Identifying Vulnerable Favorites

[Delmar Deb]

A few notes (by my husband) from the July 25th Del Mar card...

\"In race #6, Remonte was 51% to pair his recent two 4\'s.  No one else in the field looked to be better than a 7.  Bet down from his 5/1 morning line to 7/2, on the surface it looked like a gift.  Remonte finished 7th in a field of ten, and never threatened at any point.  

So what happened?  The two paired 4\'s were both accomplished at the marathon distance of 1 1/2 miles, and the current race was at a distance of 1 1/16.  His figures for races other than at 1 1/2 did not show any significant advantage over the rest of the field. I thought he was a bet against and played accordingly.  As Jerry says, you still have to handicap!

In race #7, Stonebridge Lady was sent off as the 2/1 favorite and finished a well-beaten 5th in a field of nine.  She did have the best last race fig going in, but the new pattern stats indicated that she was 31% to run an \"off\" race and 54% to run an \"x\".  The trainer\'s stats did not offer any significant contradiction to these percentages - as was the case with Bayamo (in the 8th) where the pattern stats suggested a bounce while the relevant trainer stats for 11-29 days showed that the horse was more likely to pair.

When there are significant differences between the pattern and trainer stats, I guess it\'s just back to basic handicapping as to determining which scenario is more likely to occur.  But, Jerry, if you have any suggestions re this area, I would appreciate the insight.

In any event, the new stats seem to be working just fine out here!

[TGJB]

Deb-- first of all, I agree that one of the best ways to approach races in general is to find vulnerable favorites. They are on an extremely high percentage of the exotic tickets, and if you can get them out your leverage is very high.

Remonte-- keep in mind that the stats are pretty inclusive in order to keep the sample size large enough to be meaningful. This means that off-top-pair includes situations where the top was a 2 point top, and others where it was a 4 point top, as with Remonte. While I did use the horse in a box, and did consider him the most likely winner of the race, I think his chance of running another one was less likely than the pattern stats indicated because the jump was so big. Additionally, as you mentioned, the tops came in his only marathon tries, and he did have some trouble in the race. I might very well play this horse next time if he shows up in a place where his 4 is good, especially since he might go off a price because of the off race.

Stonebridge Lady-- I wouldn\'t have used the pattern stats at all with this one, since there were two recent layoffs. I considered this horse and the race in general unhandicappable-- the races back east came for a \"move up\" trainer, she was being dropped off a win, and Mitchell is Mitchell. No clue what this one was going to do.

The overall point being, it\'s important to remember the criteria of the ones used in the study, and take a careful look at the differences between those and the individual horse in question, and then upgrade or downgrade the horse\'s chances accordingly. Or decide they don\'t apply-- there are certainly lots of situations where the trainer stats supercede the pattern stats. Bottom line, it\'s a game of long term percentages-- if you make decisions that are long term correct regarding overlays, you\'ll make money in the long term.

[OPM]

JB:
This is one of the reason I had asked a while ago for the record of the top 3 TG horses in races, will that be available anytime soon.  For example, if the ml fav is not one of the top 3 TG horse then he may(is) vulnerable.

[TGJB]

I\'m not going to get into an automated definition of \"best TG horses\" since our entire handicapping theory is that form is fluid-- that\'s exactly why we are showing the figure pattern yields, trainer profiles etc.