Morning Line of the Day Award

[cj]

I'll start for today. Beulah Park, 3rd race, the 4 is 15-1 ML. He is currently 4 to 5 with 7 minutes to post. Also has the best figures and pretty good connections.

[anglemaster]

CJ I am curious to see this horse's PP. ( I do not play Beu).

Thanks

John

[cj]

I don't have them to post in this format. As soon as I looked, I knew the ML was way off, even before seeing the tote.

He did run a poor 3rd.

[anglemaster]

I was wondering about morning line odds situation. I was wondering how somebody could make a horse 15-1 ML (appears to have raced before) and the horse goes off at favorite.

I have no problem with "odds" play where the crowd is concerned. But one person (M-L person)I would not be comfortable with.

[ryesteve]

After looking at the PPs, I'd say both the 15-1 and 4-5 are seriously out of whack. I can see where the linemaker was coming from... a very slow-footed horse cutting back to 4.5f... a shaky bet to say the least. But given that she had the top Prime Power and top back Beyer, you know she'd take some money... but 4/5 is downright silly.

[cj]

I think the final odds were around 3-2.

[kitts]

Similar creative ML by somebody at Turf Paradise. An experienced handicapper can spot these bogus lines, but the "little guy" is being seriously misled.

[kenwoodallpromos]

You mean like on purpose? For what purpose?
If that is the case, would they always be that far off?

[kitts]

I did not mean to imply a conspiracy. It was an illustation of how sloppy ML estimates can work. Sometimes all they do is determine the top choices and divide the rest sharing the remaining probability. Hence, if a ML person dismissed a logical horse for whatever reason, the ML will be inflated. This does not mean there is any conspiracy.

[Observer]

Is it possible the odds were attached to the wrong horses? Maybe something like: horse A got the odds meant for horse B, and horse B got the odds for horse C .. something like that??? Honest mistakes do happen, sometimes.

[kenwoodallpromos]

I wish someone would take a survey of a cross-section of bettors to determine the influence of the M/L on their bet or on what horses they will consider betting on.
SA 2-9 race 1 #1 is 8/5 and I put it at maybe 10-1! Bad legs and will get stuck on the rail behind others. In there in hopes of getting it claimed IMO.

[Valuist]

My nomination goes to Photo Image in the 10th at GP on Wednesday. This horse's form wasn't bad and he was 1st time Catalano, which is only about 35% with a big sample size. The morning line? 12-1. The actual price? About 4-1.

[Ron]

Probably just a typo. Seems to happen at Aquedcut at least once a week.

[cj]

Originally Posted by Observer

Is it possible the odds were attached to the wrong horses? Maybe something like: horse A got the odds meant for horse B, and horse B got the odds for horse C .. something like that??? Honest mistakes do happen, sometimes.

Sure, I have heard corrected morning lines given at some of the bigger tracks. I doubt we would ever know at Beulah.

I realize these guys do lines on probably 500 horses a week, they are going to blow some.

[JohnGalt1]

Another possible explanation is small initial pools where an early better can influence the odds. I know Beulah gets a large out of state handle, but the first shanged flash of odds can influence the public, both on and off track if someone bets bets $50 on a long shot and his odds open as the favorite.

Simulcast betters may have seen that 4/5 horse and think the barn or someone in the know bet the longshot down and wants in on it, but it might be someone who placed all his bets and went home early.