Holy Crap. Someone on the Rag board is questioning their Oaks figures. Over/under on that post staying up is 3:00 Eastern.
One of the problems is that the guys over there don\'t know anything about figures, so even when they\'re pointing in the right direction they don\'t know how to ask the right questions. Example-- \"Would you guys please post the sheets for the Fantasy, since the top two finishers came back to run in the Oaks off terrible figures? I would like to see what figures you gave the rest of the fillies in that race\".
In a related story. Contrary to Ragozin non denial denial innocent errors do happen in the real world.
Equibase Corrects Derby Chart Article (http://www.drf.com/news/equibase-corrects-2018-kentucky-derby-chart)
JB, instead of checking out the other guys, how about offering up your thoughts on the two E horses that ran the 3rd (tied) and 4th best numbers. Slop and pace have to be contributors to the big unexpected jumps... wondering if anything else occurs to you in hindsight?
I don’t do hindsight, at least not the way you mean it here.
So, even though they ran much better than expected, there’s nothing to discuss because you would play it the exact same way in a hypothetically identical seminar in the future? I.e., the slop and hot pace and trainer m.o. explain the jump ups but can never be predicted a priori, so just forget about it and move on to the next race?
Perhaps I am asking the wrong question...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindsight_bias
C\'mon, at least try to comprehend what the man is saying. It isn\'t the worst idea to do one of these once in a while: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmortem_documentation
Or, to put it another way, if they let me bet now I’d have the super cold. Yes, I do look at horses who jump up, usually to see if it’s happening repeatedly with certain trainers. No, I don’t try to draw other conclusions, I need way more data points for that. Hitting a race doesn’t mean you were right. The idea is to make the right bet, not pick the winner. If Justify is 3/5 and Audible is 30-1, there’s no doubt which is the right bet, regardless of the result.
.
Underlays frequently winâ€" the horse doesn’t know what price he is. Always Dreaming won last year, I will book every horse that looks like that as the favorite, forever.
I pointed out in the seminar that Good Magic looked like Practical Joke, and Vino Rosso and Lone Sailor looked like Always Dreaming and Mine That Bird. That means I should have liked the last two, right?
I absolutely understand what he\'s saying! I even agree that a post mortem is once in awhile a good thing. In fact, I have posted threads like \"P6 post mortem - or, \'Where did I go so wrong?\'\"
If Paolo wanted to dig into some data and say, \"Hey friends, I have noticed that when X trainer has Y type horses on Z type tracks, they tend to ________,\" well goddamn, that would be valuable! When he says \"UGH A BAD HORSE RAN A GOOD RACE WHY DIDN\'T SOMEONE TELL ME IN ADVANCE THAT WAS GOING TO HAPPEN?\" Not so great.
You\'re correct about that, but the horses don\'t know how their sheet look like either. The intangibles matter, in particular in a race such as the derby.
That said I\'m still not sure that Always Dreaming was a good bet last year, at least not at the price he went off at. Good Magic would certainly have had that 25 % chance of winning it last year, if not better. Practical Joke almost certainly had not. Even though their sheets looked almost exactly the same.
The original question reads as follows:
how about offering up your thoughts [regarding the Derby tops by Bravazo and Instilled Regard].
Pretty straightforward, unlike the two non-answers.
My thoughts about their performances are the numbers I gave them. Literally.
The intangibles may matter, somewhere else. It’s not what this site is about, or what someone needs me for.
By the way, I agree with post mortems re the betting (excecution) side, that’s a whole different matter. I look at whether my bets really reflected my opinions, and/or made most efficient use of them. Especially useful with pick sixes.
Fair enough.
And fair enough.
For what it\'s worth, I thought you nailed it this year re the derby. Keying Good Magic was probably the better bet than just locking Justify as the winner.
Imho, I don\'t think you could ever predict this from speed figures. Maybe you could look at the sire stats and see that the sire stats from Arch on off tracks is very good, and coupled with what Battle of Midway did last year, yeah maybe you could call it a use at 85/1. It\'s a stretch, but fair play to you if you did. Bravazo\'s figure is heavily ground loaded. Decent off track stats on the sire. Well, this is clearly hindsight bias. I can see why one doesn\'t want to go down that road with you.
