Long shots or Favorites

[Capper Al]

Originally Posted by Robert Fischer

Start with the favorite.
By definition, the favorite has the largest market share of each pool.

I hear you and tend to default in favorites direction.

[Capper Al]

The idea about morning lines is that our factors that we handicap with aren't really homogenous that lend themselves to a total view for making an odds line. When we factor class or speed or whatever, we are only seeing the tips of the iceberg. A morning line should handicap the handicapper's ability, not the horses, for that particular race being evaluated.

[Robert Fischer]

Because of the takeout, in order for there to be value, the public has to be significantly wrong.

If the favorite is super strong, and the public is all over him, you pretty much have to pass with the exception of maybe a mult-race sequence in which there is another heavy favorite who is false.

If the favorite is flawed and is a huge underlay, then you are free to attack the race from just about any angle, including using true contending longshots from the same race in the win slot.

If the favorite is very strong and the public isn't crushing him, it opens up some vertical-horizontal opportunities for the longshots that you have from the same race.
Here is an example:
LEGIT FAVORITE/ABCDE/ABCDEF/LONG SHOT OVERLAY KEY =$2.50
ABCD/LEGIT FAVORITE/ABCDEF/LONG SHOT OVERLAY KEY =$2.00
LEGIT FAVORITE/ABCDE/LONG SHOT OVERLAY KEY/ABCDEFG =$3.00
ABCD/LEGIT FAVORITE/LONG SHOT OVERLAY KEY/ABCDEFG =$2.40

here you are basically combining a strong favorite who isn't getting crushed which you are in essence making a 'place bet' with,
And a big longshot which you feel has a great shot to be 3rd or 4th,
and then the 7 other most likely contenders.
For $9.90 you've found a way to attempt to capitalize on your longshot even though he may not be a win contender today.

[Robert Fischer]

Originally Posted by Robert Fischer

vertical-horizontal

*vertical-exotic opportunities

[Capper Al]

That's the difficulty, "the public has to be significantly wrong".

[TheOracle]

Originally Posted by Capper Al

That's the difficulty, "the public has to be significantly wrong".

I'm not sure how accurate the public is when it comes to Morning Line Favorites but I did some digging and I found that at Aqueduct when one of R Rodriguez's horses has a
Morning Line that ends with a 5 (i.e. 2/5, 3/5, etc.) his horses have hit the board 10 straight times since the beginning of this year!!!



This includes 5 straight wins from January 22nd until today where his horses won 3 races and had Morning Lines ending with a 5!!

The average win price is a little over $3 each time and were it not for the 2 place finishes he would be perfect at 10 wins in a row had those horses won their races!!!

For this very specific case, the public has been right on the button in going with R Rodriguez when his horses Morning Line ends with a 5!!


As for the case where "the public has to be significantly wrong", one of the better value races are those that are some type of Optional Claiming (i.e. *Allowance Optional Claiming, Starter Optional Claiming, etc.).
* I group any Optional Claiming race (i.e. Starter Optional Claiming, Optional Claiming, etc.) as Allowance Optional Claiming



Since the Inner Dirt season started at Aqueduct on December 9th, 2015 the average win price in these races is $14 and out of 29 races only 12 have had win prices under $8.

So far at Aqueduct, the value has been in these races so if you want to find a situation where "the public has to be significantly wrong" these races might be worth a look if you have a strategy for playing longshots.

All/5 is any Morning Line Favorite ending with a 5 (i.e. 2/5, 3/5, etc.)

[Robert Fischer]

Originally Posted by Capper Al

That's the difficulty, "the public has to be significantly wrong".

Yes it is the difficulty. The fact that the public us to be significantly wrong, is why I believe in starting with the favorite centric approach. If the favorite is wrong, most of the time that automatically means that the public is significantly wrong. However , The favorite is the most scrutinized horse, and in case and in cases where the public can clearly see the attributes of the favorite, you have this wisdom of crowds thing to overcome, which is pretty much impossible. So you have to be able to find cases where your insight is superior to the publics. if we look at naturE , scientists have found that scavengers such as vultures do not follow the population, rather they look for pray in areas where animals are most likely to die. That's so our approach to flawless favorites is going to have to be. We have to look in areas and patterns were the favorites are most likely to fail and then we will have a better chance of finding them. Sorry about some of the Good medical errors here this is grammatical, I'm trying to use voice to text here and it's not working out smoothly

[Dave Schwartz]

Yes it is the difficulty. The fact that the public us to be significantly wrong, is why I believe in starting with the favorite centric approach.

I know you know this but, the part you left unsaid is, "... and we need to have a mechanism for knowing that."

I received an email from someone recently that said whenever he encounters an odds-on horse he just always looks for a longshot. The writer said that this worked for him, so he should keep doing what he is doing because it is working. I think that as a general statement this is not a good strategy.

Simply put, not all odds-on horses are bad bets. In fact, some are actually good bets.

My belief would be that to automatically do so would be to invite failure in for a meal (with your money being the main course).

