve never seen anything like this .

[PalaceOfFortLarned]

I'd like to thank all the bettors and CAW groups for ignoring Mage.

Thankfully, I pulled the trigger a 3rd time in full support of Mage at 15/1 as I was a huge believer during his Triple Crown prep run.

Sometimes patience and belief pays off. (If only I had stuck to my guns with Lord Miles in the Wood ).

[zico20]

I was totally shocked at the odds. I never get an overlay and then this happens. I figured Forte at 3-1, Tapit Trice at 5-1, Angel of Empire 6-1 and Mage at 8-1. How they could let him go off at those odds is beyond me. He wins the Florida Derby if Saez waits to make his move and then Mage is probably the favorite in the Derby. When are people going to learn not to bet UAE horses. I can't believe he went off at 8-1.

[f2tornado]

Originally Posted by zico20

I was totally shocked at the odds.

I hope you loaded up. I figure 15-1 was the low end of fair market value when factoring the following (regardless if specifically agreed with or not): He was not a standout on paper, many of he figure makers didn't like the FL Derby, the sheets geeks suggested he might have topped out, he got beat by a washy horse in FL, Saez didn't stick with him, horse had limited foundation, Apollo + 1, was beat by two starters, qualified for a non winner other than maiden, previous gate issues, others that closed faster in arguably deeper fields and now going longer,...,and on and on.

That's a lot to look past for single digit odds. Kudos to the cappers that did see through all that.

While I liked his breeding, he didn't appear to be a heck of a lot different on paper than Hit Show or Disarm who offered a much better prices and with super-trainers.

[Robert Fischer]

Yes.

He was without a doubt a significant overlay.

It's a little bit interesting in a horse racing market/psychological sense that we don't have a thread full of people saying he was "yes, 100%".

And I don't mean the eccentrics and the individual tastes and perception stuff (no group of interesting horseplayers will ever agree on everything).


we have a;

yes, probably, i don't know but definitely 'square price, yes definitely, i'd like to thank(aka "i bet him!"), shockingly good overlay, on the low end of fair odds, and now another "yes a significant overlay"...

that's a day after the horse showed brilliance to beat a strong race by Two Phil's and a good race by Angel of Empire.

I guess it's worth something then to be able to size it up the next day and say "yes" or "I don't know, but maybe so"

I expected more "i knew it all along" and one or two "he was lucky" or "this was just a bad crop"

It's still worth something.

we did not have enough threads before the race that said "mage is being vastly overlooked"

[Fightingirish51195]

I felt 20 was a big overlay that’s why I locked at fixed odds.

I thought he’d go off less than 20 (with forte in the field). at the time of the scratch I think he was right around 20. I thought about 15 with forte would’ve been fair odds.

I did feel he was being overlooked. Even I had questions about possible distance limitations but I chalked up his L to just having too much to do

[Michael]

I didn't have Mage as an overlay. Just being honest. TwoPhil's was an overlay imo though. (I bet Derma)

[Aerocraft67]

Well, defining an overlay is pretty nuanced, even after the event. Putting aside statistical methods to determine that systematically.

He won the race at 15-1. Maybe his true likelihood was 10-1, and he was an overlay. Or maybe it was 20-1, and he just beat the odds as an underlay.

How definitive can you be off of three races? I actually liked him partly for the ambiguity that was deflecting money. Does that mean I think he was an overlay? Sort of.

How low would he have had to go before I tossed him? I did bet Derma Sotagake, the only win bet, at 8-1, not sure I would have gone much lower on him. All my other inclusions were 15-1 or better. Had Mage been lower than 10-1, I probably would have backed off and favored Two Phil's (who I bet against) and my juicier picks. I probably wouldn't have moved off him at 12-1.

I guess that puts me more firmly in the overlay camp. I just thought he was perfectly reasonable at 15-1, where others were dismissing him.

[Robert Fischer]

before the Kentucky Derby I used Mage, but I didn't see how good he was.

I didn't see that he was an overlay before the race.

I didn't bet big this year. I bet a cold Oaks/Derby double for $20 (pretty mischievous to Verifying).

In the Derby race I bet some 50c tri boxes (3 horses for $3 total) and a $1 su with Hit show singled 4th under some chalkier and Tapit trice singled 4th under some bigger prices.

then a few exactas and tris w/ Verifying and Derma Sotogake in the win slots.

treated it like a 'fun' race and didn't want to go overboard.

basically, I didn't do very good in handicapping Mage to realize how good his two Florida stakes races were.

In terms of the 'overlay' part I'm pretty confident before the race that Tapit Trice was extremely underlayed, that Kingsbarns was significantly underlayed.
Relatively certain about those two.

I also felt that Angel of Empire was a slight underlay. I considered him one of the top 4 most likely to Win the race, so he couldn't have been a big underlay, and after seeing them run, I'm even less sure. He was for all intents and purposes about a 'fair' price.

The huge underlay on Tapit Trice and significant underlay on Kingsbarns(and likely a few others) has to show up elsewhere as overlays.
First takeout is removed and then the balance is either spread out or mainly goes to a few horses.

Before the race, I felt Verifying was one of the overlays. After the race, it's pretty easy to see that Verifying was not a big overlay and the money went somewhere else.
Mage crushed them at 15/1. He was clearly an overlay.
Two Phils was almost 10/1 and ran just as well as Mage in performance if you upgrade for moving earlier into an adverse pace.

Looks almost too simple, but this time it appears you can see the two overlays by just looking at the finish position and the prices.

Both Mage and Two Phils gave plenty of notice in their prep races of what was there, and they ran to it in the big race. They were the two overlays from the Tapit Trice et al money

[zico20]

Originally Posted by f2tornado

I hope you loaded up. I figure 15-1 was the low end of fair market value when factoring the following (regardless if specifically agreed with or not): He was not a standout on paper, many of he figure makers didn't like the FL Derby, the sheets geeks suggested he might have topped out, he got beat by a washy horse in FL, Saez didn't stick with him, horse had limited foundation, Apollo + 1, was beat by two starters, qualified for a non winner other than maiden, previous gate issues, others that closed faster in arguably deeper fields and now going longer,...,and on and on.

That's a lot to look past for single digit odds. Kudos to the cappers that did see through all that.

While I liked his breeding, he didn't appear to be a heck of a lot different on paper than Hit Show or Disarm who offered a much better prices and with super-trainers.

Why would anyone think he would have topped out after three races? That doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Most of what you said rings true if this was 20 years ago but so much has changed. I had the Florida Derby rated number one not sure how figure makers had it so differently. Yes I did very well on the Derby, just wish I could have had the trifecta also but oh well. I really didn't like anyone else but Mage once Forte scratched.

[depalma113]

Originally Posted by Bill Cullen

At 15/1 I have to feel Mage was minimally at fair odds but was probably a pretty good overlay.

I have Mage at 22-1 in the Preakness future bet, that’s a pretty big overlay.

[thaskalos]

When Mage crossed the wire first...it became obvious to me that this horse was a clear overlay. Up to that point though...I was a tad unsure.