If I were to do a post mortem on this my aim would not have been to explain how these runners ran those numbers, those things happen, especially in conditions like these. It doesn\'t mean it\'s predictable. I would rather look at betting strategy, and maybe one concludes that the \"all\" button actually could prove a decent weapon in circumstances like these (the Derby exotics is something completely else than regular exotics, and the slop didn\'t exactly subtract from the chaos). I must admit that I have never used that button myself, in vertical wagers, well, to be honest, I don\'t even think I have ever played a superfecta. It\'s just not my style, but when you have a good key horse like TG players had in Good Magic, maybe it could be worth it. It\'s worth considering.
And when the favorites have won six times in a row, after the entrance of the new points system, well maybe it\'s worth to adjust ones \"value parameters\" when it comes to the favorites. As Ed DeRosa said multiple times after the Derby, Justify made those 5/2 look just fine. If he breaks badly, like Mendelssohn did, it\'s a different story. Baffert could\'ve been wrong, those last hundreds of yards in the Santa Anita Derby could\'ve been an optical illusion. But you didn\'t get 3/5, you got 2.9/1. A few weeks before one could get considerably better, at least here in Europe. It\'s a game of percentages, no doubt, but what a post mortem should do is helping you in calibrating your fair odds line. When lightly raced horses wins in an era where horses runs much less going into the derby, when the new points system disables sprinters to enter just to mess the whole dynamics of the race up etc, well maybe it is the right thing to do to downgrade things such as \"foundation\", \"the apollo curse\", \"big jump ups\" and \"pletcher stats\", maybe it isn\'t all that relevant anymore. At least not as relevant as before. Maybe. It\'s worth to take another look at.
Heck, maybe even there comes a year when the winner isn\'t auto-tossed around here 4 weeks in advance ;) (tongue in cheek).
Justify was tossed around here, auto or otherwise?
Lol. Tricky tricky. I guess there were both.
TGJB Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
The idea is to make
> the right bet, not pick the winner.
That should be put up here in a manner that\'s the equivalent of a website billboard.
Heck, if you thought 2.9 / 1 was value on the win end, then youre best bet was probably to place, as he paid 2/1 to place. But like many have said here, the Derby is a totally different animal in terms of betting parameters due to tge large field, dead money and potential for a major score. If I thought was 5/2 was value on a favorite in 7 horse claimer on a Tuesday at Parx, my bet is probably going to be different than if it were the Derby.
What if you only play win bets.
johnnym Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> What if you only play win bets.
Same thing applies.
5/2 can be the right bet, or at times it can\'t. Depends on what YOU perceive as value.
So meanwhile, unless I missed something, Jake hasn’t posted their Derby numbers...
Statement was make the right bet not pick the winner.
If you are strictly a win better it’s irrelevant what the odds are if you can’t pick the winner.
Just saying
Boy is that wrong.
I did post with an intent to hear a response from you
Please explain to me why
Ty
I’ll take up Paolo’s question about what we might learn from the performances of Instilled Regard and Bravazo (not having bet either of them) in the Derby. I apologize in advance for the scattered nature of my thoughts.
One thing that TGJB has been saying in the seminars that is finally sinking in with me is that training patterns have changed (i.e., less is more) in recent years, leading to an increased number of tops in the Derby. Accordingly, although I have generally used all the data from the archives in my Derby handicapping, today I’m trying a new approach, using only data from the Derby-points-system era (starting with 2013). My data is hand-entered, so please forgive any errors.
The seminar says that recent stats suggest in a 20-horse field, we could expect two tops (10%). Indeed there were: Instilled Regard and Bravazo. My stats (2013-2017) show 12.5% new tops (12 out of 96).
