Heavily Bet Horses Who Have Don't a Chance. - Horse Racing Forum - PaceAdvantage.Com

Robert Goren · 06-30-2015, 04:47 PM

These are horses that make you want to dutch the rest of the field. In a different thread I mention one of my favorites types. The horse with a bullet WO since his last race and is dropping in claiming price to boot. These horse almost never win, but often are the favorite and sometimes are heavy favorites. Of course you don't see them every day, but they do pop up more often than you would think. Do you have something like this?

Dave Schwartz · 06-30-2015, 05:00 PM

I see these fairly often, but always from a "dynamic" factor approach. (i.e. developed as a custom set of "what wins a race like this" factors)

I could never say that the horse "has no chance." My expectation is that they win around 50% of the races the tote board reflects.

If they are very low odds, like 3/5 or below, the best I can hope for is around 70% of what the tote board reflects. More realistically, usually like 80%.

So, if I had a tossable horse that was 1/9, (percent of pool = 72-75% or so) I would expect the horse to actually be around 55% hit rate.

Historically, I do much better in races where the tossable favorite is between 7/5 and 9/5. Those are just killer races for me because those tossed horses lose over 50% of their investor's money. (i.e. $Net = $0.90)

That makes the rest of the field very playable, especially in large fields. I have had races like that where I have actually bet 7 horses in an exacta box! Rarely do I go above 5, but it has happened. My $Net in such races is around $3.20.

Overlay · 06-30-2015, 05:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Robert Goren

These are horses that make you want to dutch the rest of the field. In a different thread I mention one of my favorites types. The horse with a bullet WO since his last race and is dropping in claiming price to boot. These horse almost never win, but often are the favorite and sometimes are heavy favorites. Of course you don't see them every day, but they do pop up more often than you would think. Do you have something like this?

I don't have a list of "bet-against" angles such as the one you mentioned, but I regularly see horses at all odds ranges that are bet down far below my assessment of their probability of winning.

I wouldn't say that they all fall into the "don't have a chance" category, but they are definitely very poor betting risks (underlays), which, by default, generally means that other solid horses in the race are being overlooked, and are offering value.

As long as you have a dependable means of plausibly explaining why the bet-downs are being misjudged by the public (rather than being the product of "inside information"), I say, "Go for it."

traveler · 06-30-2015, 08:44 PM

My take is it doesn't have to be a heavily bet favourite, but you need to eliminate the first or second betting choice or races become pretty tough to beat.

Yeah, I know they all have some chance to win and big field vs. small fields, etc.

Looking for losers in the top 2 makes finding positive expectation horses a lot easier to find.

Robert Goren · 07-01-2015, 12:22 AM

Figuring a 17% take out. I would want at least double that of dead money to dutch the rest of field. Give the dead horse a 5% chance of winning, the horse would have to be even money or less to consider a dutch. The "Bullet WO" horses win less than 2% of the time according to my numbers and often go off at less than even money. This something I noticed well over 40 years ago, but it still works even in this day where even horses dropping off a claim or horse who ran a good second drop and win. Things that were the kiss of death before slot money fueled purses. A horse like this makes every other horse in the race a value bet.

betovernetcapper · 07-01-2015, 04:35 PM

A bet against strategy that comes up fairly often is a horse that is heavily bet in the win pool and lightly bet in the exacta & place & show pools. If at 1 minute or so to post it's 4-5 in the win pool and 2-1 in the exacta pool, my experience is the horse is going to preform sub par. A program like ATR helps see these spots.

Stillriledup · 07-01-2015, 05:12 PM

Just bet against that horse w exchange wager.

Of course in the land of the free, you can't do that.

Robert Goren · 07-01-2015, 06:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by betovernetcapper

A bet against strategy that comes up fairly often is a horse that is heavily bet in the win pool and lightly bet in the exacta & place & show pools. If at 1 minute or so to post it's 4-5 in the win pool and 2-1 in the exacta pool, my experience is the horse is going to preform sub par. A program like ATR helps see these spots.

Where do I find ATR?

Overlay · 07-01-2015, 06:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Robert Goren

Where do I find ATR?