As an example, suppose there is a 1/5 shot who is almost break even at $1.95 $net. That is, if you wagered on him a hundred times, you'd lose around 2.5%. (I have no idea how you would determine that he is precisely a 2.5% loser.)

So, if we know the horse will pay $2.40 and the end result (in 100 races) is to get back $195, then this horse is going to win 81% of those races. That does not leave much pie to cut between your 12/1 horse and the rest of the field.

[thaskalos]

Originally Posted by Dave Schwartz

I received an email from someone recently that said whenever he encounters an odds-on horse he just always looks for a longshot. The writer said that this worked for him, so he should keep doing what he is doing because it is working.

The amazing thing is that people are actually able to convince themselves that such strategies "work for them".

[Capper Al]

Originally Posted by thaskalos

The amazing thing is that people are actually able to convince themselves that such strategies "work for them".

Oh, do I agree with you. The old "if this race ran a 100 times" joke. Most people agree that they will never see a race exactly like today's race again. They are in denial that they are guessing at the scenario of the race as well as the potential winner. They've fallen in love with their numbers and think they are not gambling. And, if there analysis is so good, the math ought add up for the same horse to win every time, not 50 times or whatever out of a 100 races. Yet, they claim to have insight that the horse will win these 50 races out of a hundred. Somehow intuitively they know that today's winner will fail 50 or 70 times or whatever number of times- and believe their numbers aren't failing them?????

[TheOracle]

Originally Posted by Capper Al

That's the difficulty, "the public has to be significantly wrong".

I did some more digging and decided to also look at T A Pletcher's horses with Morning Lines ending with 5 and I was surprised to see how bad his horses did as the Morning Line Favorite at Aqueduct.

I am quite certain that when T A Pletcher's horses have Morning Lines ending with 5 they do become the actual favorite in the race.

I was very surprised to see how horrible his horses have done as the Favorite!!



He has had better success on the Inner Dirt at Aqueduct 5 of his 7 wins have come at 6 Furlongs but he only has 2 wins at races going 1 Mile or better going back to November 15th 2015.

Either way you are beating T A Pletcher's horses 64% of the time when he has horses with Morning Lines that end with 5!!

What is also amazing is that almost half of his horses in this situation failed to hit the board and I suspect the winners of these races paid huge prices to win!!

If you want to talk about "the public being significantly wrong" the above is a good example.


Now when you compare that to what R Rodriguez horses have done when they had Morning Lines ending with 5 the difference is striking!!

R Rodriguez horses have won 12 out of 14 starts when they had a Morning Line ending with 5 his horses are winning at 85% in this situation over roughly the same time period at Aqueduct!!




He had a win streak of 7 in a row going back to November 22nd up to January 7th of this year in this situation!!

I wonder what the record is for a Trainer with consecutive wins at one race track?

In either case, R Rodriguez horses with Morning Lines ending in 5 seem to be a good bet so far at Aqueduct!!!

-5 is any Morning Line Favorite ending with a 5 (i.e. 2/5, 3/5, etc.)

[Capper Al]

This ending in 5 is interesting. I don't think I'll use it, but I'll keep an eye on it.

[Robert Fischer]

You got to go beyond an odds range.

The horses can't read the tote board. And unless you think that certain trainers were certain jockeys are pulling funny business with certain heavy favorites, or unless you think that the public is over betting certain trainers it in a certain odds range, then odds ranges themselves are going to be limited to interesting statistical reviews.

You can certainly start with the odds range, but then you are going to be wanting to look for certain factors where favorites are more likely to fail.

[TheOracle]

Well R Rodriguez has a 4/5 Morning Line tomorrow with #5 No Entiendo ironically No Entiendo means I don't understand and that couldn't be more true as I don't understand how he has such an impressive record with Morning Lines ending with 5.

I like the fact that all but one of the Morning Lines ending with 5 avoided the Aqueduct 1st race trap where the Morning Line Favorite usually loses!!




Among the Morning Lines ending with 5 in the 1st race for the month of January, there was only 1 loser and that was T A Pletcher with Voided Contract!!!

Although February is a new month, let's see if R Rodriguez gets that win streak up to 6 in a row in this situation!!!

[Robert Fischer]

Originally Posted by TheOracle

Well R Rodriguez has a 4/5 Morning Line tomorrow with #5 No Entiendo ironically No Entiendo means I don't understand and that couldn't be more true as I don't understand how he has such an impressive record with Morning Lines ending with 5.

I like the fact that all but one of the Morning Lines ending with 5 avoided the Aqueduct 1st race trap where the Morning Line Favorite usually loses!!




Among the Morning Lines ending with 5 in the 1st race for the month of January, there was only 1 loser and that was T A Pletcher with Voided Contract!!!

Although February is a new month, let's see if R Rodriguez gets that win streak up to 6 in a row in this situation!!!

That is interesting. I can tell you that most players will dismiss the idea. The fact that you use ML and not final odds does lead into a possibility of a "grouping" by the odds maker.

I would want to attempt to track the same oddsmaker or at least the same track, and then look to a specific '5' (4/5 etc..)