With regard to predicting who might run those new tops, the seminar relied on pattern data. In their last races, Instilled Regard ran an “Off†race (1.25 off top) and Bravazo ran an “X.†Since 2013, the only horse to run a new top in the Derby off a bad race was Frammento, who improved 3 points (to a 3.25) in the Derby after running 1.25 points off his top in his prior race. In that sample there were 6 horses coming into the Derby off an “X†and 15 coming in off an “Off.â€
In retrospect, one might point out that Instilled Regard had a 2yo top of 4 and so had lots of room to improve. Also, his pattern was based on a slight regression in the Santa Anita Derby. TG had that race slower than other figure makers (where IS Jimbo?). Make that race a little faster and Instilled Regard would have been entering the Derby off a series of “Pairs.â€
One thing that Instilled Regard and Bravazo had “going for them†(?) is that they were slow going into the Derby. It makes some sense that horses who have already run very fast will have more difficulty improving their performance than horses who have not. From 2013 through 2017, there were 48 horses coming into the Derby off a top worse than 2, and 48 who were coming in off a top of 2 or better. In the fast group, there were only two (Firing Line and American Pharoah) who ran new tops in the Derby. In the slow group, there were ten new tops, including four new tops of 3 points or more. Instilled Regard and Bravazo add to the stats of the slow group. In addition to having more room to improve, it is also possible that slow horses are more likely to improve because their jockeys know they are slow and ride more conservatively, hoping to get a check.
Of course, as Instilled Regard and Bravazo demonstrated, even if you are right about who is going to improve, betting on slow horses to improve enough to hit the board isn\'t necessarily a recipe for parimutuel success. They followed Frammento, Keen Ice, and Mylute in failing to crack the trifecta.
well...its TGraphs job to go over probability based data.
With Instilled Regard, don\'t lose track of the fact that he\'s been brought here by Hollendorfer, who is not a \"come for fun\" guy.
Also don\'t discount that Derby number especially after getting body slammed by Magnum Moon. One last thing...this is a million dollar 2yo in training and he is bred.
If you took 4-to-5 on a coin flip, bet heads, and it came up heads, would you say you had made a good bet?
No horse is ever 100% to win, so it\'s a game of percentages.
To choose a simple example-- two horses in a ten horse race. One is the single most likely winner, he\'s 30% to win. The other is 15% to win. The first horse is even money, the second 10-1. You are more likely to \"hit\" the race if you bet the first horse. But man, will you lose money in the long run making that bet. And in the long run you will make money betting the other one, even though you are half as likely to cash any given time.
Have no idea if this tweet is correct, but quite possible that Dan does have access to Rags/Jake. What\'s confusing is he calls it a \"Giacomo like 7\" but Giacomo ran a 5 on Rags. If it is a 7, that would make it the slowest one in 25 years tied with California Chrome (wait...what????)
https://twitter.com/fatbaldguyracin/status/993999193151889408
It’s interesting , they haven’t posted the figures on their site as they usually do...
Unless I am very mistaken Instilled Regard was given by someone on this board as a wet horse move up.
So the discussion of Instilled Regard may be pertinent.
Just sayin. And if it was never mentioned and I imagined it, I apologize in advance.
Regarding the 4-5 coin toss bet, read up on the idea of Gambler\'s Ruin.
Your statement is not as simple as you make it out to be.
The Kelly criteria was theorized invented choose whichever word is best for you, to explain a set of circumstances where betting plus expected value can still lead to the Gambler\'s Ruin.
The problem with horse racing is it is almost impossible to have enough information to know 100% the correct amount to bet.
Or in other words it is very hard to maximize your play.
To the thorograph board this may be an assertion as I have presented neither the science nor the history of the Kelly criteria but if you are really that curious I suggest you do your own research.
You might be pleasantly surprised.
Thanks
John Perona
The issue is betting value vs. expected value given the evidence. That goes for things like looking at sires to figure out who may move up in the wet.
Yeah, you could \"make a case\" for an IR move up, and it was in fact made. You could make a case for a bunch of horses running a better number than IR as well. That IR ran well in the Derby does not make using the sire data as reason to bet him over others. It\'s a data point to put into play with others, including his odds.
JB is exactly right, and it has nothing to do with \"gambler\'s ruin\". If you\'re looking for a sure fire thing, get out now. Even Dutch book cases can lead to ruin for the casino, if you get a bad run. You won\'t have perfect evidence ever. It\'s just about putting yourself in the best position to win. I will book the correct side of the Monty Hall paradox all day. I could lose, but I wouldn\'t bet on it.
