ROTW

[Bet Twice]

Any idea which race you\'ll be covering?

[TGAB]

The Yellow Ribbon Handicap at DMR on Monday.

[Fairmount1]

In the Stars scratched.

[justwin]

i\'m going with closing range here. 4yo that has every right to improve again after the 2 pt jump last race which equaled her 3yo top. I expect a new top here. price is right at 8-1. egg drop may be better at shorter differences. fave is consistent so she has to be used in exotics.

[bellsbendboy]

Generally given the pace going two bends the \'capping should be easier than this; but its not.  \"Jealous got a needed shift in boys and sizzled earlier in the meet and will certainly go here.  She will be well clear early but lacks some class, may not stay the trip, yet has an upset chance if P Val can slow it down on the backside.

Stalkers include Quiet Oasis, Egg Drp and \"dolly who as the defending champ is strictly the one to beat.  QO is out of a barn that is a better bet off the shelf but the spot selected had deep waters and on the wrong surface.  Still a probable perfect trip here and a very solid set of works.  \"egg has some issues as her own worst enemy.  A non stakes winner, a short price and could not get by a stone sprinter with a very slow final split.  Add off eight weeks and she will have top beat us.  \"Dolly is very solid and the most likely winner.  Entered to be sold at Kee in the sale she has by design entering on short rest and a clean voyage gets the money here.  Closing Range merits a chance but she would need a total pace meltdown and does not have a race that wins on her resume.  Disappointed that papa bear locked down Gary on a zero chance mare when the glen hill runner loks very live here with some pace and a well timed ride.  The hardest race in a very haveable sequence with a big time carryover.  bbb

[Rick B.]

Just looked -- trying to beat the legit fave again?

You guys in the TG laboratory are committed, I\'ll
give you that.

If anybody is going to beat Halo Dolly, it will
be somebody ridiculous, like Royal Empress or
Appealing.

[Bet Twice]

This race is a perfect example of why I\'m a horrible gambler.  Agreed with the analysis and LOVED Egg Drop.  Liked the #10 as one of 3 for the 2nd spot.  Bet $78 and walked away with $80.  How does that happen when you nail the race and the second place horse goes off at 29-1???
Curious how other people bet this race?  Obviously, exactas would have been the way to go for me instead of the tris I bet (threw out the 1) or even just a straight win bet on Egg, but hindsight is always 20/20.....would welcome any input on overall betting strategy.

[gteasy]

TG figs in the P-6(and late P-4) at Del Mar were spot on...keyed around Egg Drop and
the O\'Neill good thing on turf...then in the P-4 I used three others beside Egg Drop and had the long shot that ran second(great pattern, and the trainer will leave room for development)...my mistake was not believing that Sadler would pair up with Life A Riley...result was 5/6 twice and the P-4 once for a modest profit.

Sadler, Mullins, O\'Neill, Hollendorfer, and Baffert...they break the rules...note
that Mullins won the last, also off a top...just wouldn\'t stop running.

During the meet horses coming out of key races were great values.

[SoCalMan2]

Rick B. Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Just looked -- trying to beat the legit fave
> again?
>
> You guys in the TG laboratory are committed, I\'ll
> give you that.
>
> If anybody is going to beat Halo Dolly, it will
> be somebody ridiculous, like Royal Empress or
> Appealing.

Dear Sir,

I would like to come to TG\'s defense here.  

First, I agree with you and have publicly on this board that it does not make sense to always try to beat legitimate favorites (see https://www.thorograph.com/phorum/read.php?1,81403,81413#msg-81413).

Second, I do not want to be accused of redboarding, so let us assume that Halo Dolly actually won the ROTW.  It is not important whether she won or lost for the analysis and I do not want to get sidetracked by irrelevant details.

Third, The issue is the legitimacy of Halo Dolly\'s favoritism.  In the example, where I publicly agreed with you, you could take the names off the sheets and no matter how many times you shook up the sheets, everybody would agree which horse should be and would be the favorite in the race.  If you took the names off the sheet for the Halo Dolly ROTW, I strongly suspect that no horse would be viewed as likely being an 9-5 favorite....and most likely the horse that went off second choice would have been viewed as the favorite with a mess of horses at middling prices.