Here's a link:

http://homebased2.com/atr/at_the_races.htm

pondman · 07-01-2015, 07:01 PM

For several years I've been focused on dirt route races between 1 and 1 /18. And so I do have a criteria that a horse must have before I bet. And most of this includes raw #s, or the fact that the horse just doesn't have an edge on a highly competitive field-- it's not any kind of standout. I see a lot of false favorites this way. And I have started to play a few tris and supers if 2 or 3 other horses are strong enough contenders, but they don't meet a win bet criteria. But I don't see these in most races, and I don't have any method of playing dutch. I just pass the race, and look for a single somewhere else. I think it's a lot of stress and a potential hit to a bank to over due the dutch betting and have a lot more money riding on a race than needed. It's easier to just pass.

burnsy · 07-02-2015, 02:02 PM

........are the best races to bet. I'm not a believer in trying to bet every race, so I look or specialize in the these type of races. At Saratoga there is at least one of them a day, many days there are more. I laughed when someone started a thread claiming the results are "random"......far from it, when some chalky, chalk or second choice has little chance compared to the odds they are bet at. I call that a "no brainer". For me, its all about odds and the horses actual chances of winning. That's how I rate a horse. If one doesn't bet every race, it only takes one pop to have a good day. I'll sacrifice a few (races) for value, as long as I'm getting what I think is the right price. People get so hung up on cashing, they can't see the big picture. I've been known to hit the "all" button in pics when I think the chalk is a terrible bet or the pool is crushed out of control.......but I've never "dutched" a race in my life. If I feel like I don't need to waste time doing that, I'll pass. If you play this game with the intentions of cashing every race.......you are not going to actually win that often. It's a pipe dream, take selected shots or stay home.........There are two kinds of people that almost always lose at horses, the ones that are compulsive are the worst, the ones that think they can beat every race are only one step behind the first ones........"I'll bet every horse just to cash".......Yeah, good luck with that...

Robert Fischer · 07-03-2015, 08:51 PM

If your insight is accurate, there will be times when you feel that you see a profitable systemic event. You will then need to find the courage to oppose both authority and the consensus.

TheOracle · 07-03-2015, 09:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dave Schwartz

I see these fairly often, but always from a "dynamic" factor approach. (i.e. developed as a custom set of "what wins a race like this" factors)

I could never say that the horse "has no chance." My expectation is that they win around 50% of the races the tote board reflects.

If they are very low odds, like 3/5 or below, the best I can hope for is around 70% of what the tote board reflects. More realistically, usually like 80%.

So, if I had a tossable horse that was 1/9, (percent of pool = 72-75% or so) I would expect the horse to actually be around 55% hit rate.

Historically, I do much better in races where the tossable favorite is between 7/5 and 9/5. Those are just killer races for me because those tossed horses lose over 50% of their investor's money. (i.e. $Net = $0.90)

That makes the rest of the field very playable, especially in large fields. I have had races like that where I have actually bet 7 horses in an exacta box! Rarely do I go above 5, but it has happened. My $Net in such races is around $3.20.

Hey Dave,

To underscore your point about tossing favorites between 7/5 and 9/5 I have taken a look at over 150+ races at Belmont this year on the Dirt all less than 1 Mile.

My data only has the Morning Line Favorites, but if you use that as a bench mark, and look at the Morning Line Favorites ending in 5 i.e. (,,7/5, 8/5,,, etc.) they have only won 20 out of their last 46 races in this situation.

If you wagered $2 to win on all of the Morning Line Favorites ending with 5 in Sprint races on the Dirt at Belmont it would have cost you $92 and you would have lost $23.70 which puts you in the whole with a negative return of -26%.

These horses lost at a rate of 57% and when I look at the Turf races at Belmont it's even worse.

So those Morning Line Favorites that went on to become the actual favorites made for huge overlays in many of these instances which I believe contributed to the average win price of $10 in this situation.

Robert Goren · 07-04-2015, 08:10 AM

When I started this thread, I was not talking about even money horses who have 30% chance of winning. Those horses abound in todays racing world. I was talking about 4/5 horses who have a less than 5% chance to win. There are plenty of them out there. The trick is to identify them. I gave one example.
I know that with advent of multi-level bets like exactas and trifectas, ditching has taken a back seat. But it still can be a very profitable strategy on occasion. With the increase in takeout rates, those occasions occur less often than they did 50 years ago, but they still pop up from time to time. It is but another weapon in the handicapper's arsenal. It should not be used on every race. But there is a time and place for it. Hopefully the two posters who are writing books on handicapping will include a chapter on it.

Dave Schwartz · 07-04-2015, 10:02 AM

Quote:

So those Morning Line Favorites that went on to become the actual favorites made for huge overlays in many of these instances which I believe contributed to the average win price of $10 in this situation.

That is a viable assessment. And 29% recovery puts you well on the road to break-even or better.

Quote:

I was talking about 4/5 horses who have a less than 5% chance to win.

IMHO...

Good luck finding such horses more than a couple of times per year.

Not saying that they don't lose, but finding them beforehand is just about as difficult as finding 20/1 shots with a 75% chance of winning.

But I await anyone with a study that can show they predicted in advance a significant number of 4/5 horses that, collectively, only hit 5% of the time.

And twisty-turny backfits don't count. You know, 4/5 horses in post position 3 or 7, on a Thursday, in one of the middle 3 races on the card, with a left-handed jockey wearing pink silks.