Play some hold\'em. You will get beat, all in, on the river, because the other guy lands his only out. If losing the right bet is something you can\'t stomach, then you shouldn\'t bet at all.
johnnym Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Statement was make the right bet not pick the
> winner.
> If you are strictly a win better it’s irrelevant
> what the odds are if you can’t pick the winner.
> Just saying
I understand the statement.
Your second sentence is irrelevant to the discussion.
What if Drayden goes around the wall of 5 that was stopping in front of him instead of deciding to wait and weave through them?
Smarter people,with better eyes than me, put IR at least second if DVD makes a better decision at the quarter pole.
Good Luck,
Joe B
I understand that is not a smart wager as there are only 2 outcomes and I should at least get those odds.
Is that really what I said? Not a great reading on your part, TPeck. I asked for thoughts AFTER the race. Absolutely nothing to do with wagering. No sour grapes either, since I got the sheets but not the seminar. Seems like all but a few on this board think of their responses before they even read the GD post.
JB graciously provided his POST-Derby numbers and as I looked them over, I saw two horses that deserved discussion. Not sure how solid the figs could be considering the sloppy track and hot pace. I was obviously wrong. The two jumps to zero deserve zero discussion from the host, literally. Guessing the other guys didn\'t find it so easy. But rest easy, JB is on the case of the Rags delay.
I would like to ask a hypothetical question.
Assuming you have a perfect odds line 100% correct.
You are faced with a 20-1 who you believe wins the race 1 out of 10 times.
Or in other words, the horse is 20-1 but should be 9-1.
Also assume the odds will not go lower after you have made your bet and all the other horses in the race are fairly priced.
How much do you bet? As a % of bankroll and as a multiple of your bet size?
As I believe this is the most important wagering question. Any help would be appreciated. And is a question I haven\'t been able to answer in 45 years.
Thanks
John Perona
Do a little search for Kelly Criterion in the forum archives, and you can see that MathCapper has answered this in great extent multiple times. If you believe this is the most important question in wagering, you should really check that out. You can also use 1/2 Kelly, 1/4 Kelly as per your own preferences - but MathCapper has this covered. Full Kelly is very aggressive, and might very well lead to \"gamblers ruin\" as I now see you referred to in another post. In simplistic terms, with Kelly Criterion you increase the percentage of your bankroll wagered as your edge increases, and as the odds decreases, thus answering your very hypothetical question.
I believe one could get in the ballpark by just internalizing this as a simple rule of thumb, let me rephrase it as a rap lyric: \"You can tap it hard\' when you dig your edge, n\' if the odds is cheap, don\'t hedge\".
A simple way to combat gamblers ruin is to play with a fractional Kelly, and then withdraw a good chunk of your bankroll after you reach your first zillion or so, maybe buy a cruise ship or something for the money and continue gambling with the rest. Then you wouldn\'t need to worry about losing it all in a bad streak, and you could even trade your cruise ship in to a lesser boat if you still want to continue betting after that horrible experience of losing your remaining bankroll. (the example is scalable)
Mathcapper had a helpful post about this a few years ago.
https://www.thorograph.com/phorum/read.php?1,82455,82455#msg-82455
Your bet size depends on your edge and bankroll.
in the example you posted your edge is [1.1]
if your bank is $100 the wager is $5
if your bank is $1000 then the wager is $55
It\'s a difficult way to play because you don\'t know the final odds in advance. I used to use the conditional wagering option at TwinSpires, but I received an e-mail from them just this past week indicating they will no longer offer this wagering service.
After the race, we\'re all weak to hindsight bias, and to learn something meaningful, it\'s important to have/look at a big data set so that you aren\'t cherry-picking to support your ideas.
For example, if you look at the sheets of either horse you are discussing here, you may be able to say \"Ah, sire X/trainer Y clearly has horses move forward first time slop in the Derby!\" But, if you looked at 10,000 of each, I think you\'d more likely find that isn\'t true. (Of course, we don\'t have 10,000 of anything to look at here, but we may as well look at as many as we have!)