It is the rationale for this third point that makes this ROTW very sound. I handicapped that card with a group of friends and was the only sheet user.  They all said how can Halo Dolly not win this race; she is 4 for 5 on the DMR turf and there is nobody special in this race.  I pointed out that the 4 for 5 is not nearly as gaudy as it appears when you look at the sheet. First, she never made a new top on the DMR turf (something you would expect for a horse for a course) and, second, she only runs a top about twice a year and the her usual effort plus the weight made her no different than a bunch of others in the race and slower than one or two.  It is situations like this where the sheets give a player an edge over form handicappers.  Things like winning streaks take on mythical proportions when seen on the form (noise, really), but they can be anomalies when compared to the sheet (signal?). Halo Dolly was a very good example of that.  The 4 for 5 on the DMR turf was just a small sample size variation, yet a lot of people pounded her on that basis, and a sheet reader could know it was not as gaudy as it looked.  Another factor here is the weight.  Sheet players pay a lot of attention to weight.  Most form handicappers do not.  The differences between competitors a lot of times (and in this race particularly) is not so great that 5 pound weight differences can be ignored.  In this race, the weight discrepancies were quite significant when evaluating Halo Dolly.

It is races like this that give people an opportunity to glimpse the advantage sheet analysis has over form analysis.  Let us assume Halo Dolly won. That will still happen plenty of times under the analysis.  That doesnt make playing against her insane; what is important is that relevant factors are properly weighed.  By the way, I do not think that people should only use the sheets.  I think it is important that all information be taken into consideration and then the trick is sorting between the signal and the noise and weighting the signals and de-emphasizing the noise.

I would note, it is still in the redboard room, but I handicapped the closing day card at Del Mar with the same people.  There was a horse they loved that was 3-1 ML Favorite (went off 7-2, second choice).  The horse was 2 for 2 and they loved that....he just wins and wins.....on the sheets, he was about the 8th or 9th fastest horse with a very ugly pattern.  I insisted the horse was a toss....coming off the Halo Dolly arguments, they deferred to me and I was right (doesn\'t mean we hit the race, just correctly through out a ML Fav).  That horse was named Magic Channel in the sixth (del mar, Sept 4). The point is that people can easily be distracted from what is really going on by things like winning streaks which are not terribly relevant for the analysis.

All of this being said, there are plenty of times where the favorite is just stone cold legitimate and trying to beat it is a recipe for the poor house. You just have to make sure you are not reacting automatically in either direction.

[TGJB]

The point of the ROTW is to show people the DIFFERENCE between TG and traditional handicapping. The clearest way to do that is to show that the horse the public likes the most is not that strong on TG.

If you go back through all the ROTW\'s, from the start, I\'m pretty sure you will find that the favorites we took a position against have had an ROI of less than $1 for every $2 bet. That doesn\'t mean they never win, and they can have a good streak (or get through on the inside from last like the Chad Brown that won the Sword Dancer). But if we\'re choosing the morning line favorite we picked the wrong race.

If I remember correctly when I did Post Time, a weekly show, the short priced horses I took a position against were 0 for the first year. Now, I was doing whatever big races were coming up, so I did pick some favorites. But still.

[Rick B.]

SoCalMan2 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Dear Sir,
>
> I would like to come to TG\'s defense here.  

Eh, you shouldn\'t have to defend them.

ROTW is a FREE, well-meant example of how to use
TG\'s figs, and I misdirected a minor beef I have
had with the Analysis product (lately) toward the
ROTW...which is inappropriate.

And I was wrong, too -- no matter that Egg Drop
was wobbly and ready to fall over -- so...I\'m 0-for-2.

Crow, yum.

[RICH]

I love longshots, and thats the main reason I been a TG player for 20yrs. I would have played 60-70% to win on the 29-1 shot, ex underneath. I didn\'t play, didn\'t see, easier said then done. However, check out some of those late races on sat at KD. There are some opportunites, especially r7 and 9, good luck

[20kbrew]

My ROTW account is still in the black
from Student Council in the PC years ago.
Hope that\'s not Redboarding!
Look forward to it every week, betting or not.
Much appreciated.
Phil

[cubfan0316]

anybody not trying to beat the favorites is a broken down horse player

[Rick B.]

cubfan0316 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> anybody not trying to beat the favorites is a
> broken down horse player

But...in *every* race?

That\'s just as foolish, don\'t you think?

The craziest idea of all is: the perfectly legit fave,
with no knocks at all...other than he is \"likely to be
an underlay, so let\'s try to beat him\"?

(As if somehow the amount of money bet on a horse
is an actual factor that could alter his performance!)