Looking at individual performances may be a good enough place to come up with an idea, which you then use data to confirm or deny or support or what-have-you, but that\'s all it\'s really worth.
So, as I have previously suggested, if you want to look through the (free!) archives and say \"Folks, I have done some digging, and I have an idea about horses that tend to move up in sloppy Derbies:\" I think you would get an absolutely massive and constructive response. But, when you say \"I think your time would be better spent figuring out why you didn\'t know these horses would move up, rather than worrying about your competitors,\" I think you should expect a response in kind.
I\'m pretty sure I discussed my reasoning on this subject somewhere in this string, I\'m not going to do it again.
But as far as the Jake sheets go, if someone believes their Derby numbers, this is what they believe-- that Justify won the Kentucky Derby by running by far the worst race of his life. That if he had run back to his (paired) top he would have won by 9 lengths.
Does anyone really believe that? Vito?
That\'s why they haven\'t posted them.
BitPlayer Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The seminar says that recent stats suggest in a
> 20-horse field, we could expect two tops (10%).
> Indeed there were: Instilled Regard and Bravazo.
> My stats (2013-2017) show 12.5% new tops (12 out
> of 96).
> With regard to predicting who might run those new
> tops, the seminar relied on pattern data. In
> their last races, Instilled Regard ran an
> “Off†race (1.25 off top) and Bravazo ran an
> “X.†Since 2013, the only horse to run a new
> top in the Derby off a bad race was Frammento, who
> improved 3 points (to a 3.25) in the Derby after
> running 1.25 points off his top in his prior race.
> In that sample there were 6 horses coming into
> the Derby off an “X†and 15 coming in off an
> “Off.â€
The Peter Pan @ Bel Sat - California horses run 1-2 and Baffert was not the culprit.
I Posted the following a week before the race: My point is the jump up horses are in the majority Ca. horses.
Earlier I posted if someone/anyone thinks Justify lays over the derby field and that person certainly is not me, yet. That someone may have considered the following facts:
2018 - Justify runs a 1/2 point new top
- Instilled Regard becomes a 0 @ CD after insisting he was a 4 in SoCal
- Bravazo (an also ran), although not a Ca horse, jumps up to a non paying new top.
2017 - Battle of Midway a 5 or 6 point SoCal horse becomes a TG 1 @ CD
2016 - Nyquist a 22 - 3 point performer becomes a TG -02 @ CD
2015 - American Pharaoh continues improving up 2 pts @ CD
- Firing Line moves up 22 at CD
2014 - Supposed Underlay California Chrome didn\'t have to improve to waltz home a winner.
2013 - Goldencents regressed badly
2012 - I\'ll Have Another TG 1\'s & Bodemeister\'s TG 3 somehow blitz well regarded TG 2\'s and 3\'s of Union Rags, Alpha, El Padrino, Gemologist, Take Charge Indy.
2011 - Midnight Interlude - Baffert
- Comma To The Top - Miller
- Ran more like pretenders than contenders.
2010 - Looking At Lucky (moves 3 pts. back toward top) demonstrates the importance of the trip in a field with several closely matched rivals. Super Saver improves from TG 2 to TG 1 saves ground and gets the roses.
2009 - Pioneer of The Nile a Socal 3-4 becomes a CD TG 0 which surprisingly isn\'t good enough.
Not many want to bet the favorite but lately those that get the money @ CD come from west of Barstow and move up 2-3 points. We have a couple who could fit that criteria this year. Just a recent trend and of course may or may not continue in 2018,
If you give Instilled Regard a better number for his previous one you have to give Justify one as well, which would mean he did not run a top in the Derby. You can\'t have both. IR also ran two other times this year, neither in California, with a 4 top.
Also worth considering is Rick Arthur. Not specific to any of these horses, but no state is tougher on drugs than California.
A slop track can be chaos.
Count the number of X\'s...sure, part of that was pace but many did not fire.
Initially believing the inside was good on the Derby Race, not near as convinced of that now. Path 2-3 maybe, but can\'t be sure.
Regarding Instilled Regard, it was clear Hollendorfer believed he was going to put it together. 4\'s were no good. The Post was not good. The slop didn\'t appear to be good. Getting blown up at the start and finding trouble were no good, but the horse did show something. If you watch the race and factor all the horse overcame, its clear that was his best career race.
As pertains to other years, you\'ve complied notable evidence, but the change in medication oversight tends to wave a red flag. Not really sure. Only available time is to consider this year.
Many of the horses you listed did not have their final preps in California. From memory:
Nyquist: Gulfstream
American Pharoah: Oaklawn
Firing Line: Sunland
Bodemeister: Oaklawn
Also SA had a synthetic surface before 2011.
A thought I haven\'t seen mentioned. Healthy 3 year olds are supposed to be running a fair amount of tops in the spring.
You could also argue that IR was one of best bred for more distance and slop. Bloodstock guy I know named David Miller had him picked on top and sells his ky derby report on brisnet.
Suppose you could also say Bravazzo had an off race at FG where he was getting out on both turns, non effort, trained by Lukas, etc.
Dunno what else anyone could or is supposed to say. The figs are just a tool, one of many. I don\'t question the TG figs for either of these colts before or after the ky derby.
Here\'s a thought to question though. I think Rags had Justfy coming into the KY Derby off a pair, meaning they said he ran the same number in the Santa Anita Derby, and won that race, as he ran winning the alwn1x race prior to that. I did\'t buy that then and I don\'t buy it now, and I certainly can\'t believe he then went backwards from there and won the ky derby. But I haven\'t seen their ky derby figs yet.
Epilogue:
In response to an inquiry about why they no longer post the numbers they gave the horses for the Derby and Preakness, Jake just told his customers they’ve changed their policy. You can now get them for $25 each. Can’t imagine why they did that...
You have to wonder when even the few brainwashed, beaten down customers they have left will have had enough.
Reminds me of the student who brings home a crappy report card and doesn\'t want to show the parents. During those times when I had a great report card I couldn\'t wait to show them. If the numbers on the report card were not so good, I walked around holding my breath hoping they\'d forget to ask. Can\'t imagine their response on the poor card if I told them I would only show them if they gave me a 20 spot.
So forget for a minute that Jake has Justify winning two legs of the Triple Crown with the worst two races of his life. How about having Blended Citizen winning the Peter Pan without running as well as he did in his first two starts this year, or even as a 2yo. Seriously, guys?
BY TGJB. (One of the problems is that the guys over there don\'t know anything about figures)
Many people have told me that you are a very sick puppy,you are doing nothing to disprove them
I’m running a business. What are you doing?
JB\'s doing what some jockeys do: Ride two horses in the same race.
(Just an observation, not a commentary in either direction.)
What’s any of this have to do with handicapping?
jerry Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> What’s any of this have to do with handicapping?
Pattern reading. Prior to the Preakness either Len or Len read both Good Magic\'s, and Justify\'s sheet pattern as positive off their derby regressions and made Good Magic the key to the race. Note - Jake had Good Magic regressing more than Justify in the Derby.
So what I found to be ironic was both sides of the street made Good Magic the key horse in the Preakness with contrary patterns. Just goes to show there is some art to making meaning of patterns.
Regarding puppies, I suspect TGJB can be playful from time to time but I can\'t picture floppy ears.
Handicapping? The process of assigning advantage depends on accurate information. TG incorporates some quality control functions.
That last paragraph is on point. As I’ve said here before, the most important handicapping decision you make is what data you use. You can’t make good decisions with bad data.
TGJB Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I’m running a business. What are you doing?
He’s Defending his daddy. The one who comes home drunk. How else can you put out crap like that??
So who cares about all others who dont?
As I said, so who cares about those who don’t? I sure don’t.
I do. There are still some potential customers out there. And it\'s my board.
Good press follows good performance. Play your own ball. If you’re any good you’ll do just fine.
And as far as it being “your board†it ain’t nothin without us, the customer.
jerry Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> And as far as it being “your board†it ain’t
> nothin without us, the customer.
Not all customers are worth having